Stocks finished higher in Wednesday’s session, though the bond market was closed for Veterans Day. Tech shares saw the biggest gains as Wall Street cheered CoreWeave’s ( CRWV ) earnings report. Even beaten-down Nvidia ( NVDA ) joined in on the rally, despite the chipmaker receiving a rare downgrade amid its C-suite drama.
At the close, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was up 1.6% at 25,466, the broader S&P 500 added 1.3% to 7,619, and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was 0.5% higher at 52,486.
Today’s positive price action follows Tuesday’s negative session , where stocks sold off after hot October inflation data raised December rate-hike odds and details about the upcoming Anthropic IPO exacerbated worries about demand for artificial intelligence (AI).
CoreWeave’s third-quarter earnings report helped ease concerns over the AI trade, with the neocloud — a provider of high-performance infrastructure used to power artificial intelligence workloads — reporting a narrower-than-expected per-share loss of $1.27 on better-than-anticipated revenue of $3.66 billion.
CEO Michael Intrator also soothed Wall Street’s anxiety about the company’s debt load, saying CRWV “will not use the unsecured debt market to fund” its business; rather, it will rely on lower-rate delayed-draw term loans, which will use customer contracts as collateral, and cash flow to pay for its initiatives.
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Heading into Wednesday’s session, CoreWeave stock was down nearly 32% year to date on concerns the company is financially stretched and rising interest rates are making its debt load more expensive to manage. But shares jumped 24.7% today — their biggest one-day percentage gain since June 3, 2025.
“We’ve been awfully lonely as the seemingly only bull on this neocloud,” says Paul Meeks , head of technology research at Freedom Capital Markets. “While the company’s September quarter results and guidance probably won’t convince enough of its doomsayers, we feel somewhat validated by CRWV. Importantly, the company delivered continued positive operating leverage, which we hope will ultimately ease some of the creditors’ fears.”
Meeks has a $151 price target on CRWV, representing implied upside of nearly 150% to current levels, saying “it’s reasonable in the long term based on our estimates for CRWV for 2027 and 2028.”
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Nvidia stock rises despite rare downgrade
Wall Street bought the dip on Nvidia Wednesday, with shares climbing 2.9% even after Baird issued a rare downgrade — to Neutral (Hold) from Outperform (Buy) — on the AI chipmaker. Morgan Stanley also removed NVDA from its “Top Pick” list, but maintained its Overweight (Buy) rating.
Nvidia stock was down 9.5% for the week coming into today’s session after the chipmaker’s board of directors opened an investigation into CEO Jensen Huang over a romantic relationship with an executive at a Singapore-based cloud company whom U.S. officials have classified as a Chinese spy.
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The news has left many on Wall Street wondering if Jensen Huang — widely considered one of the most influential figures in the AI industry — will be removed as head of Nvidia.
Baird cited uncertainty over data center forecasts, the potential for softer spending from hyperscalers and the question “around CEO tenure” for its downgrade.
Most of Wall Street remains upbeat toward the blue chip stock . Of the 62 analysts covering NVDA tracked by S&P Global Market Intelligence , 57 say it’s a Buy or Strong Buy, four have it at Hold and one rates it a Sell.
Costco announces a big special dividend
Outside of the tech space, Costco Wholesale ( COST ) rose 2.0% after the warehouse club operator said its board of directors approved a special dividend of $30 per share and a $4 billion stock buyback program.
The “long-anticipated special dividend payment … is significantly above the $18-$20 we had forecast and represents a yield of about 2.8% incremental to the company’s regular quarterly dividend,” says Mizuho Securities analyst David Bellinger .
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The special dividend, which Costco will pay roughly $13.3 billion for, in addition to the new share repurchase program, underscores the fact that the company “has so much available cash it doesn’t even know what to do with it,” adds Bellinger, creating what he calls “a high-quality problem.”
Bellinger is “optimistic that this may be the company’s last special dividend announcement and that ongoing free cash generation will allow COST to address perceived weaknesses in e-commerce, rapid delivery, and retail media.”
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