Stocks Edge Higher After the Bell as Wall Street Waits on Powell; Big Tech Splits on AI Headlines

 

U.S. equities pushed into positive territory right after the opening bell, stabilizing a market that had been under pressure for much of the week. Gains were modest but broad, positioning the major averages to break their losing streak if sentiment survives the day’s main event: a keynote address from the Federal Reserve chair at Jackson Hole. The opening tone suggested investors were willing to wade back into risk while keeping one eye on the policy backdrop.

Leadership at the start skewed defensive. Health care and real estate paced sector advances, the kind of mix that often appears when traders expect lower long-term rates but want ballast against macro surprises. Technology, which had driven much of the recent downside, showed a more uneven pattern as stock-specific news set the agenda.

Alphabet provided the upbeat storyline. Reports of a multibillion-dollar, six-year deal to supply cloud infrastructure to Meta lifted the shares, adding fresh fuel to the idea that hyperscalers will be central suppliers in the next AI build-out phase. The tie-up hinted at durable enterprise demand for compute and storage, and it helped steady sentiment across parts of communications and software.

Nvidia pulled the other way. Headlines that the chipmaker had asked a major supplier to halt work on its China-focused H20 processor weighed on the stock and echoed across chip peers. For portfolio managers, the immediate question wasn’t the long-run AI thesis—which remains intact—but whether export rules and supply-chain adjustments might introduce more quarter-to-quarter noise in revenue timing and product mix.

Earnings remained a force for differentiation. Intuit slid after issuing a lighter-than-hoped revenue outlook for the coming quarter, with management pointing to a soft patch in marketing software. Workday fell as well after an in-line guide failed to satisfy investors who had grown accustomed to beats and raises. The pair of moves reinforced that, even in an AI-obsessed market, execution and guidance still separate winners from laggards.

All of it set the stage for Powell. Rate-cut probabilities for the next meeting still leaned toward a move, but recent data had chipped away at the near-certainty seen earlier in the month. Traders were primed to parse whether the Fed leader would stress the need for additional confirmation that disinflation is durable, or whether he would emphasize the risks of holding policy too tight for too long. Those nuances could tilt the dollar, nudge yields, and determine whether Friday’s early bounce becomes a trend—or merely a pause before the next swing.

For now, the first half-hour verdict was measured optimism: buyers showed up, macro hedges stayed on, and the market’s next chapter awaited the day’s most closely watched speech.