Nvidia Rises 2.8% Ahead of Earnings Report

Stocks closed higher on Wall Street after another day of unsettled trading.

• The S&P 500 rose 24.84 points, or 0.4%, to 6,642.1 on Wednesday after veering between a modest loss and a jump of 1.1% earlier in the day.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 47.03 points, or 0.1%, to 46,138.77.
• The Nasdaq composite climbed 131.38 points, or 0.6%, 22,564.23.

Nvidia climbed 2.8% as traders made their final moves before Wall Street's most influential stock delivers its latest profit report after trading ends for the day. Much is riding on it because of worries that AI stock prices may have shot too high, the AP reports.

Constellation Energy helped lead the market and rallied 5.3% after the US Department of Energy said it's lending $1 billion to help restart Constellation's nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island. Lowe's rose 4% after the home-improvement retailer reported a stronger profit for the summer than analysts expected. They worked against a 2.8% drop for Target, which reported weaker revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The retailer also hinted that challenges may continue through the critical holiday shopping season.

Traders are also making their final moves ahead of a jobs report coming from the US government on Thursday. It will show how many jobs employers created and destroyed in September, which earlier got delayed because of the federal government's shutdown. Even though the data may be stale, it could sway Wall Street because of how closely traders are paying attention to the job market's strength. The job market has been slowing enough this year that the Fed has already cut its main interest rate twice.

Lower rates can give a boost to the economy and to prices for investments, and the expectation on Wall Street had been for more cuts, including at the Fed's next meeting in December. But some Fed officials are hinting that they should take a pause next month, in part because inflation has stubbornly remained above the Fed's 2% target. Lower interest rates can worsen inflation. What the Fed does is critical for the stock market because prices ran to records in part because of expectations for continued cuts to rates.