All three major US stock indexes were down in late-morning trading Wednesday, as investors interpret the latest batch of inflation data and await the Federal Reserve's latest decision on interest rates to be announced in the afternoon.
The US Producer Price Index rose by 0.7% in February following a 0.5% increase in January and above the 0.3% gain expected in a survey compiled by Bloomberg as of 8:15 a.m. ET. Core PPI, which excludes food and energy prices, rose by 0.5%, above the 0.3% gain expected but down from a 0.8% rise in January.
In company news, Coupang (CPNG) said late Tuesday it has created an "AI factory" with Nvidia (NVDA), which is supporting the company's e-commerce logistics and delivery services. Under the partnership, Coupang's Intelligent Cloud system is being integrated with Nvidia's DGX SuperPOD to form a self-service AI ecosystem, the company said. Coupang shares were down 2% around midday, while Nvidia shares were up 0.2%.
Alibaba Group's (BABA) cloud unit said Wednesday it will raise prices for select AI compute and storage services starting April 18 due to surging global demand and higher hardware expenses. Alibaba shares were up 0.2%.
Amazon.com's (AMZN) Amazon Web Services could achieve $600 billion in annual sales by 2036 amid the ongoing AI boom, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing comments made by CEO Andy Jassy. Amazon shares were down 1.5%.
Lululemon Athletica (LULU) reported fiscal Q4 earnings late Tuesday of $5.01 per diluted share, down from $6.14 a year earlier but above the FactSet consensus analyst estimate of $4.78. Fiscal Q4 revenue was $3.64 billion, up from $3.61 billion a year ago and above the FactSet consensus of $3.57 billion. For fiscal Q1, the company said it expects EPS of $1.63 to $1.68 on revenue of $2.40 billion to $2.43 billion. Analysts polled by FactSet expect EPS of $2.07 on revenue of $2.48 billion. For the full year, Lululemon said it expects EPS of $12.10 to $12.30 on revenue of $11.35 billion to $11.50 billion. Analysts polled by FactSet expect EPS of $12.51 on revenue of $11.5 billion. Lululemon founder and major shareholder Chip Wilson said Wednesday that David Mussafer's decision to leave the company's board was a "step in the right direction" but "glaring governance deficiencies remain." Lululemon shares were up 3.1%.
Price: 20.39, Change: -0.41, Percent Change: -2.00