– Russia stocks were lower after the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Mining, Oil&Gas and Telecoms sectors led shares lower.

Shares of Gilead Sciences, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Vertex Pharmaceuticals got a boost from clinical trial results and regulatory decisions.

The fast-casual Mediterranean chain has been on fire this year.

Nvidia's second-quarter earnings beat Wall Street analysts' expectations, with total sales and revenue from data centers coming in ahead of estimates amid strong demand for AI chips.

Nvidia reported second-quarter earnings and revenue that beat analysts' estimates, though the pace of its growth slowed. Shares fell in extended trading Wednesday following the release.

Nvidia is holding the investment world in thrall ahead of an earnings report later today that, even if it delivers the expected doubling of second-quarter revenue, may not satisfy investors accustomed to market-moving outperformance. The chipmaker's market value was around $390 billion on the eve of the launch of artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, ChatGPT, less than two years ago. Trade in Asia was light and moves modest ahead of the release, and European equity futures were flat.

– Japan stocks were higher after the close on Wednesday, as gains in the Paper&Pulp, Transport and Railway&Bus sectors led shares higher.

– Australia stocks were higher after the close on Wednesday, as gains in the Consumer Staples, Financials and A-REITs sectors led shares higher.

Lego's sales of its colorful plastic bricks outpaced the overall toy market in the first half of the year, driven by strong demand in Europe and North America, the Denmark-based toymaker said on Wednesday. The family-owned Lego company said sales from January through June rose 13% to 31 billion Danish crowns ($4.65 billion). By comparison, Lego increased first-half sales by 1% last year and 17% in 2022, year over year.

In this piece, I evaluated two technology stocks: Palantir Technologies (PLTR) and Alphabet (GOOGL). A closer look suggests a neutral view of Palantir and a bullish view of Alphabet. Palantir Technologies specializes in big data analytics, while Alphabet is a holding company that owns the Google search engine and sells apps and content on Google Play and YouTube. Alphabet also generates revenue from cloud services fees, licensing revenue, and hardware products like Chromebooks and other devices.