Global equity markets traded cautiously on Wednesday as investors awaited Nvidia’s second-quarter results, due after the U.S. close. Asia–Pacific benchmarks slipped and European stocks were mixed, while U.S. index futures hovered near flat. The S&P 500 nevertheless finished the cash session up 0.24% at a record 6,481.29, underscoring the company’s outsized influence on broader benchmarks. Nvidia now commands a market value of roughly US$4.4 trillion—about 8 % of the S&P 500 and 3 % of worldwide equity capitalisation—giving its report the potential to sway indices and retirement portfolios alike. Options traders are pricing a swing of around 6 % in the shares, equivalent to about US$270 billion in market value, the largest single-stock move implied on Wall Street this season. Analysts surveyed by LSEG expect earnings of about US$1.01 a share on revenue near US$46 billion. Beyond headline numbers, investors will focus on continued demand for artificial-intelligence processors, supply-chain capacity for the new Blackwell and Rubin chips, and the financial impact of U.S. export controls that have curbed sales to China. The wait for Nvidia’s figures came against a macro backdrop of falling short-dated U.S. Treasury yields amid renewed speculation over Federal Reserve policy and political pressure on the central bank. Even so, market attention remained squarely on the chip designer, with many strategists calling the release a litmus test for the durability of the two-year-old artificial-intelligence equity rally.