March 19 (Reuters) - Wall Street's major indexes gained ground on Tuesday with chip stocks paring earlier losses as Nvidia erased losses and investors looked ahead to the Federal Reserve's policy meeting conclusion on Wednesday for clues on interest rate policy.
Shares in chip maker Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab rebounded from earlier losses, last trading up 1.7%, after it revealed pricing and shipment plans for its hotly anticipated Blackwell B200 chip artificial intelligence chip, which it says is up to 30 times faster than its current chips.
After Nvidia's announcement late on Monday, rivals such as Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O), opens new tab and Intel (INTC.O), opens new tab lost ground. The high-flying Philadelphia Semiconductor index (.SOX), opens new tab pared losses after hitting its lowest point since Feb. 29 but was still down 0.6%.
Investors were also preparing a day ahead of the Fed's policy update, including a press conference from Chair Jerome Powell. Robust inflation data has pulled back bets for the first rate cut in June to about 59.6% from about 69% at the start of last week, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.
"There's optimism that the Fed's not going to surprise us a lot on Wednesday," said Gene Goldman, chief investment officer at Cetera Investment Management. "We think three cuts are still on the table."
But, still he sees Powell reminding the market that he is cautious about inflation and that policy will depend on economic data and expects the central bank to update its inflation and economic growth projections.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI), opens new tab outpaced its Wall Street peers, supported by gains in McDonald's (MCD.N), opens new tab, Home Depot (HD.N), opens new tab and Apple Inc (AAPL.O), opens new tab.
At 02:24 p.m. the Dow was up 217.83 points, or 0.56%, at 39,008.45 while the S&P 500 (.SPX), opens new tab gained 20.81 points, or 0.40%, to 5,170.23 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC), opens new tab climbed 55.97 points, or 0.34%, to 16,159.42.
Nine of the 11 major S&P 500 industry sectors were advancing with energy (.SPNY), opens new tab leading gains as oil prices rose.
Communications services (.SPLRCL), opens new tab was the biggest decliner with Meta Platforms (META.O), opens new tab among its biggest losers.
All three major stock indexes had finished higher in the previous session, with the Nasdaq bouncing back from two successive small weekly losses as growth stocks such as Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab and Tesla boosted the tech-heavy index.
Among other movers, crypto-exchange operator Coinbase Global (COIN.O), opens new tab and miners Riot Platforms (RIOT.O), opens new tab and Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA.O), opens new tab shed between 2.5% and 3.7%, tracking the sharp slide in bitcoin.
MicroStrategy (MSTR.O), opens new tab shares were down more than 7% after the company announced it had completed a $603.75 million convertible debt offering - its second in a week - to fund bitcoin purchases.
AI server maker Super Micro Computer (SMCI.O), opens new tab was down 9% after announcing that it will sell 2 million shares that could fetch about $2 billion.
Spire Global (SPIR.N), opens new tab jumped 34.6% after it announced a collaboration with Nvidia for AI-driven weather prediction.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2.23-to-1 ratio on the NYSE which showed 227 new highs and 48 new lows.
On the Nasdaq 2,558 stocks rose and 1,596 fell as advancing issues outnumbered decliners by about a 1.6-to-1 ratio.
The S&P 500 posted 44 new 52-week highs and one new low while the Nasdaq recorded 65 new highs and 115 new lows.
(This story has been corrected to show that the Nasdaq was up, not down, in bullet 3 in the summary)
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Reporting by Bansari Mayur Kamdar and Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza, Maju Samuel and Aurora Ellis
