Nvidia earnings: Wall Street sighs with relief after AI wave doesn’t crash

Amid a blackout of data due to the government shutdown, the $5tn chipmaker's report took on wider significance

Markets expectations around Wednesday's quarterly earnings report by the most valuable publicly traded company in the world had risen to a fever pitch. Anxiety over billions in investment in artificial intelligence pervaded, in part because the US has been starved of reliable economic data by the recent government shutdown.

Investors hoped that both questions would be in part answered by Nvidia's earnings and by a jobs report due on Thursday morning.