Stocks mostly rose Wednesday as market participants shook off recent concerns over the health the of the U.S. economy and looked ahead towards earnings from artificial intelligence bellwether Nvidia. The broader market S&P 500 nudged above the flat line to break a four-day losing streak, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite advanced nearly 0.3%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, meanwhile, dropped nearly 190 points.

Here's how the market settled on Wednesday:

S&P 500 Index (SPY  ): +0.01% or +0.81 points to 5,956.06

Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA  ): -0.43% or -188.04 points to 43,433.12

Nasdaq Composite Index (QQQ  ): +0.26% or +48.88 points to 19,075.26

Nvidia's (NVDA  ) earnings come as market participants begin to question the long-term growth of artificial intelligence trade with the emergence of China's DeepSeek AI model, which is claimed to have been developed at a fraction of the cost of their high performance models. In the past two years, Nvidia's shares have rising nearly 480%, bringing its market cap to over $3 trillion to top Apple (AAPL  ) at times to be the most valuable U.S. company.

Wall Street's recent weakness was driven by two weaker-than-expected consumer confidence reports and a disappointing U.S. retail sales report -- diminishing market optimism surrounding the health of the U.S. consumer.

Bank of America U.S. Economist Stephen Juneau wrote in a Wednesday note that investors can get caught up in negative sentiment and should instead look at consumer spending trends for a better read on the American consumer.

"We also think the signal value from consumer surveys is limited as there has been an ongoing disconnect between sentiment and spending," Juneau wrote. "Sentiment has been weak since the start of the inflation wave, yet consumer spending has been remarkably robust. The upshot is that economic fundamentals and the hard data show little sign of a sharp downturn in activity."

In the News:

General Motors (GM  ) raised its quarterly dividend and launched a $6 billion share repurchase program on Wednesday in effort to reward investors as the automaker grapples with waning sales across the industry. The company is increasing its quarterly dividend by 25% to $0.15 per share, matching that of rival Ford Motor (F  ).

"The GM team's execution continues to be strong across all three pillars of our capital allocation strategy, which are to reinvest in the business for profitable growth, maintain a strong investment grade balance sheet, and return capital to our shareholders," CEO Mary Barra said in a press release.

On the Earnings Front:

Lowe's (LOW  ) reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings on Wednesday, and said it expects its sales decline to end in 2025.

Looking ahead, the home improvement retailer expects full-year total sales of between $83.5 billion to $84.5 billion, which would top fiscal 2024's total revenue of $83.67 billion at its high-end. Lowe's also expects comparable sales to range from flat to up 1% year-over-year and earnings per share between $12.15 to $12.40.

Ellison told analysts during the company's earnings call that while Lowe's is operating in "a challenging home improvement market," it is "well-positioned to capitalize on the home improvement recovery and take share when the market inflects."