New York, Feb 26, 2026, 13:54 EST — Regular session
U.S. equities edged lower Thursday, weighed by a pullback in heavyweight tech. Nvidia tumbled 4.99% to $185.81. The S&P 500 shed 0.77%, closing at 6,892.79. Nasdaq lost 1.51%, finishing at 22,802.47. The Dow barely budged. Yields on the 10-year Treasury drifted down to roughly 4.03%. 1
Just a day after Nvidia delivered yet another strong quarter, shares pulled back as investors grew wary of the high price tags across the artificial-intelligence sector. “People are getting concerned about lofty valuations,” said Thomas Plumb, chief executive and portfolio manager at Plumb Funds. 2
Weekly jobless claims ticked up by 4,000 to 212,000 for the week ending Feb. 21, but the number of people still receiving benefits dropped by 31,000, coming in at 1.833 million. Economists have been calling this a “low-hire, low-fire” market backdrop. Nancy Vanden Houten, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, put it bluntly: “It’s hard to see the Fed cutting rates while inflation remains above target.” 3
Traders will have their eyes on Thursday’s U.S. economic line-up: advance retail and wholesale inventories, the Kansas City Fed manufacturing index, and a 7-year Treasury auction are all coming up, plus the Fed’s balance sheet is set for release at 4:30 p.m. ET. On Friday, watch for producer prices, advance goods trade, Chicago PMI, and construction spending to hit the tape. 4
Fed vice chair for supervision Michelle Bowman, speaking in Washington, assured lawmakers that the banking system “remains sound and resilient.” She pushed for regulations that give banks flexibility to innovate and keep pace with non-bank lenders. 5
Nvidia’s quarterly revenue hit $39.33 billion, and the company projected revenue of around $78 billion for the current quarter—topping Wall Street’s $72.5 billion estimate. Shares still slipped, with Mahoney Asset Management CEO Ken Mahoney noting, “They basically met the bar rather than clearing it.” 6
Salesforce came in with $11.20 billion in revenue and unveiled a hefty $50 billion buyback alongside a 6% boost to its dividend. But its fiscal 2027 revenue outlook—$45.8 billion to $46.2 billion—landed shy of the $46.4 billion consensus. “The company set a conservative tone with its guidance,” said Rebecca Wettemann, chief executive of Valoir. 7
Still, there’s a double-edged sword for a market so tied up in the AI trade. If the producer-price numbers come in hot, yields could move higher, putting fresh pressure on the most expensive stocks. A softer reading, though, might cool off those rate jitters and help equities find their footing heading into next week.
Focus shifts to Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET, with the producer price index hitting screens, and then the February jobs data set for March 6. The Chicago PMI lands later Friday, 9:45 a.m. ET. 8
