Dow closes more than 300 points higher Tuesday as Fed rate decision looms: Live updates

The major U.S. stock indexes ended Tuesday's session higher, reversing their losses from earlier in the day.

The S&P 500 added 0.56% to end at 5,178.51, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 320.33 points, or 0.83%, to finish at 39,110.76. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.39% to settle at 16,166.79

— Pia Singh

Loop Capital has a play in mind for the improving housing market — and it's not one of the home improvement stocks that first come to mind.

This electronics retailer has a relatively low valuation and can see a benefit to its TV and appliance sales as the market rebounds. Loop, which has a buy rating on the stock, called it a "stealth" pick.

CNBC Pro subscribers can click here to see which stock it is and read the full story.

— Alex Harring

Coinbase insiders have sold about $359 million in company shares collectively, based on sale proceeds, in the first quarter alone. That's compared to $145 million in in the fourth quarter of 2023 and $211 million for the full year, Raymond James pointed out in a note Tuesday.

Many professional investors track corporate executives own buying and selling of stock as a signal of confidence in a company's business outlook.

Shares of the crypto exchange have climbed 84% over the past two months and 32% year-to-date as investors' appetite for crypto has grown – thanks to the introduction of spot bitcoin ETFs and subsequent rally in the cryptocurrency's price. Bitcoin's 52% year-to-date gain has pulled other cryptocurrencies higher with it.

Co-founder Fred Ehrsam has been the most active selling shareholder, having generated proceeds of $116 million this quarter. He sold $75 million of the shares in the previous quarter. CEO Brian Armstrong has netted $90 million in proceeds this quarter, after selling $81 million worth of the shares in 2023.

Coinbase's other named executives have been sellers of the stock this quarter too, including chief financial officer Alesia Haas ($19 million in shares), president and chief operating officer Emilie Choi ($50 million), chief legal officer Paul Grewal ($14 million) and chief people officer Lawrence Block ($53 million).

— Tanaya Macheel

Wall Street is offering up some derivative plays for investors looking to play Nvidia on the heels of the AI darling's latest chip announcement.

Read the full list of stocks poised to benefit from Nvidia's AI lead and some companies that could face headwinds here.

— Samantha Subin

A major bond fund is on a historic slide ahead of this week's Federal Reserve meeting.

The iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) has fallen for eight straight sessions. That is the longest losing streak since the $47 billion fund was created in 2002.

The drop has been small, at least, with the fund down less than 4% total over that period. And the TLT was slightly higher in midday trading Tuesday.

— Jesse Pound

Higher-than-expected inflation data sent all three major stock indexes down last week. But UBS believes that these declines are just blips on the radar of a still overwhelmingly positive U.S. outlook.

"Such setbacks in the data may cause some investors to lose confidence in the prospect of a soft landing for the U.S. economy, let alone a Goldilocks scenario. But we view these more like speed bumps along the journey," wrote Mark Haefele, the bank's chief investment officer of its global wealth management division.

Haefele listed the following three key reasons as to why he expects the U.S. macro environment to stay fairly healthy:

• "The disinflation trend remains evident."
• "The labor market is cooling, and growth is returning to a sustainable pace."
• "The key point for the market outlook is that the Federal Reserve wants to cut rates, even with inflation coming down more gradually than expected a few months ago."

"Our base case is for a soft landing with three Fed rate cuts this year, a backdrop that is favorable for quality bonds. As growth moderates, we also expect outperformance from quality stocks, those of companies with strong balance sheets, high profitability, and exposure to resilient earnings streams," Haefele added.

— Lisa Kailai Han

Communication services was the worst-performing sector in the S&P 500, slumping 0.8% during morning trading.

Meta Platforms and Live Nation were the worst performers in the sector, last down 1.4% each. Alphabet, Comcast and Netflix also lagged, slipping less than 1% each.

Real estate was the second worst-performing sector in the index, dipping about 0.4%. CoStar Group and Digital Realty Trust led the declines, dropping about 2% each.

— Samantha Subin

Investors are concerned high market concentration means a pullback is coming for equities, but Goldman Sachs expects a resilient economy and softening inflation will continue to be supportive of stocks.

"As our US strategists have shown, periods of high market concentration and momentum outperformance have generally been followed by 'catch-up' rather than 'catch-down' episodes, supported by better macro," Christian Mueller-Glissmann wrote Monday.

"While equity momentum has somewhat supported broader risk appetite … we see limited implications of a continued reversal barring a material US rate shock," Mueller-Glissmann added.

In fact, Mueller-Glissmann said he would buy any dip in equities. Still, while he remains overweight on equities, he noted there is limited upside to the firm's near-term price targets.

— Sarah Min

These are some of the stocks seeing notable action in Tuesday's session.

• Nvidia — Shares slumped more than 3% after the artificial intelligence chipmaker unveiled its widely anticipated next-generation chips. Competitor Advanced Micro Devices dropped 6.8% following the announcement.
• Super Micro Computer — The information technology stock dropped 12% on the back of a filing to sell an additional two million shares through Goldman Sachs.
• Unilever — U.S. shares of the consumer products maker rose 2.9% after sharing plans to spin off its ice cream unit, which includes Ben & Jerry's and Magnum.

See the full list here.

— Alex Harring

Shares of MicroStrategy tumbled on Tuesday alongside the price of bitcoin, as the company bought even more of the cryptocurrency.

The stock was last lower by 12%. Earlier, it fell as much as 18%.

The move came as MicroStrategy bought an additional 9,245 bitcoins for about $623 million, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company used $592.3 million in net proceeds from a recent private offering of convertible senior notes and excess cash to make its purchase.

For more on the move, read our full story here.

— Tanaya Macheel

The Invesco WilderHill Clean Energy ETF (PBW) fell to its lowest level in more than half a decade on Tuesday.

The fund slipped more than 1% during morning trading, reaching its cheapest price since January 2019. The exchange-traded fund was led down by Plug Power, Nio, Fisker, SQM and Bloom Energy, which all dropped at least 2% in the session.

That milestone comes amid a tough period for the ETF. Shares are down nearly 30% since 2024 began, putting the fund on track for its fourth-straight losing year.

— Alex Harring, Gina Francolla

Crypto stocks fell Tuesday as bitcoin extended its slide, dropping 6.5% to $62,749.99, according to Coin Metrics. Last week, it climbed to a record $73,679.

Bitcoin proxy MicroStrategy tumbled 15%, while crypto exchange Coinbase fell 8%. Mining stocks were down across the board, with the biggest ones, Riot Platforms and Marathon Digital, lower by 7% and 8%, respectively.

"Overall, it would make sense for this pullback to be short-lived and for the rally to resume — though the [specter] of a recession next year looms over markets and could temper the rally in ways we may not be able to foresee," said Bartosz Lipiński, CEO of Cube Exchange.

For more on what's behind bitcoin's big drop, read our full story here.

— Tanaya Macheel

Nvidia shares slumped more than 3% a day after the chipmaker unveiled its widely expected next generation artificial intelligence chips.

Other AI chipmakers and semiconductor stocks fell alongside Nvidia, with Advanced Micro Devices last down more than 6%. Marvell Technology and Intel fell 5% and 2.5%, respectively. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing fell nearly 3%, while Broadcom and Micron Technology dipped 2% each.

The VanEck Semiconductor ETF dropped more than 2%.

— Samantha Subin

Nvidia announced its latest suite of artificial intelligence chips at its GTC Conference in California on Monday, giving Wall Street more reason to remain bullish on the chip giant up nearly 79% this year.

Some Wall Street firms, including Goldman Sachs, boosted their price targets on the stock following the event, citing Nvidia's "compelling position" as a key AI leader.

Shares slipped about 1.5% before the bell.

Read more on some of the most critical calls from the biggest Wall Street firms here.

— Samantha Subin

Nordstrom shares soared 12% on news that the company's founding family is looking to take the retailer private, Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

According to the report, Nordstrom has asked investment banks Morgan Stanley and Centerview Partners to reach out to private equity firms to understand the interest for a potential deal. The founding family group previously, and unsuccessfully, attempted to take Nordstrom private in 2018.

Shares of the struggling U.S. retailer are up 15.6% over the past year and more than 3.5% year to date. Nordstrom had surpassed sales expectations for the holiday quarter, but said its revenue may decline this year, which has one less week of sales than 2023.

— Pia Singh

Stocks began Tuesday's trading session lower.

The S&P 500 shed 0.2%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged lower by 16 points, or less than 0.1%. The Nasdaq Composite lost 0.5%.

— Pia Singh

Housing starts and building permits accelerated at a faster-than-expected pace in February, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday.

Privately owned starts totaled a seasonally adjusted 1.521 million on the month, up 10.7% from January and 5.9% from a year ago. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for 1.43 million.

On the permit side, the total hit 1.518 million, a 1.9% increase from February and 2.4% from a year ago. The consensus estimate was for 1.49 million.

Completed housing on the month totaled 1.73 million, up 19.7% from January and 9.6% from the same month in 2023.

— Jeff Cox

While Wall Street waits to see how shares of Nvidia will react to the new artificial intelligence chip reveal, other stocks were seeing big swings in premarket trading. Here are some notable movers.

• Advanced Micro Devices — The chipmaker slumped more than 3% before the bell after competitor Nvidia unveiled a new generation of AI chips at its developers conference in San Jose, California.
• Coinbase, Riot Platforms — Crypto stocks were down sharply on Tuesday after bitcoin tumbled in overnight trading. Shares of Coinbase and Riot Platforms each fell about 5%.
• Super Micro Computer — The tech stock tumbled more than 10% after a filing showed a new stock offering of two million shares. Goldman Sachs is serving as the underwriter for the offering.

Check out more movers here.

— Jesse Pound, Samantha Subin

U.S. shares of Unilever rose more than 2% during premarket trading after the consumer products maker announced a spinoff of its ice cream business and a restructuring.

The company said on Tuesday that it would separate its ice cream business, which includes the Ben & Jerry's and Magnum brands. Unilever said the move comes as part of a corporate reorganization that would result in about 7,500 job cuts.

Unilever's stock is near flat on the year.

— Alex Harring, Karen Gilchrist

Shares of Japanese banks saw volatile trade after the Bank of Japan ended its negative interest rate policy and raised rates for the first time in 17 years.

Mitsubishi UFJ plunged as much as 3.03% just after the decision, leading losses among financial stocks before paring losses.

Shares of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group and Mizuho Financial were marginally below the flatline, while Nomura Holdings lost 0.2%.

— Lim Hui Jie

Japan's central bank raised interest rates for the first time since 2007 on Tuesday, and also did away with its yield control curve policy. Japan had negative rates in place since 2016.

The Bank of Japan hiked its short-term rates to around 0% to 0.1% from -0.1%, according to a statement.

Japan's central bank also announced that it abolished its yield curve control policy for 10-year Japanese government bonds, which it employed to target longer-term interest rates by buying and selling bonds as necessary.

The Nikkei 225 index was down 0.7% in volatile trading, while the broader Topix remained flat. The Japanese yen weakened against the dollar to last trade at 149.60.

— Shreyashi Sanyal

Fund manager Fidelity International is planning to lay off 20 people at its main China business unit, Reuters reported, citing sources.

This comes amid a downturn in China's markets as well as a global downsizing by the firm, the report said. Fidelity's China fund unit currently houses about 120 employees.

Separately, leading solar products manufacturer Longi will lay off 5% of its staff due to "market changes and [to] improve organizational efficiency," Reuters reported.

Longi also refuted a Bloomberg report on Monday that alleged the company plans to cut nearly one-third of its staff.

— Lim Hui Jie

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unveiled the company's latest iteration of artificial intelligence chips and software on Monday, named Blackwell, as the firm strengthens its grip on the broader AI market.

"Hopper is fantastic, but we need bigger GPUs," Huang said Monday, referring to the company's current slate of Hopper chips.

— Brian Evans

Stocks futures were little changed Monday night, following a regular trading session that saw the S&P 500 and broader field of technology stocks rebound.

Futures tied to the broad market index ticked down 0.03%, while Nasdaq 100 futures slipped 0.1%. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures added 16 points, or 0.06%.

— Brian Evans