MARKET SNAPSHOT
U.S. stocks ticked lower, Treasury yields climbed and gold futures fell after the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index rose 3.7% on an annual basis in July. Oil futures continued to fall on hopes for a deal to open the Strait of Horumuz. The dollar strengthened.
MARKET WRAPS EQUITIES
U.S. stocks ticked down after surprisingly heated inflation data as traders kept their powder dry ahead of earnings from artificial-intelligence bellwether Nvidia after the bell.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.21%. The S&P 500 declined 0.02% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost 0.08%.
The Personal Consumption Expenditures price index rose 3.7% on an annual basis in July, remaining far above the Federal Reserve's target inflation level. Investors are waiting to hear how Fed Chair Kevin Warsh reconciles his patient approach to rate policy with his backing of the 2% target.
Earlier Wednesday, equity markets across the Asia-Pacific were mostly higher, tracking overnight gains on Wall Street.
South Korea's Kospi rose 1.0%, with chip-making index heavyweights SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics advancing.
Japan's Nikkei Stock Average gained 0.6%.
China's Shanghai Composite added 0.6% while the Shenzhen Composite Index gained 0.5%. The tech-focused ChiNext Price Index also climbed 0.5%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose 0.6%.
Stocks in Australia slipped, as the S&P/ASX 200 dropped 0.4%. New Zealand's S&P/NZX 50 Index rose 0.1%.
COMMODITIES
Crude futures extend losses to three sessions on cautious expectations that the U.S. economic isolation of Iran, rather than military action, could bring about a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
"The de-escalation and fears of tighter global supplies are easing, which is tripping some long liquidation by funds," Dennis Kissler of BOK Financial said. Rising U.S. commercial crude stocks are also a bearish factor, he added.
The EIA reported a 95,000 barrel increase in crude inventories, which was smaller than expected but still a fourth consecutive weekly rise.
WTI edged down 0.2% to $82.23 a barrel, and Brent fell 0.8% to $87.84.
Gold futures eased back from the three-month highs reached early this week after PCE inflation picked up in July.
"The metal could continue to benefit from concerns over U.S. debt levels as well as expectations of a Fed hold at its next meeting," Critical Metals CEO Tony Sage said. "However, a hike is still expected at the following meeting, which could fuel some pressure."
Front month gold finished down 0.9% to $4598.20 a troy ounce. Silver also dropped 0.9% to $67.990 a troy ounce.
TODAY'S TOP HEADLINES
Fed's Preferred Inflation Gauge Remains Above Target Range
The Fed's preferred gauge of monthly price increases grew last month and remains above the central bank's preferred target range.
The personal-consumption expenditures price index rose by 0.2% in July, from a decrease of 0.1% in June, the Commerce Department said. Excluding the volatile good and energy categories, core PCE rose by 0.2%.
Over the past year, the PCE index is up by 3.7%. The core 12-month PCE inflation rate is up 3.3%.
U.S. 2Q GDP Growth Unchanged at 1.5% in Second Estimate
The U.S. economy grew at a 1.5% annualized rate in the second quarter of 2026, the Commerce Department said in an updated estimate published Wednesday, unchanged from the initial report published last month.
The update brought only minor revisions to the initial set of second-quarter gross domestic product numbers. It continued to show an economy growing at a modest clip, driven by solid consumer spending and investment in artificial-intelligence infrastructure.
Imports of foreign products and a small decline in government spending are both dragging on the overall GDP figure. Real final sales to private domestic purchasers, a slice of the data that excludes public spending and trade to better gauge the private domestic economy, grew at a much stronger 4.2% in the second quarter, better than the 3.9% initially reported.
The Country That Has the Biggest Trade Surplus With the U.S. Is Now... Vietnam
A year after President Trump set out to rewire global trade in America's favor, the biggest winner has turned out to be Vietnam.
For the first half of this year, federal data shows Vietnam's trade surplus with the U.S. hit $114 billion, ahead of semiconductor hub, Taiwan, Mexico, and even China.
It is an unexpected outcome for an economy a quarter the size of Mexico's, and the result of years of reconciliation after the Vietnam War and turbocharged capitalist development in the Communist nation. But some of the biggest boosts to Vietnamese exports to the U.S. have come from Trump's global tariff war.
Nvidia's Blowout Second Quarter Leaves Investors Unmoved
Nvidia posted another quarter of record earnings Wednesday, but its shares traded slightly lower, reflecting rising anxiety throughout the market surrounding the viability of the artificial-intelligence trade and fears about overspending on AI infrastructure.
For the quarter ended in July, Nvidia reported record sales of $96.2 billion, or 4% higher than the $92.3 billion analysts polled by FactSet had expected. Net income of $59.7 billion and earnings per share of $2.46 also beat analyst expectations by wide margins.
The crucial data-center segment, which includes most of the AI servers for which Nvidia is best-known, produced sales of $89 billion. Analysts had expected $86.3 billion.
Salesforce Profit, Revenue Rise, Expands Partnership with Anthropic's Claude
Salesforce posted higher second-quarter profit and revenue on rising demand for its artificial-intelligence and data offerings.
The results prompted the enterprise software company to bump up its full-year sales and profit forecasts, factoring in a boost in organic growth as well as acquisitions it expects to close this quarter.
The San Francisco company also on Wednesday disclosed an expanded partnership with Anthropic that combines its broad platform of business tools with the AI company's Claude system.
Meta Reaches $18 Billion Settlement With 48 States Over Child-Safety Claims
Meta Platforms agreed to an $18 billion settlement with 48 state attorneys general, bringing an end to a massive federal trial over social media's harm to teenagers and ushering in a new era of tech companies having legal responsibility for their platforms.
As part of the settlement agreement, Meta will also make sweeping changes to its services, Facebook and Instagram, including implementing a default two-hour time limit on its apps for users under 18.
In a unique setup, Meta will pay out only 70% of the settlement unless TikTok and YouTube, which is owned by Alphabet, also agree to set default one-hour time limits a day on their apps for underage users and each pay the states roughly $5.3 billion. Meta will only pay the remaining 30% of its settlement, also $5.3 billion, if the two other companies agree to the terms.
Google Moves AI-Responsibility Team Out of DeepMind Lab in Latest Shake-Up
Google is moving a team focused on the risks and societal impact of artificial intelligence out of Google DeepMind, the research lab developing its frontier AI models, according to an internal email viewed by the Journal.
The change in reporting structure-which follows a reorganization that saw DeepMind co-founder and chief executive Demis Hassabis step aside into a new chairman role-has prompted some members of the team to raise concerns that its work will be negatively affected, two current DeepMind employees said.
Starting next week, the roughly 90-person "AI responsibility" unit will join Google's global affairs organization, which oversees lobbying and public policy for the company as a whole.
Expected Major Events for Thursday 01:00/SKA: Bank of Korea Monetary Policy Committee meeting and decision
01:30/AUS: Jun RBA Bulletin
01:30/CHN: Jul Industrial Profit
01:30/AUS: 2Q Private New Capital Expenditure & Expected Expenditure
03:30/THA: Jul Trade data
06:30/PHI: Philippine Monetary Policy meeting and decision
07:00/THA: Jul Industrial Production Index
08:00/TAI: Jul Business Indicators
08:59/JPN: Aug Monthly Economic Report
23:30/JPN: Aug CPI (Tokyo), CPI ex-Food (Tokyo)
23:30/JPN: Jul Labour Force Survey
23:50/JPN: Aug Provisional Trade Statistics for 1st 10 days of Month
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