By Niket Nishant and Utkarsh Hathi
Nov 12 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes staged a turnaround on Thursday after higher oil prices lifted energy shares even as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's exit stirred
concerns about the future of the AI heavyweight.
The chip giant's shares were last down 4.2%, having bounced off session lows. Retail investors bought Nvidia shares worth about $111 million in the first half hour of trading, the biggest opening bid on record for the stock, according to data from Vanda Analytics.
Eight of the 11 major S&P 500 sector indexes were in positive territory, with energy leading gains with a 1.3% jump.
Oil prices rose after US President Donald Trump said "we don't need a deal with Iran."
At 11:38 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 125.85 points, or 0.24%, to 52,612.34, the S&P 500 added 13.09 points, or 0.17%, to 7,632.47 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 34.77 points, or 0.14%, to 25,500.96.
"We've spent two years in a market where the indexes sat at record highs while most of the companies inside them traded well below theirs," said Bill Mann, chief investment strategist at Motley Fool Asset Management.
"A rally that doesn't depend on a handful of names is the first thing we'd want to see if that's going to change."
AI TRADE IN CONFUSION
Still, some investors warned that questions will persist about the future of AI companies that have deep ties with Nvidia.
The company has backed several firms, including its own customers, through financing arrangements that now face greater scrutiny after Huang's departure.
"Nvidia doesn't just sell chips. It also stands behind some of the financing that helps customers build the data centers those chips go into," said Matthew Tuttle, founder and CEO of Tuttle Capital Management.
"How much demand comes from customers who can pay on their own? How much needs an Nvidia investment or guarantee? And what happens to profits if that support gets more expensive?"
The Philadelphia Semiconductor index rose 0.2%.
Neocloud company Nebius said its 2026 revenue would come in at the low end of its previous forecast, pulling its shares down 17%. Peer CoreWeave dropped about 6%.
Other data center-related firms IREN and Applied Digital fell 5% and 4%, respectively.
However, shares of some Magnificent Seven firms advanced, with Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon up over 1% each.
Nvidia's rivals Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom were up over 6% each.
INFLATION DATA AWAITED, OIL RISES
Investors are also awaiting the release of the Producer Price Index on Friday, which will follow a hotter-than-expected consumer price reading earlier this week.
Traders see a December rate hike by the Federal Reserve as a certainty, with about an 8% chance of an outsized 50-basis-point increase, according to the CME FedWatch tool.
Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack said she does not believe that the central bank needs to shift to more aggressive rate rises to combat inflation.
Separately, Michael Saylor's Strategy fell 3.7% after index operator MSCI said it will remove the stock from its global indexes.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 2.15-to-1 ratio on the NYSE, and by a 2.31-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P 500 posted 18 new 52-week highs and 2 new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 35 new highs and 173 new lows.
(Reporting by Niket Nishant and Utkarsh Hathi in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Darshan Kumar; Editing by Anil D'Silva and Devika Syamnath)
