U.S. stocks wobble as rate fears outweigh strong earnings

By Liz Moyer 

Investing.com -- U.S. stocks are wobbling as fears about interest rates outweigh strong earnings led by chipmaker Nvidia.

At 11:12 ET (16:12 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 24 points or 0.1%, while the S&P 500 was up 0.1% and the NASDAQ Composite was down 0.1%.

Nvidia Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) shares rose 12.9% after it gave guidance for quarterly sales that were higher than analysts expected. There was a jump in the use of its chips to run AI activities.

Fellow chipmakers were also getting a boost. Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) rose, as did Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC).

New jobless claims of 192,000 came in lower than the expected 200,000. Along with that, gross domestic product for the fourth quarter came in at a revised 2.7%, while economists were expecting a 2.9% gain from the prior quarter.

On Wednesday, the minutes of the Federal Reserve's last meeting showed officials supported more interest rate increases but at a slower pace. The market expects the Fed will raise rates by another quarter of a percentage point in March and then again in May. Some are also expecting a rate hike in June, to get the rate above 5% by mid-summer.

Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic and San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly are scheduled to speak later today.

Shares of eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) fell 7.6% after the online auction site warned of slower demand because of shifts in consumer spending.

Moderna, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNA) shares fell 7.1% after it confirmed its $5 billion forecast for COVID-19 vaccine sales.

Oil rose. Crude Oil WTI Futures was up 1.8% to $75.29 a barrel, while Brent Oil Futures crude was up 1.7% to $81.97 a barrel. Gold Futures was down 0.8% to $1826.