The S&P 500 inched higher on Friday, ending four consecutive weeks of declines that were brought on by trade policy turmoil, recession fears and a rollover in megacap tech shares. The S&P 500 added 0.08%, rising into positive territory as the trading session drew to a close. The broad market index ended the day at 5,667.56. The Nasdaq Composite gained 0.52% and settled at 17,784.05, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 32.03 points, or 0.08%, to close at 41,985.35. The broad-market S&P 500 posted a 0.5% weekly advance, averting a fifth straight week of losses. The Nasdaq rose 0.2% week to date, and the Dow posted a 1.2% gain. Friday was a “quadruple witching” day, which is when stock options, index futures, index options and single-stock futures expire. Goldman estimated that more than $4.7 trillion of notional options exposure would expire. The session was volatile with major averages coming off their lows after President Donald Trump said there would be some “flexibility” with tariffs. However, he maintained that the tariffs implemented at the April 2 deadline will be reciprocal, saying all countries that have tariffs on U.S. goods will be charged. Trump’s tariff deadline is looming over the market, according to Michael Green, chief strategist at Simplify Asset Management. “Companies are increasingly citing confusion and uncertainty around their planning and capital spending and hiring decisions — and when they pause, it means that they’re slowing down,” he said. “There’s an element of that playing out in the markets.” Two economic bellwethers slid on Friday. FedEx was down 6.5% after it cut its earnings outlook, citing “weakness and uncertainty in the U.S. industrial economy.” Nike shares were off by more than 5% after the shoe and apparel giant said sales this quarter would miss analysts’ expectations because of tariffs and falling consumer confidence. The S&P 500 briefly fell into correction territory at one point during its sell-off since late February, and it now sits nearly 8% from its record high, short of the 10% correction level. The benchmark has made some attempts to rally this month without much follow-through, including on Wednesday when it snapped back by 1% after the Federal Reserve said it would still likely cut rates two times this year.

At its GTC conference, Nvidia (NVDA -0.75%) gave investors 1 trillion potential reasons to buy its stock. That came in the form of CEO Jensen Huang projecting that data center infrastructure capital expenditure (capex) would hit $1 trillion or more by 2028. Investors, nonetheless, largely shrugged off the robust forecast and other upbeat news from the event. That said, if Nvidia’s projections come to fruition, the stock has a lot more upside from here.

More growth to come

$1 trillion in data center infrastructure capex by 2028 would be a continued acceleration of spending in the space, which would be great news for Nvidia. The company’s graphics processing units (GPUs) have become the backbone of the artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure buildout, due to their powerful data processing abilities and ease of use. In a chart from the presentation, Nvidia estimated 2024 data center infrastructure spending to be around $400 billion in 2024. For its past fiscal year (fiscal year 2025 ended in January), the company produced total revenue of $130.5 billion, of which $115.2 billion was from its data center segment. Meanwhile, research company Dell’Oro Group just estimated that 2024 data center infrastructure spending reached $455 billion. That translates into Nvidia currently capturing around 25% to 30% of this spending. If Nvidia was able to keep its current share of this spending, that would translate into between $250 billion to $300 billion in data center infrastructure revenue alone in 2028. The company plans to continue to lead the way with both its chips and its software. It introduced the new Blackwell Ultra GPU at the event, which will begin shipping in the second half of this year. The new Blackwell chips are more powerful, making them great for more time-sensitive services. Nvidia predicted Blackwell revenue would be much greater than the revenue it generated from its earlier Hopper architecture. Continuing with its chip innovation, the company is also set to introduce its new Vera Rubin chip, which will combine a GPU with its next-generation Rubin architecture and a custom-designed central processing unit (CPU), using Arm‘s technology. It said the CPU will be twice as fast as the off-the-shelf one used in its earlier Grace Blackwell chips. Meanwhile, it will look to increase the number of GPU dies in its current Blackwell chips from two to four with the “Rubin Next” chip that it plans to launch in the second half of 2027. Nvidia isn’t just innovating on the hardware side. It also revealed a new open-source software system called Nvidia Dynamo that will help increase inference throughput and reduce costs. The company said the new software will help orchestrate and accelerate inference communication across thousands of GPUs. It said that Dynamo is not just an operating system for a data center, but for an entire AI factory. Nvidia doesn’t just have its sights set on data centers, though. It’s looking to tackle the robotics and autonomous driving markets as well. Huang proclaimed that “the age of generalist robotics is here” with the introduction of Isaac GROOT N1, which he called the world’s first “open Humanoid Robot foundation model.” The model can be trained on real or synthetic data to help humanoid robots master tasks. The company thinks these robots will be able to fill menial labor jobs and help with a global 50-million-job shortage. The company will also team up with General Motors to help the automaker develop its own autonomous driving system. The move is somewhat surprising, since GM scrapped its prior attempt at a robotaxi business last year. The unit became mired in controversy when one of its Cruise robotaxis dragged a pedestrian down the road after the person was originally hit by another vehicle. Nvidia said that in addition to supplying GPUs, it will help GM build custom AI systems. GM will also use Nvidia’s GPUs and software to train AI manufacturing models in order to build next-generation factory robots. This follows Nvidia striking a deal with Toyota last month to provide chips and software to help run its advanced driver-assistance features.

Is the stock a buy?

While Nvidia has been the biggest winner of the AI infrastructure buildout, it still has a very large opportunity in front of it. AI infrastructure spending is still increasing, and Nvidia is not resting on its laurels. It continues to drive innovation and is looking to make sure it’s the winner in AI inference, not just AI training. Meanwhile, it’s looking for growth beyond the data center into other large potential markets. At the same time, Nvidia’s stock remains attractively valued following the recent market sell-off. The stock trades at a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of under 26 times this year’s analyst estimates and a price/earnings-to-growth (PEG) below 0.5. A PEG of 1 is typically the threshold for a stock being considered undervalued, and Nvidia’s multiple is way below this mark. As such, Nvidia looks like a solid long-term buy at these levels.

US stocks climbed into positive territory on Friday as investors weighed mixed messages from the Federal Reserve while President Donald Trump indicated he’d retain ‘flexibility’ when it comes to a reciprocal tariff plan set for April 2. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) edged above the flat line while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose 0.1%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) gained 0.5%. All three major averages fell by nearly 1% earlier in the session. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq, both of which entered correction territory during a downbeat start to 2025, snapped four-week losing streaks. Stocks came off their session lows after Trump said, “I don’t change. But the word ‘flexibility’ is an important word,” in response to the question of a retaliatory tariff plan expected on April 2. Most of this week’s gains came after a stock market rally followed the Fed’s decision on Wednesday to stay the course for two more rate cuts this year. Fed Chair Jerome Powell also reassured investors that the economic impact of Trump’s trade war seemed manageable, adding that recession risks remain low. However, by Thursday, the underbelly of the Fed’s decision — which included forecasts for higher inflation and lower economic growth, two concerns that have deeply rattled markets — started to weigh on Wall Street, sending stocks lower. And more companies have said they are feeling the effects of tariff-related uncertainty as earnings continue to trickle out. FedEx (FDX) and Nike (NKE) stocks plummeted on Friday as investors reacted to comments from both companies about the economic outlook, with FedEx slashing its 2025 forecast and Nike continuing to leave gaps in its outlines for a turnaround.

A three-week market sell-off intensified on Monday, with investors worried that tariff policy uncertainty would tip the economy into a recession, something President Donald Trump did not rule out over the weekend in an interview. The S&P 500 shed 2.7%, touching its lowest level since September at one point and closing at 5,614.56. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite saw the sharpest decline of the major averages, falling 4% for its worst session since September 2022 and closing at 17,468.32. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 890.01 points, or 2.08%, ending at 41,911.71. The S&P 500 is off 8.7% from its all-time high reached Feb. 19, and the Nasdaq Composite is off nearly 14% from its recent high. A 10% decline is considered a correction on Wall Street. The losses worsened as the day went on, but the major averages came off their session lows just before the close. The “Magnificent Seven” cohort, once the stars of this bull market, led the declines Monday as investors dumped the group for perceived safer plays. Tesla tumbled 15% for its worst day since 2020, while Alphabet and Meta fell more than 4%. Artificial intelligence darling Nvidia lost 5%. Palantir, another once-loved stock by retail traders, was down 10%. Worries have been increasing about the economy over the past month, sparked initially by some soft data that appeared to be in reaction to the tariff policy back-and-forth and then fueled further by some recent comments by the White House. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday told CNBC that there could be a “detox period” for the economy as the new administration cuts government spending. Then in an interview that aired Sunday, President Trump responded to a question on Fox News about the possibility of a recession by saying the economy was going through “a period of transition.” “What I have to do is build a strong country,” Trump said. “You can’t really watch the stock market.” Goldman Sachs slashed its economic growth forecast in recent days because of the potential tariff effects. “We are in the throes of a manufactured correction,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research. “I say manufactured because it’s really based in response to the new administration’s tariff programs, or at least threats of tariffs, and what kind of an impact that will have on the economy.” Signs of investors taking off risk were evident everywhere on Wall Street. The Cboe Volatility index, a measure of trader fear, jumped to the highest since December. Bitcoin tumbled back below $80,000 and Treasury yields declined. The declines in the S&P 500 would have been worse were it not for a rotation into some more defensive areas of the market that have steady revenue and pay a dividend. Mondelez and Johnson & Johnson ended the day slightly higher.