Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
NYSE
Stock futures ticked higher Wednesday after the S&P 500 pulled back from record levels and snapped a three-day winning streak on worries about the AI trade that has led the bull market.
Futures tied to the benchmark rose 0.2%, while Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were up 27 points, or 0.1%. Nasdaq-100 futures advanced 0.2%.
Shares of Micron Technology initially gained on the back of better-than-expected earnings and a strong forecast. The artificial intelligence boom fueled a 46% increase in revenue for Micron. The stock was last down 1%.
The leading memory chipmaker’s results follow a trading session that was dominated by heightened fears about the circular nature of the AI industry, sparked by a Nvidia-OpenAI partnership. Shares of leading AI players Nvidia and Oracle tumbled on Tuesday on worries the advance was running out of steam with the outlook already priced into the shares.
The S&P 500 closed in the red on Tuesday, down 0.6%, after it had reached a new all-time intraday high earlier in the session and posted a record close the previous day. The Nasdaq Composite fell nearly 1%, pulled down by a 2.8% loss in Nvidia shares.
Traders could also be profit-taking amid elevated market valuations, which Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell called out at a Tuesday press conference.
Wells Fargo chief equity strategist Ohsung Kwon remains bullish on the AI trade, anticipating that spending will continue to be robust. “I think this is a AI-led bull market, and I think this is likely to continue,” he said Tuesday on CNBC’s “Power Lunch.”
“First of all, it’s not a bubble,” Kwon continued. “The entire outperformance of the Nasdaq since the end of tech bubble has been driven by better fundamentals in the Nasdaq versus the S&P 500, and I think that’s likely to continue. Second, we still think we are in the early innings of the AI investment cycle. … I think the way this plays out is, as long as the equity market continues to reward companies’ capex outlook and the growth outlook, this is likely to continue.”
Traders are cautious before jobless claims data Thursday and PCE inflation data Friday. They’re also watching troubling developments regarding a government shutdown. President Donald Trump cancelled a meeting with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries that could have possibly averted the shutdown before a Sept. 30 deadline.
“That cancellation has led to a fresh bout of concern that funding will run out at next week’s deadline, and we could see the first shutdown since the winter of 2018-19,” wrote Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid in a note to clients Wednesday morning.