Oracle soared 31.7% in premarket trading after it said it expected booked revenue at its Oracle Cloud Infrastructure business to exceed half a trillion dollars, as demand for its low-cost cloud infrastructure services grew.
The ripple effect led to gains in some chipmakers, with Nvidia rising 2.2%, Advanced Micro Devices up 3.6% and Broadcom adding 2.2%.
Data centre power suppliers also benefited from the cloud computing giant’s upbeat forecast, with Constellation Energy up 1.9%, Vistra advancing 2.9% and GE Vernova 3.5% higher.
Markets will monitor August’s producer prices report later today to assess the impact of US President Donald Trump’s tariff policies on inflation, and whether it could help make the case for a jumbo 50-basis-point cut at the US Federal Reserve meeting next week.
“A sign that elevated inflation isn’t just stubborn but heading higher could dent hopes for a succession of cuts to come,” said Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets, Hargreaves Lansdown.
“It’s unlikely to push the Fed off course this month, but the ‘dot plot’ path of cuts ahead may look shakier,” Streeter said.
Another key dataset, the US consumer prices reading, is expected tomorrow.
Recent labour market data confirmed a slowdown in the US jobs market, prompting traders to price in an at least 25-bps reduction in interest rates at the Fed’s Sept 16-17 meeting.
August nonfarm payrolls data led traders to bet on a bigger-than-usual 50-bps reduction, with its probability standing at 8.2%, CME’s FedWatch tool showed.
At 7.07am, Dow E-minis fell 57 points, or 0.12%, Nasdaq 100 E-minis rose 52.5 points, or 0.22%, and S&P 500 E-minis gained 19 points, or 0.29%.
Meanwhile, a federal judge yesterdaytemporarily blocked Trump from removing Fed governor Lisa Cook, an early setback for the White House in an unprecedented legal battle that could potentially upend the central bank’s long-held independence.
The three main indexes closed at record peaks yesterday following a downward payrolls revision that kept rate-cut bets intact, while a rise in UnitedHealth shares aided gains.
Wall Street has had a broadly positive start to September – a month deemed historically bad for US equities – with the benchmark index losing 1.5% on average since 2000, according to data compiled by LSEG.
Reflecting the growing optimism around US markets, Barclays raised its 2025 year-end target for the S&P 500, for the second time in three months, to 6,450 from 6,050.
In other stocks, Synopsys slid 22.3% before the bell after the chip design software provider missed Wall Street estimates for third-quarter revenue today.
Peer Cadence Design Systems slipped 4.6%.
GameStop gained 11.3% after the video game retailer reported higher second-quarter revenue.