Stocks tread water as traders await Nvidia earnings and the PCE inflation report

Global stock markets moved cautiously as investors waited for two events seen as pivotal for near-term direction: Nvidia's earnings report and the PCE inflation report, the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge. World stocks inched up even as US stock futures fell, reflecting split positioning ahead of the releases. Oil prices dropped on hopes that tensions around the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil shipping chokepoint, could ease. Commentator Jim Cramer described the Nvidia report as a referendum on the broader trade in artificial-intelligence stocks, underscoring how much weight investors are placing on the chipmaker's results to validate or challenge AI-related valuations across the market. What happens next depends heavily on whether Nvidia's numbers meet the high expectations built into AI stocks, and whether the PCE report shows inflation cooling enough to support continued rate-cut bets.