The market awaits the Federal Reserve decision; US stocks rise for two consecutive days. Computing power demand surges. Google reportedly visits China to inspect liquid cooling equipment.

U.S. Eastern Time on Tuesday (March 17), U.S. stocks edged higher and all three major indexes recorded a second straight day of gains. Investors continued to digest the impact of high oil prices on inflation, while also focusing on tonight’s Federal Reserve interest-rate decision. Market participants widely expect officials to keep rates unchanged, and the Fed will also release its latest dot plot tonight, giving investors a glimpse into the Fed’s internal views on future rate cuts.

【U.S. Stock Indexes】

At the close, the S&P 500 rose 0.25% to 6,716.09. The Dow Jones rose 0.10% to 46,993.26. The Nasdaq rose 0.47% to 22,479.53.

Nick Timiraos, the reporter known as the “New Fed communications correspondent,” said that the escalation of the situation in the Middle East strengthened the consensus that the Fed will hold steady. He emphasized three key signal windows to watch: the wording of the policy statement, the dot plot projections, and the Powell news conference. These will determine whether this easing cycle ends here, and any hawkish signals would directly hit rate-cut expectations and risk-asset pricing.

The probability of the meeting holding rates steady is as high as 98.9%, and expectations for 2026 have also fallen to just one 25-basis-point cut. The impact of the Iran-U.S. conflict pushing up oil prices on inflation has yet to show up, while the market’s view of the future interest-rate path has already become more conservative.

For the current market, U.S. stocks and oil prices rising in tandem is being seen by market participants as the most unusual price signal to date. Fawad Razaqzada of Forex.com said the market is increasingly showing a tendency to try to ignore the current tensions, but it has not fully let its guard down. If the conflict keeps dragging on, the risk is that it could put even greater pressure back on the stock market.

Louis Navellier, a strategist, believes that in a high-oil-price environment, the stock market can still rise, reflecting the market’s overall expectations for strong earnings and economic growth.

Michael Ball, a Bloomberg macro strategist, took a more cautious stance. He said: U.S. stocks may face more headwinds, because the S&P 500 valuation is on the expensive side, the probability of further Fed easing is lower, and earnings expectations have not yet fully reflected the more severe growth-inflation combination brought about by higher oil prices.

On the geopolitical front, U.S. President Trump again expressed his displeasure with NATO at the White House on the day. Trump said whether the U.S. should withdraw from NATO “is indeed something we should be considering.” When asked whether he is re-evaluating the U.S.-NATO relationship or even considering withdrawal, Trump said, “This is something we should be considering, and I don’t need Congress to make that decision.”

On the corporate front, according to Cailianpress, Google sent a team recently to inspect a product in Mainland China that is considered quite important to the development of U.S. artificial intelligence technology—liquid-cooling equipment used to cool data center servers. Although Google has not yet publicly discussed the matter, sources familiar with Google’s trip said that a procurement team sent by Google is in Mainland China visiting multiple companies that produce this type of product and holding talks with the relevant companies about procurement.

【U.S. Treasury Bonds】

U.S. Treasury yields stabilized. The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yield ended at 4.208%, while the 2-year U.S. Treasury yield, which is sensitive to Fed policy rates, ended at 3.684%.

【Popular U.S. Stocks】

Among popular U.S. stocks, Nvidia fell 0.70%, Google Class A rose 1.75%, Google Class C rose 1.64%, Apple rose 0.56%, Microsoft fell 0.14%, Amazon rose 1.63%, TSMC rose 1.90%, Meta fell 0.76%, Tesla rose 0.94%, Advanced Micro Devices fell 0.14%, and Intel fell 3.72%.

On key news, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said recently that its $1 trillion annual sales target for AI acceleration chips does not include the company’s other product lines, and that total revenue is expected to exceed that level.

Applied Intuition, an autonomous-driving software company, announced a partnership with Nvidia aimed at further accelerating the development and deployment of L2+ driver-assistance systems for global automakers.

According to reports, two people directly familiar with the matter said that on Friday OpenAI signed a new contract with Amazon Web Services to sell its artificial intelligence to U.S. government employees, covering both classified and unclassified work.

【Global Indexes】

In European equities, the FTSE 100 in the UK rose slightly by 0.83% to 10,404. The France CAC40 rose slightly by 0.49% to 7,974. Germany’s DAX rose slightly by 0.71% to 23,731.

In Asian equities, the Hang Seng Index rose slightly by 0.13% to 25,869. The China SOE Index rose slightly by 0.12% to 8,827. The Nikkei 225 closed nearly flat.

【China Indexes】

On March 17, overnight Hang Seng Tech Index futures rose 0.28%. The Nasdaq China Golden Dragon Index fell 0.73%. The FTSE China A50 Index rose 0.04%.

【China Concept Stocks】

Among popular China concept stocks, Tencent Holdings (HK) fell 1.52%, Alibaba fell 0.08%, Pinduoduo rose 0.51%, NetEase fell 0.56%, Baidu fell 0.91%, Trip.com rose 0.31%, Li Auto fell 1.48%, XPeng fell 4.68%, and NIO fell 1.16%.

【FX & Commodities】

On Tuesday, the U.S. dollar index rose first and then fell. It briefly surged above the $100 level intraday, but then quickly gave back all its gains and turned lower. It ultimately fell 0.14% to 99.575.

Spot gold was largely steady. While market participants watched the Iran conflict escalating again, they also waited for the policy decision the Fed is about to make. Gold continued to trade in a wide range around the $5,000 level. London gold finished down 0.21% at $5,002.12 per ounce. Spot silver also fluctuated around the $80 level; London silver ultimately fell 2.49% to $79.1 per ounce.

Due to Iran’s renewed attack on the United Arab Emirates, concerns in the market about a deterioration in global supply prospects intensified, and crude oil rebounded. WTI crude ultimately rose 2.95% to $96.26 per barrel. Brent crude surged strongly during the U.S. trading session and even climbed above $100, finishing up 3.28% to $103.5 per barrel.

【Key Highlights】

Trump says the U.S. should consider the possibility of withdrawing from NATO Disappointed with NATO

Trump said he doesn’t need Congress to make the decision to withdraw from NATO. He said there are currently no concrete plans, but he is not satisfied with the status quo. It won’t be “for too long” before the Strait of Hormuz can be safely navigated. The U.S. is not yet prepared to end the conflict with Iran, but it “will leave in the not-too-distant future.” Earlier, he criticized NATO allies for not helping the U.S., saying the U.S. no longer needs or desires countries within NATO to assist it.

“New Fed communications correspondent”: From “when to cut rates” to “whether to cut rates” Watch three key signal windows

Nick Timiraos, the “New Fed communications correspondent,” said the escalation of the situation in the Middle East strengthened the Fed hold-steady consensus. Watch three key signal windows: the wording of the policy statement, the dot plot projections, and the Powell news conference. These will determine whether this easing cycle ends here, and any hawkish signals would directly hit rate-cut expectations and risk-asset pricing.

Jensen Huang confirms: The company is confident in breaking through $1 trillion in revenue next year

At a company event on Tuesday (March 17) local time, Jensen Huang confirmed to analysts and investors that Nvidia expects to achieve, confirm, and deliver business of more than $1 trillion. “We are confident in achieving the revenue target of more than $1 trillion.” Jensen Huang said, “What I can state for certain is that demand is accelerating at a very large scale, and we will be able to support that demand through supply.”

Wall Street’s take on GTC: In Nvidia’s definition, computing power equals revenue Token is the new commodity

Nvidia’s GTC conference sends a core signal: the business logic of AI compute power is undergoing a fundamental reconfiguration—Token has become the new commodity, and compute power equals revenue. Bank of America believes that compared with the previous-generation Hopper, the Blackwell system has achieved a reduction of up to 35 times in cost per Token. The upcoming Rubin series is expected to further reduce that by another 2 to 35 times. This continuing compression in the Token cost curve is the fundamental driver behind the scaled expansion of demand.

OpenAI releases GPT-5.4 mini and nano: Closing in on flagship model performance at lower cost

OpenAI said that as smaller models are faster and more capable, developers don’t need to use a single model to handle all tasks. Instead, they can build a system: a large model handles decision-making, while small models execute tasks quickly and at scale. “GPT-5.4 mini is the most powerful small model we’ve created so far for this kind of workflow.”

Microsoft overhauls its AI division: Simplifies the Copilot product lineup to respond to customer complaints

Microsoft has merged development teams for its various versions of the Copilot AI assistant and appointed Jacob Andreou, who joined the company last year, as the new head of this organization. The move stems from user complaints that the many kinds of Copilot assistants are confusing. Executives are betting that this will help Microsoft stand out in a fiercely competitive market.

Meta further shrinks its metaverse strategy: Quest headsets will not be able to access HorizonWorlds

Meta said that users of its Quest headsets will no longer be able to access HorizonWorlds, a virtual space that lets users gather and play games in cartoon form. This move marks Meta further scaling back the core strategy once championed by Zuckerberg—its “metaverse” vision.

Applied Intuition and Nvidia reach a partnership on autonomous driving technology

Applied Intuition, an autonomous-driving software company, announced a partnership with Nvidia aimed at further accelerating the development and deployment of L2+ driver-assistance systems for global automakers. Applied Intuition has become a recommended software supplier for OEMs developing Nvidia-hardware-optimized versions of L2+ highway driving systems.

OpenAI and AWS reach an agreement to bid for U.S. government contracts

According to reports, two people directly familiar with the matter said that on Friday OpenAI signed a new contract with Amazon Web Services to sell its artificial intelligence to U.S. government employees, covering both classified and unclassified work. The contract will allow OpenAI to support the agency through the agreement hurriedly won via the Pentagon at the end of last month, after the agency dropped the existing AI services provider Anthropic.