Stocks Closed Mixed Yesterday After NVIDIA's Blowout Earnings The Day Before Stocks closed mixed yesterday with the Nasdaq giving up -1.18%, while the small-cap Russell 2000 gained 0.52%. Wednesday afternoon's stellar earnings by NVIDIA, which was cheered in after-hours trading shortly thereafter, turned south yesterday, shedding -5.46%. But I will chalk yesterday's movement up to the old adage of 'buy the rumor, sell the fact.' Most were expecting another fantastic quarter from NVIDIA. And they delivered. But much of that was likely already priced in. And once the expectations were confirmed, it made for an opportunity to pull some profits. But of course, you can't price everything in. And their phenomenal quarter, along with their impressive guidance, once again showed that the AI trade is far from over. In fact, it looks like it's accelerating. And on that note, I'm expecting a lot more upside to go. Yesterday's Weekly Jobless Claims rose by 4,000 to 212,000 vs. views for 208,000. The 4-week moving average ticked up to 220.25K from last week's 219.50K. And the Kansas City Fed Manufacturing Index improved to 5 vs. last month's print of 0. Today we'll get the Chicago PMI report, Construction Spending, and the Producer Price Index (PPI) wholesale inflation report. In other news, after the close it was announced that Netflix dropped out of the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery. Paramount's bid was deemed "superior" by WBD's board. Netflix soared more than 10% on the news in after-hours trade. That's on top of the 2.29% they were up in the regular session. The 5.97% they gained the day before. And the 2.66% they gained the day before that. Separately, Block said they would be laying off more than 4,000 employees or about 40% of their workforce. Block CFO Amrita Ahuja said, "we are choosing to shift how we operate at a time when our business is accelerating and we see an opportunity to move faster with smaller, highly talented teams using AI to automate more work." Shares were up more than 23% after-hours. They were also up 4.99% in the regular session before the announcement. Nuclear talks between Iran and the U.S. took place in Geneva yesterday. Reports say there was no breakthrough agreement, but that "significant progress" was made. Delegations from each country will return home for consultation. The next round of negotiations are scheduled for next week in Vienna. The threat of a military response by the U.S. looms if no agreement is eventually reached. And the U.S. had previously given Iran a deadline, which by some estimations works out to be sometime in early March. In the meantime, Washington continues to ratchet up the pressure on Iran thru additional sanctions. With one more day to go, only the Russell 2000 is up for the week. The S&P and Nasdaq, which came into the day yesterday in the green for the week, just slipped under that mark by day's end. But not by much. If the market can retrace even a little bit of yesterday's decline, they too could join the Russell in the winners column. (Or the Russell could join the others instead.) Best,  Kevin Matras
Executive Vice President, Zacks Investment Research | 
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