US stocks were mixed on Wednesday as investors bided their time ahead of chipmaker Nvidia's (NVDA) earnings report, seen as crucial to keeping confidence in the broader market aloft.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI), which closed at an all-time high on Tuesday, added about 0.1%. The benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC) slid more than 0.1% while tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) was down more than 0.5%.

Stocks are caught in cautious trade ahead of Nvidia's second quarter results after the bell on Wednesday. The $3.2 trillion AI juggernaut's report will serve as a litmus test for AI spending and the tech sector, and could end up moving the market as a whole.

Traders are expecting a swing of almost 10% in the chipmaker's shares in either direction, depending on whether hopes for another blowout quarter are met. Wall Street forecasts Nvidia earnings grew by roughly 109% and revenue by 99%, year-on-year. Updates on any potential delays for Nvidia's new Blackwell chip will be in particular focus.

Nvidia's stock is up about 160% this year so far. Shares were little changed in Wednesday's premarket, after a wobbly start to the week.

Elsewhere in techs, Apple (AAPL) made the rare move of cutting 100 jobs in its digital services group, a day after the iPhone maker announced it was replacing its long-standing CFO.

While Nvidia is the star of the earnings docket, eyes are on Salesforce (CRM) results to shed light on whether software companies are starting to see a return on their AI investments. Meanwhile. CrowdStrike's (CRWD) report should give insight to the cost of the fallout from the global Windows outage in July.