Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S. February 24, 2026.<\/p>\n
Jeenah Moon | Reuters<\/p>\n
Stock futures were near the flatline Tuesday night ahead of a key earnings report from Nvidia<\/a>. <\/p>\n Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average<\/a> edged lower by 19 points, or 0.07%. S&P 500 futures<\/a> and Nasdaq 100 futures<\/a> were just below flat.<\/p>\n Major stock averages rose on Tuesday as fears about artificial intelligence disruption across several industries dissipated. The\u00a0S&P 500<\/a>\u00a0finished the session higher by nearly 0.8%, while the\u00a0Nasdaq Composite<\/a>\u00a0jumped about 1%. The 30-stock\u00a0Dow<\/a>\u00a0gained 370 points, or about 0.8%. <\/p>\n Lifting the broader market was a nearly 9% gain in Advanced Micro Devices<\/a>, which rose after\u00a0Meta Platforms<\/a>\u00a0announced a\u00a0multiyear deal with the semiconductor company<\/a>. Software and cybersecurity stocks also saw a relief rally in the regular session after Anthropic launched a new connectors and plugins<\/a> for its knowledge worker tool, Claude Cowork, that will allow companies to connect the AI tool to their existing apps such as Google Drive.\u00a0Claude Cowork rattled the software sector in recent weeks as investors feared the tool would disrupt incumbent software vendors’ businesses. <\/p>\n The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV)<\/a>\u00a0added 1.9% on Tuesday, though it remains down by more than 25% this year.<\/p>\n “I think that it’s been indiscriminate to a point where, yes, it’s gotten a little irrational … there’s room here for a little bit of a correction upward in some of these names,” said Liz Thomas, head\u00a0of investment strategy at SoFi, said Tuesday on CNBC’s “Closing Bell,” referring to the plunge in software this year.<\/p>\n Tuesday’s moves come ahead of Nvidia’s quarterly earnings report, as well as results from software giant Salesforce<\/a> and Snowflake<\/a>, due after Wednesday’s market close. Results from Nvidia come at a time when investors are recalibrating lofty tech stock valuations and growing skeptical on hyperscalers’ high AI capital expenditures. <\/p>\n For Thomas, Nvidia’s results could still be make-or-break for the direction of the U.S. stock market, but they have overall slightly diminished in importance given the recent panic in software and attention on rapidly developing AI tools, such as Claude. <\/p>\n “Numerically, the importance of Nvidia still remains … They need to beat probably; they need to have positive guidance in order for market sentiment to remain intact,” Thomas told CNBC. She added, however, that “I don’t think we’re hinging as much on it” compared to previous quarters.<\/p>\n