S&P 500 rises, led by Nvidia, even with Fed rate outlook uncertain: Live updates

Traders work at the New York Stock Exchange on Feb. 18, 2026.

NYSE

The three leading U.S. indexes finished with gains on Wednesday.

The S&P 500 rose 0.56% to end the session at 6,881.31, while the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.78% to 22,753.63. The Dow Jones Industrial Average moved higher by 129.47 points, or 0.26%, to 49,662.66.

— Sean Conlon

U.S. plans to sell a large package of armaments to Taiwan are “in limbo” in anticipation of President Trump’s trip to China in early April and in response to pressure from the Peoples Republic, the Wall Street Journal said Wednesday, citing unnamed administration officials.

The move came in response to a phone call to Trump by Chinese President Xi Jinping on Feb. 4, the newspaper said.

The U.S. drew complaints from Beijing when it agreed to sell $11.1 billion in arms to Taiwan in December, and U.S. officials had been considering adding to those sales before Xi’s call to Trump.

Congress “hasn’t officially been notified of new arms sales, but a congressional aide said it had been expected to include Patriot antimissile interceptors and other weapons,” the Journal said. Lockheed Martin is the lead contractor for the Patriots, with RTX making radar and ground systems and Boeing providing guidance components.

— Scott Schnipper

La-Z-Boy posted an earnings and revenue beat in its third-quarter report delivered Tuesday afternoon, but weak guidance is sending the stock lower.

Shares of the furniture retailer and manufacturer fell 7% in afternoon trading Wednesday, though that was off lows shortly after the open when it was down more than 12%.

The company delivered revenue guidance for the current quarter of $560 to $580 million. Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected revenue guidance that totaled $590.2 million. Same-store sales, which fell 4%, also weighed on the stock.

La-Z-Boy CEO Melinda Whittington in an appearance on CNBC’s “The Exchange” explained challenged consumers are weighing on the company.

“We still have consumers that are able to invest in and really want to do big projects in their homes,” she said. “We’re also seeing those strapped consumers, that really want to be able to invest in our quality and our customization we’re able to deliver with our North America footprint, and so we’re doing all we can to make sure we have a select set of offerings for that consumer as well while times are a little more challenging.”

LZB 5-day chart.

Global Payments jumped 16% after posting a rosier-than-expected outlook for the current year.

The company said it expects to notch earnings of $13.80-$14 per share by the end of 2026, topping a FactSet consensus of $13.58 per share. It also said that adjusted net revenue growth will come in at roughly 5% by the end of this year, or slightly higher than analysts’ forecast of 4.7%.

Shares of the company are surging even as the software names are largely pulling back. The retreat comes as investors reevaluate the value of software stocks due to concerns that the use of artificial intelligence could eclipse that of traditional technologies.

— Liz Napolitano

A divided Fed indicated that further rate cuts should be paused. However, they could resume later in the year if inflation trends lower.

“In considering the outlook for monetary policy, several participants commented that further downward adjustments to the target range for the federal funds rate would likely be appropriate if inflation were to decline in line with their expectations,” the meeting summary stated. Read more.

— Jeff Cox

Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading:

• Wingstop— Shares of the chicken wing chain jumped about 13% onan upbeat outlook. Wingstop said it sees flat to low-single digit domestic same-store sales growth for fiscal 2026. In the fourth quarter, the company’s same-store sales declined 5.8% on a year-over-year basis, coming in better than the 6.7% slide analysts expected, per StreetAccount.
• Moody’s— Shares moved 6% higher after the credit-ratings and research company reported a beat on both the top and bottom lines. Its adjusted fourth-quarter earnings came in at $3.64 per share, above the $3.43 a share expected from analysts polled by FactSet. Revenue was $1.89 billion, versus the $1.86 billion consensus estimate. Moody’s also guided for full-year adjusted earnings to come between $16.40 and $17 per share, versus the $16.47 a share expected from analysts.
• Madison Square Gardern Sports— Shares popped 13% after the sports company announced plans to spin off its New York Knicks franchise from its New York Rangers business. The split, which was unanimously approved by its board, would create two distinct publicly traded companies, allowing each sports team to handle operations independently. Madison Square Garden shared the news in itsfiscal second-quarter earnings report.

Read the full list here.

— Christina Cheddar Berk

Modernasaid on Wednesday the Food and Drug Administration hasagreed to reviewits experimental mRNA flu shot,reversing the agency’s earlier decisionto refuse to accept the application in a move that stunned Wall Street and the medical community.

The announcement clears a path forward for the vaccine, which is key to Moderna’s experimental combination Covid-flu jab and the company’s goal of breaking even by 2028. The FDA is slated to make a decision on the flu shot on Aug. 5, which will allow Moderna to make the vaccine available for the upcoming influenza season.

“Pending FDA approval, we look forward to making our flu vaccine available later this year so that America’s seniors have access to a new option to protect themselves against flu,” said Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel in a release.

Shares of the biotech company rose more than 6% on Wednesday. Read more.

MRNA, 1-day

White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett said Wednesday that the authors of a recent New York Federal Reserve paper that found U.S. companies and consumers are shouldering most of the tariff burden should be “disciplined.”

In a CNBC interview, the National Economic Council director ripped the report, saying that central bank researchers ignored key aspects of how the duties worked and instead simply focused on prices. Hassett said the research also should have included the upward impact on wages and benefits that U.S. companies see by bringing more production onshore.

“I mean, the paper is an embarrassment,” Hassett said during the”Squawk Box”interview. “It’s, I think, the worst paper I’ve ever seen in the history of the Federal Reserve system. The people associated with this paper should presumably be disciplined, because what they’ve done is they’ve put out a conclusion which has created a lot of news that’s highly partisan based on analysis that wouldn’t be accepted in a first-semester econ class.” Read more.

— Jeff Cox

Oil prices rose 3% on Wednesday, after Vice PresidentJD Vancesaid Iran did not address U.S. red lines in nuclear talks this week and PresidentDonald Trumpreserves the right to use military force.

U.S. crudeoil rose $1.99, or 3.19%, to $64.32 per barrel by 10:09 a.m. ET. Global benchmarkBrentwas up $2.04, or 3.03%, to $69.46 per barrel.

U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner held nuclear talks with Iran in Geneva on Tuesday. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi described the discussions as “constructive,” according toIranian media. Araghchi said the talks yielded a general agreement on guiding principles.

Oil prices closed lower Tuesday as traders interpreted the foreign minister’s comments as a sign that the U.S. and Iran could still reach a settlement. Read more.

— Spencer Kimball

Palo Alto NetworksCEONikesh Aroraaddressed the recent downdraft in software stocks, telling analysts in anearningscall thatartificial intelligencewon’t replace cybersecurity “anytime soon.”

“I’m still confused why the market is treating AI as a threat to at least cybersecurity,” he said Tuesday. “I can’t speak for all of software, but one thing we’re definitely seeing is that customers have figured out that they need to drive more consistency in their security stack to be able to respond faster using AI.”

Shares sank 8% Wednesday following the cybersecurity company’s fiscalsecond-quarter results, which topped Wall Street estimates. However, third-quarter earnings guidance fell short of expectations. Read more.

PANW, 1-day

The three major averages began Wednesday’s session in the green.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 47 points, or 0.1%. The S&P 500 climbed 0.2%, along with the Nasdaq Composite.

— Sean Conlon

Madison Square Garden Sports and its predecessor since 2016

MSGS began trading in the first half of 2020 after the Knicks and Rangers were separated from Madison Square Garden Entertainment.

“We are exploring the opportunity to further create value for our shareholders by separating our two professional sports franchises into distinct companies,” said Jim Dolan, chief executive officer at MSGS. “This proposed transaction would provide each company with enhanced strategic flexibility, its own defined business focus and clear characteristics for investors.”

The Dolan family controls both Madison Square Garden Entertainment and Madison Square Garden Sports through the use of supervoting Class B shares, each of which holds 10 votes.

— Scott Schnipper

Economic data on housing activity and orders for long-lasting goods on Wednesday came in better than expected.

Housing starts totaled just over 1.4 million for December, better than the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 1.31 million, the Census Bureau reported. Building permits came in at 1.45 million, topping the forecast for 1.4 million.

In a separate report, the bureau said durable goods orders fell 1.4%, also for December. That was better than the outlook for a 2% decline. When excluding transportation, orders rose 0.9%.

— Jeff Cox

Mizuho believes thatPalantir’srecent pullback makes no sense given the accelerating adoption of its artificial intelligence platforms.

The bank upgraded the software analytics company, which creates tools for businesses and government agencies, to outperform from neutral. Analyst Gregg Moskowitz’s $195 price target implies that shares could rally 47% from here.

Shares of Palantir are up 7% over the past 12 months, but have plunged 25% this year.

PLTR, 1-year

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Lisa Kailai Han

New York-listed shares of British semiconductor firmArmticked 1.4% higher in premarket trading on Wednesday, after documents showedNvidiasold its stake in the company it once wanted to buy.

At the end of the third quarter, Nvidia held 1.1 million shares of Arm with a value of $155.8 million. The chip giant’s filing to the SEC on Tuesday showed it had offloaded the stock.

Nvidia had held shares in Arm since 2023, but wound down the size of its stake toward the end of 2024, according to past documents filed with the SEC. Read more.

ARM, 1-day

NVDA, 1-day

Amazon shares rose more than 1.6% after regulatory filings showed Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square grew its stake in the e-commerce giant by 65% during the fourth quarter. That makes Amazon the fund’s third-largest holding. The move comes after the stock snapped a nine-day losing streak.

Micron also gained more than 1% after David Tepper’s Appaloosa Management increased its holdings in the chipmaker.

MU 5-day chart

Amazongained 1.2% on Tuesday, ending the stock’s nine-day consecutive stretch of losses.

The stock shed roughly 18% of its value between Feb. 2 and Friday, marking the worst losing streak since 2006 and slashing more than $450 billion in market valuation as investors question the merits of itsartificial intelligencespending plans. The selling frenzy around Amazon is tied to the company’sfourth-quarter earnings reportreleased earlier this month.

Amazon said it expects to spend $200 billion in capital expenditures this year, a nearly 60% increase from last year and more than $50 billion above Wall Street’s forecast.

Amazon stock performance over the past year.

Shares of the company are down nearly 12.9% year to date.

— Annie Palmer, Pia Singh

Check out the companies making headlines in after-hours trading.

• Palo Alto Networks— Shares of the cybersecurity company tumbled almost 6% after Palo Alto issued a weak earnings forecast for the current quarter. The company sees adjusted earnings for the fiscal third quarter ranging from 78 cents to 80 cents per share, while the LSEG consensus sought 92 cents per share.
• Cadence Design Systems— The computational software company’s shares advanced nearly 4%. Cadence Design sees full-year adjusted earnings ranging from $8.05 to $8.15 per share, while the LSEG consensus called for $8.05 per share. The company also said itsyear-end backlogfor 2025 was a record $7.8 billion, adding that it expects to recognize $3.8 billion in revenue in the next 12 months from remaining performance obligations.
• Caesars Entertainment— The casino operator saw shares rise more than 3%. Revenue in thefourth quartercame in at $2.92 billion, surpassing the LSEG consensus estimate of $2.89 billion. Caesars Digital adjusted EBITDA for the period came in at $85 million, compared with $20 million a year ago.

For the full list, read here.

— Pia Singh