Only 30% of active funds globally outperformed in 2024 - BofA

Investing.com--US stocks edged higher Tuesday, consolidating a rally in technology shares, ahead of the release of key economic data.

At 09:30 ET (14:30 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 100 points, or 0.2%, the S&P 500 index rose 23 points, or 0.4%, and the NASDAQ Composite rose 65 points, or 0.3%.

Wall Street indexes were buoyed by a broader rally in tech stocks on Monday, which helped them recoup some of their losses from late-December and early-January.

Nvidia in focus

Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) stock gained over 2% Tuesday, following an over 3% rally during the prior session, when the stock briefly hit a record high.

At CES 2025, a major annual tech conference in Las Vegas, CEO Jensen Huang laid out how the world's second-most valuable firm is bringing technology that powers its lucrative data center AI chips to consumer PCs and laptops.

Nvidia gained around $2 trillion in market capitalization through 2024, as the company further cemented its position as the premiere maker of advanced AI chips.

The company also acts as a bellwether for the broader tech sector, given its prevalence in the fast-growing AI industry.

Elsewhere, Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META stock fell 0.3% after the Facebook-parent said it would end its current third-party fact-checking program in the United States and instead begin moving to a 'Community Notes' program similar to that on social media platform X.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) stock rose 0.4% after the software giant announced plans to spend $3 billion to expand its Azure cloud and artificial intelligence capacity in India.

Trump comments temper optimism

Beyond tech, gains in stock markets were somewhat tempered by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump denying media reports that his administration will pursue a less aggressive tariff regime than previously feared.

Trump denied a Washington Post report that his administration will only target certain sectors in imposing trade tariffs, instead of the broad tariffs promised by Trump during his campaigning.

Uncertainty over Trump’s policies had also weighed on Wall Street in the beginning of the year, given that he is widely expected to enact expansionary and protectionist policies that could underpin inflation and disrupt global trade.

Labor market data in focus

The major economic data release due later in the session is the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for November, as the focus turns to the labor market and what it is saying about the strength of the US economy.

The ADP private payrolls report is slated for Wednesday, ahead of Friday's widely-watched December’s nonfarm payrolls report.

The Federal Reserve holds its next policy-setting meeting at the end of this month, and signaled a more cautious stance regarding cutting interest rates at its December meeting.

Crude bounces

Oil prices edged higher Tuesday, bouncing after the previous session's losses on optimism of more policy support to revive economic growth in China, the world’s largest crude importer.

By 09:30 ET, the US crude futures (WTI) climbed 0.6% to $74.01 a barrel, while the Brent contract rose 0.7% to $76.86 a barrel.

Both benchmarks slid on Monday, after rising for five days in a row last week to settle at their highest levels since October on Friday.

(Ambar Warrick contributed to this article.)

Investing.com-- NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang unveiled the company’s latest line of RTX graphical processing units, while also stating that the company's Blackwell artificial chips were now in full production.

Shares in the chipmaker opened at $153.03 on Tuesday, which marks a fresh record high for the undisputed AI winner.

Speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Huang said the new GPUs- the RTX 50 series, will boast at least twice the performance of their predecessors, the 40 series, and will use AI to improve their graphical processing abilities.

The flagship GPU in the new line will be the RTX 5090.

Huang said Nvidia's next generation Blackwell AI chips were in full production. The Blackwell line is expected to underscore Nvidia's next wave of earnings growth, as major technology firms ramp up capital spending on data center infrastructure to power their AI development.

The Nvidia CEO took the stage donned in his trademark black leather jacket, and claimed that the Blackwell line would be far more power efficient that its predecessors, while offering substantially more performance.

Huang also unveiled Nvidia's in-house AI models, which will run locally on Nvidia's chips, while also highlighting the potential for "AI agents"- AI programs built to handle domain-specific tasks.

Nvidia shares hit a record high on Monday in anticipation of Huang’s address.

The company is at the heart of a massive valuation boom that added about $2 trillion to its market capitalization in the past year, as investors cheered its exposure to the AI boom.

Nvidia makes the most advanced AI chips in the market, with its Blackwell lineup already seeing strong demand and potential supply shortfalls in 2025.

Nvidia clocked back-to-back quarters of stellar earnings growth on the AI boom. But its guidance for the current quarter disappointed some lofty expectations, raising doubts over just how much more earnings growth AI will elicit.

Investing.com -- At the much-anticipated CES 2025 event, Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) unveiled a range of new products aimed at expanding its business into consumer markets, demonstrating advancements in AI gaming, and desktop computing.

CEO Jensen Huang laid out how Nvidia is leveraging technology from its high-performing data center AI chips to improve PCs and laptops.

Among the significant announcements was the introduction of Cosmos foundation models, designed to generate realistic videos for training robots and self-driving cars at a lower cost than traditional data collection methods.

By producing "synthetic" training data, Cosmos allows machines to understand the physical world, much like language models enable chatbots to converse naturally.

Users can input text descriptions to generate a video that adheres to the laws of physics, reducing the need for expensive real-world data collection. Huang noted that Cosmos will be available under an "open license," similar to Meta (NASDAQ:META)'s Llama 3 models.

Nvidia also launched its RTX 50 series gaming chips, incorporating the company’s Blackwell AI technology, which has driven growth in the data center sector.

These chips aim to elevate gaming graphics to cinematic levels by improving shaders, enhancing surface details, and generating lifelike human faces—key areas where even small imperfections are noticeable.

Moreover, Nvidia introduced its first desktop computer, designed primarily for computer programmers rather than regular consumers.

Regarding its Blackwell platform, Huang said the AI chips were now in “full production.”

Analyst takeaways from the CES keynote

Bank of America: “We highlight NVDA’s continued dominance in genAI compute and ecosystem, quickly expanding from the cloud all the way to enterprise and consumers. Maintain Buy on our top sector pick.”

Stifel: “Nvidia's announcements today are significant, but long-tailed. We view these developments as further deepening the company's competitive moat and positioning around potentially multi-billion dollar advancements tied to AI agents, robotics, autonomous vehicles, graphics and PC and edge-device inferences in the coming years.”

Meanwhile, for Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) analysts, key takeaways from the keynote were the introduction of the new RTX 50-series GPUs, the announcement that Blackwell is now in full production, AI scaling expansion, and expectations that the company’s automotive business could grow to around $5 billion by fiscal 2026.

Lastly, Wedbush analysts said Huang’s CES speech “felt more like a rock concert vibe than a tech CEO speech.”

“The overriding message from Jensen was a slew of new AI technology is coming out of Nvidia around robotics, autonomous technology, PCs that will further stretch their enormous technology lead vs. the rest of the semi and Big Tech landscape,” analysts noted.

“This was a major "flex the muscles" moment for Nvidia and Jensen in this AI arms race playing out across the tech ecosystem globally.”