Wall Street Today | Nvidia Carries Entire Stock Market On Its AI Back

After posting earnings Wednesday night, Nvidia pulled the market higher Thursday after adding a record $277B to its market cap.

The S&P 500 Index last closed at a high on Feb. 15, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average made records on Feb. 12. The Nasdaq last hit a closing high in Nov. of 2021, at 16,057.44.

A soft landing for the U.S. economy is likely, and the next move in interest rates will be down, according to Philip Jefferson, vice chair of the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors.

The timing of rate cuts will depend on continued progress in reducing the pace of inflation, Jefferson said in remarks Thursday morning at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Jefferson is a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed's policymaking arm, and has served on the Fed's Board of Governors since May 2022.

"As of our last meeting in January, my colleagues on the FOMC and I believe that our policy rate is likely at its peak for this tightening cycle and that, if the economy evolves broadly as expected, it will likely be appropriate to begin dialing back policy restraint at some point this year," Jefferson said.

U.S. crude oil inventories rose last week, and gasoline and distillate fuel stocks declined with refinery capacity use unchanged, according to data released Thursday by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Commercial crude oil stocks excluding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, rose by 3.5 million barrels to 443 million barrels in the week ended Feb. 16 and were about 2% below the five-year average for the time of year, the EIA said. Analysts surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had predicted crude stockpiles would rise by 3.2 million barrels.

Storage in the SPR increased by 748,000 barrels to 359.5 million barrels, the EIA said.

Oil stored at Cushing, Okla., the Nymex delivery hub, rose by 741,000 barrels to 29.5 million barrels, while refinery capacity use was unchanged at 80.6%. Refinery runs were forecast to rise by 0.8 percentage point.

U.S. crude oil production was around 13.3 million barrels a day, unchanged from the previous week, while crude imports rose by 184,000 barrels a day to 6.7 million barrels a day and exports increased by 618,000 barrels a day to 5 million barrels a day.