US stocks trade mixed as investors cheer Nvidia earnings and assess debt ceiling talks

The Nasdaq Composite surged after Nvidia posted stellar quarterly results and gave investors even more to hope for with strong guidance.

• The Nasdaq led soared on Thursday on AI hype generated by Nvidia's big earnings report. 

• Shares of the chipmaker shot up 24% in the session. 
• Investors were awaiting further updates on the progress of debt ceiling negotiations in the capitol.  

US stocks closed mixed but were mostly higher on Thursday as Nvidia's earnings results drove a strong rally in the Nasdaq Composite.

Shares of the chipmaker shot up 24% in the session, with the company on track to a achieve $1 trillion market valuation, joining the ranks of mega-cap tech titans like Alphabet, Apple, and Microsoft. 

"The computer industry is going through two simultaneous transitions — accelerated computing and generative AI," Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said.

Huang added: "A trillion dollars of installed global data center infrastructure will transition from general purpose to accelerated computing as companies race to apply generative AI into every product, service and business process."

Meanwhile, markets are awaiting news on the debt ceiling negotiations. 

"It seems almost certain that we will not be able to get past early June," Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said during at The Wall Street Journal's CEO Council Summit this week. "If Congress doesn't act to raise the debt ceiling, and if we hit the so-called X-date without that occurring, there will be some obligations that we will be unable to pay."

Here's where US indexes stood shortly after the 4:oo p.m. ET open on Thursday:

• S&P 500:4,151.31, up 0.88% 
• Dow Jones Industrial Average: 32,764.72, down 0.11% (35.20 points)
• Nasdaq Composite: 12,698.09, up 1.71% 

Here's what else is happening:

• Insider breaks down everything you missed during Bill Ackman's first-quarter investor call on Wednesday.
• Nvidia's latest quarterly results indicates that there's an AI "goldrush" on the way for stocks, a top chip analyst says.
•  The US central bank won't stop raising interest rates in 2023, according to a top-performing strategist says.
• Regional banks are almost "certainly" going to face a credit crunch, Nouriel Roubini says, which will erode growth in the US economy.
• Goldman Sachs chief David Solomon warned that US inflation will be much stickier than expected.