Stock market today: S&P 500, Nasdaq rise as Nvidia, Salesforce earnings boost tech

LIVE Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq futures rise as Nvidia, Salesforce earnings boost tech Grace O'Donnell · Editor, Special Projects Thu, August 27, 2026 at 10:21 AM GMT+2 2 min read NVDA CRM ^GSPC ^IXIC CRWD US stock futures climbed on Thursday after earnings from Nvidia ( NVDA ), Salesforce ( CRM ), and CrowdStrike ( CRWD ) lifted the tech trade and investors awaited the Fed's Jackson Hole gathering. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average ( YM=F ) advanced 0. 2%, while those on the S&P 500 ( ES=F ) added 0.

5%. Contracts for the Nasdaq-100 ( NQ=F ) gained 1%, building on Wednesday's gains. Nvidia stock rose 6% in premarket trading on Thursday as the company reported an earnings beat and signaled that it sees strong AI demand throughout next year, easing concerns that the AI chip king wouldn't be able to sustain its torrid pace of growth.

On Wednesday night, the Information reported that Nvidia agreed to buy Hugging Face, an open-source model repository, for $12. 9 billion. The reported move comes after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang touted the company's ballooning AI investments, saying, "the only regret that I have is that I didn't invest more and sooner" in AI labs.

With the AI bellwether's report in the rearview mirror, the focus now turns to the Federal Reserve's Jackson Hole Symposium, where central bank officials will debate the path of interest rate policy. Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh is expected to deliver a speech on Friday, though his message is anyone's guess. Bond yields have stabilized after spiking last week as investors continue to weigh Treasury's intervention in the bond market and the likelihood that the Fed would hold rates steady.

On the economic front, data on jobless claims, released Thursday, will add to the picture of the labor market. Investors will also get a glimpse of whether consumers are financially stressed via earnings reports from Dollar General ( DG ) and Dollar Tree ( DLTR ). Discount retailers have attracted higher-income shoppers in recent quarters by offering a variety of price points, and the earnings calls could offer insight into any shifts in the K-shaped economy.

LIVE 10 updates 2 mins ago Jake Conley Nvidia posted a blowout quarter. China remains a quagmire Nvidia ( NVDA ) painted a bullish picture for investors when it reported its earnings after the bell on Wednesday, raising its guidance for the third quarter and beating analyst estimates across the board on revenue, earnings per share, and a host of other metrics. Missing from that forward guidance , however, were sales projections into the world's second-largest economy — China, where Nvidia's ability to sell its chips has been snarled by state politics and national security concerns.

I report: That potential sales to Chinese buyers were left out of forward guidance from Nvidia gets at how complex the picture has become for one of the world's most valuable companies in its dealings with the US's largest AI competitor. Nvidia said in its earnings report that it had stepped back into the Chinese market, if in a small way, with the first sales of its H200 chips, the leading semiconductor design from the company's "Hopper" line, a step down from its state-of-the-art Grace Blackwell chips. Yet those sales accounted for less than 1% of the $89 billion Nvidia recorded in data center revenue in the second quarter.

For Jensen Huang's company, complications come from both sides of the US-China AI arms race. Since 2022, Nvidia has wrestled with the Trump White House over sales of its chips to China, where even models such as the H200, which are now multiple generations behind Nvidia's flagship products, remain competitive with options available in China from companies like Huawei Technologies. Read more here.

18 mins ago Grace O'Donnell 'This is not the SaaSpocalypse': Software stocks roar back on upbeat earnings Software stocks benefitted from a post-earnings rally on Thursday, as investors cheered on upbeat outlooks from Salesforce ( CRM ), CrowdStrike ( CRWD ), and Okta ( OKTA ). The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF ( IGV ) jumped 6%, led by a 22% gain in Okta shares, 20% rise in Salesforce, and 18% increase for CrowdStrike. Notably, the three companies highlighted how agentic AI adoption fueled demand for identity services, cybersecurity protections, and enterprise software, working to dispel a prevailing narrative this year that artificial intelligence would demolish their business models.

“This is not the SaaSpocalypse,” Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff resolutely stated on the company’s earnings call after the company beat expectations on the top and bottom lines and raised its full-year guidance. AS heatmap “This nonsense of this SaaSpocalypse, I think it's time for it to stop,” Benioff added, calling Salesforce’s expanded partnership with AI startup Anthropic “really the best of both worlds. ” On Thursday, Wall Street was on board with that sentiment.

"Salesforce and a lot of software stocks have been trading as if AI were going to make them irrelevant — as if their growth would slow, actually turn negative, and stay negative in perpetuity,” Guggenheim Securities Senior Managing Director John DiFucci told Yahoo Finance. “We said the fatal AI bear case on software is a hallucination. There’s certainly risk, but it’s not going to make these companies go away.

" Today at 1:44 PM UTC Grace O'Donnell Nvidia's Q2 results lift tech stocks, pulling S&P 500 and Nasdaq higher Stocks rose at the open as a strong outlook from Nvidia ( NVDA ) increased optimism about the artificial intelligence industry. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ( ^DJI ) edged 0. 1% higher.

The S&P 500 ( ^GSPC ) gained 0. 3%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ( ^IXIC ) rose 0. 6%.

Nvidia ( NVDA ) stock jumped 6% after the company issued a strong outlook that quelled concerns about slowing AI momentum for now. Nvidia’s rising tide helped lift semiconductor stocks more broadly, buoying the tech sector. Here's a check of the markets in the first few minutes of trading, based on a heat map powered by Yahoo Finance AlphaSpace data .

AlphaSpace heatmap Today at 12:40 PM UTC Jake Conley Initial jobless claims tick down ahead of Warsh's Jackson Hole address US initial jobless claims ticked down from their previous read, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a positive sign for the labor market ahead of Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's Jackson Hole keynote address on Friday Initial claims for unemployment insurance for the week ending Aug. 22 fell by 4,000 to 203,000, below the economists' estimate of 208,000. The four-week moving average for jobless claims ticked up to 205,500 from 204,250.

Continuing claims also decreased, with claims for the week ending Aug. 15 falling to 1. 778 million from 1.

796 million. Economists had been expecting continuing claims of 1. 792 million.

Today at 12:24 PM UTC Grace O'Donnell Kansas City Fed's Schmid says inflation is too hot, rates too accommodative on eve of Jackson Hole Yahoo Finance’s Jennifer Schonberger reports from Jackson Hole, Wyo. : Kansas City Federal Reserve President Jeff Schmid said in an interview on Wednesday, the eve of the central bank's annual economic summit in Jackson Hole, Wyo. , that interest rates are too accommodative, amid inflation that remains too hot.

"We haven't achieved our mandated goal of 2%," Schmid told Yahoo Finance. "I'm a very strong believer that if we're going to have a scorecard for the Fed, it's got 2% inflation, it's got stable prices on it. We're not there.

" "So the question becomes, and it's the debated question, is the short-term policy rate too accommodative or restrictive? And I would say it's very accommodating. " Read more.

Kansas City Federal Reserve President Jeffrey Schmid attends the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's 2025 Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium on Aug. 21, 2025. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart · REUTERS / Reuters Today at 12:13 PM UTC Grace O'Donnell Wendy's stock plunges after Trian reportedly backs away from takeover bid Wendy’s ( WEN ) stock plunged by over 14% in premarket trading after Reuters reported that Nelson Peltz's Trian Fund Management has no plans to buy the ailing fast food chain and take it private after all.

The report came after months of speculation that billionaire Peltz, a longtime Wendy’s shareholder, was preparing financing to take control of the burger chain. Those reports had boosted the stock, which will forfeit its year-to-date gains if today’s losses hold through the close. According to Reuters, Trian decided to step back from the buyout due to concerns about the company’s performance and strategic direction.

Today at 11:00 AM UTC Grace O'Donnell CrowdStrike stock jumps as 'Mythos moment' turbocharges cybersecurity adoption CrowdStrike ( CRWD ) stock jumped as high as 10% after the cybersecurity company posted record net new annual recurring revenue of $333 million in the second quarter. "Q2 was the best quarter in CrowdStrike's history," CEO George Kurtz said in an earnings release on Wednesday. "The Mythos moment translated into mass-market acceptance that AI adoption needs security, and that's CrowdStrike.

Every enterprise will run on AI, and securing it is the largest market opportunity in our history. " CrowdStrike's annual revenue forecast of $6. 60 billion-$6.

61 billion came in above Wall Street's estimates of $5. 93 billion. In the second quarter, CrowdStrike also beat analysts' expectations.

Total revenue was $1. 47 billion, above the estimated $1. 43 billion, and earnings per share of $0.

01 were in line with expectations. Today at 10:00 AM UTC Grace O'Donnell Salesforce stock surges as strong earnings guidance helps calms SaaSpocalypse fears Salesforce ( CRM ) stock jumped in premarket trading as strong guidance helped Wall Street brush off concerns that the software company is falling behind in the AI race. The stock's gains accelerated on news that Salesforce is expanding its partnership with AI startup Anthropic ( ANTH.

PVT ) to launch Claudeforce, putting the Claude model directly in Salesforce's platform. For the third quarter, Salesforce guided for revenue of $11. 42-$11.

5 billion, above the midpoint estimate of $11. 4 billion, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data. The company expects earnings per share between $1.

81 and $1. 83. Salesforce also raised its full-year revenue guidance to $46.

1 billion to $46. 4 billion, reflecting 11%-12% growth year over year, from the previous range of $45. 9 billion to $46.

2 billion. "I think they did what they needed to do to kind of at least calm some fears in the market," RBC research analyst Rishi Jaluria told Yahoo Finance. "There's still a long road to go before the market may start to look at this as maybe an AI winner, but at least for now, they've calmed some of those fears.

" Today at 9:00 AM UTC Grace O'Donnell Good morning. Here's what's happening today. Economic data: Advance goods trade balance, July (-$101.

4 billion previously); Retail inventories, month-on-month, July (0% previously); Wholesale inventories, month-on-month, July preliminary reading (+0. 2% previously); Initial jobless claims, week ended Aug. 22 (206,000 previously); Continuing claims, week ended Aug.

15 (1. 799 million previously); Kansas City Fed manufacturing activity, August (9 previously) Earnings calendar: Royal Bank of Canada ( RY. TO ), TD Bank ( TD.

TO ), Marvell Technology ( MRVL ), Autodesk ( ADSK ), Workday ( WDAY ), Prudential ( PRU ), Dollar General ( DG ), Dollar Tree ( DLTR ), Burlington Stores ( BURL ), Ulta Beauty ( ULTA ), Rubrik ( RBRK ) Catch up on some stories you might have missed overnight: Nvidia is looking more like the central bank of AI OpenAI says it could have reacted sooner to prevent AI hack of Hugging Face Amazon just tripled its order of Nvidia chips over ‘surging demand’ Medical device maker Boston Scientific says a cyberattack is causing a ‘global disruption’ to its operations 'Moneymaxxing' is the latest personal finance trend. Will it work for you? Today at 8:00 AM UTC Grace O'Donnell Nvidia is looking more like the central bank of AI Yahoo Finance’s Jared Blikre reports: Nvidia made its fortune selling the AI boom.

Now it's helping finance the next chapter. Nvidia ( NVDA ) shares initially fell about 3% after Wednesday's earnings report , then turned higher as the company's conference call got underway. Revenue came in at $96.

2 billion, Data Center sales hit $89 billion, and Nvidia guided to roughly $108 billion of revenue for the current quarter. The bigger change is happening on Nvidia's balance sheet. The chipmaker's public and private equity holdings reached $95.

6 billion at the end of July, up from less than $100 million in early 2020. Nvidia says its broader equity investments now total roughly $99 billion. Public and private company stakes have grown from less than $100 million in early 2020 to $95.

6 billion, as Nvidia increasingly uses its balance sheet to expand the AI ecosystem. · Nvidia filings, Yahoo Finance The portfolio now includes stakes in Intel ( INTC ), CoreWeave ( CRWV ), Coherent ( COHR ), Nokia ( NOK ), Synopsys ( SNPS ), and Nebius ( NBIS ), among others. Huang sounded anything but worried about the scale of those investments.

"I think the only regret that I have is that I didn't invest more and sooner," he said of Nvidia's investments in AI labs. Read more.