Stocks rise, supported by tech rally as Nvidia reports strong results
FILE PHOTO: People sit near an electronic board showing stock market index at the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) in Jakarta, Indonesia, February 2, 2026. REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan/File Photo
NEW YORK, Feb 25 : Global shares rose on Wednesday, helped by a rally in technology stocks and with Nvidia reporting better-than-expected sales.
Markets had been anticipating results from Nvidia, the world's largest company by market capitalization. The chipmaker reported a 73 per cent jump in quarterly revenue to $68.1 billion, outpacing the Wall Street estimate of $66.2 billion. Nvidia shares closed up 1.4 per cent in regular hours and were up 3 per cent in post-market trading.
Investor concerns about U.S. tariffs appear to be taking a back seat while worries about the impact of artificial intelligence are easing.
On Wall Street, all three indexes finished higher with technology and financial stocks gaining the most. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.63 per cent, the S&P 500 rose 0.81 per cent, and the Nasdaq Composite rose 1.3 per cent.
MSCI's world share index was up 0.92 per cent with Europe's broad STOXX 600 0.69 per cent higher after hitting a record high.
Software stocks posted gains in the U.S. and Europe on Tuesday when AI lab Anthropic announced several new plug-ins developed jointly with partners.
"AI is the dominant theme and what's moving the market more than anything right now," said Aaron Schaechterle, portfolio manager at Janus Henderson Investors in Denver.
"On the positive side of the AI theme, there's capital spending on data centers and power and we don't see that ending soon. The second theme in AI is the displacement threat to established software companies."
"Ultimately, when you look at what we are debating about these stocks, it's not what will happen next quarter but what could happen five or six years from now," Schaechterle said.
POLITICAL AND GEOPOLITICAL WORRIES
The optimism in equities comes even as investors grapple with a range of geopolitical worries, though it did allow U.S. President Donald Trump to boast of stock market gains in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday.
Trump also said "almost all" countries and corporations want to stick to tariff and investment agreements previously made with Washington, but he did not offer clarity regarding his plans for Iran amid signs he is inching closer to a military conflict.
The worries about AI, Iran and tariffs have helped support government bonds in the U.S. and particularly Europe in recent days, although yields were slightly higher on Wednesday.
The yield on benchmark U.S. 10-year notes rose 2.5 basis points to 4.058 per cent.
Most European 10-year government bond yields were also up. The yield on benchmark German 10-year Bunds rose 0.2 basis point to 2.71 per cent.
Japanese yields rose sharply after the nomination of two academics seen as dovish to the central bank's board.
While rate-sensitive shorter-dated yields fell on expectations for less-immediate BOJ rate hikes, broader worries that the BOJ is behind the curve sent longer-dated yields higher.
In currencies, the dollar was weaker against the euro with the single currency up 0.3 per cent at $1.1806 and the pound up 0.47 per cent at $1.3551.
The Japanese yen weakened 0.31 per cent against the greenback to 156.38 per dollar. Against the Swiss franc, the dollar weakened 0.14 per cent to 0.773.
Oil prices were little changed as a much larger-than-expected U.S. crude stock build outweighed the threat to oil supply from potential military conflict between the U.S. and Iran.
U.S. crude settled down 0.32 per cent to $65.42 a barrel and Brent rose 0.11 per cent to settle at $70.85.
Spot gold rose 0.4 per cent to $5,168.44 an ounce.
