NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market seems to be holding steadier, for now at least. The S&P 500 rose 0.4% early Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 242 points, and the Nasdaq composite gained 0.5%. The modest gains come a day after the market started off with a rally only to end sharply lower. Stocks appeared to get a boost after an influential official at the Federal Reserve suggested he may support cutting interest rates again in December.
Among the big tech stocks that tend to drive the market, Nvidia fell slightly while Alphabet rose. Treasury yields fell, while cryptocurrency prices kept sinking.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
Wall Street futures quickly reversed course and turned positive early Friday in very volatile markets, particularly when it comes to artificial intelligence.
Futures for the S&P 500 rose 0.3%, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.6%. Nasdaq futures edged up 0.2% after being down overnight. Yet technology-heavy Nasdaq may be on its way to its worst week since President Donald Trump rolled out his tariff policy in April.
Nvidia erased a 1.4% overnight loss, getting back to Thursday's closing price as its shares continued to ping-pong. Worries persist about a possible bubble in artificial intelligence -related shares, even after the chipmaker posted a big profit for the summer and forecast strong revenue that easily cleared analysts’ expectations.
Bitcoin continued its slide, nearly falling under the $80,000 threshold before turning around. The original cryptocurrency is down 34% since reaching an all-time high around $126,000 on Oct. 6. It was at $83,700 early Friday morning.
Bright spots included mall-based clothing retailers Ross Stores and The Gap, which both beat Wall Street's sales and profit expectations. The Gap jumped more than 6% before the bell, while Ross gained 2.8%.
At midday in Europe, Germany's DAX declined 0.4%, while Britain's FTSE 100 and the CAC 40 were both unchanged.
In Asian trading, Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 2.4% to 48,625.88 as the government approved a 21.3 trillion yen ($135 billion) stimulus package that Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi promised as part of efforts to revive the sluggish economy. However, the plans for higher government spending that would delay progress toward trimming down the national debt have put the yen and Japanese government bonds under pressure.
The yield on the 30-year government bond has been touching record levels on heavy selling, hitting 3.37% on Friday.
Meanwhile, data released Friday showed the country's core inflation rate excluding volatile food prices rose to 3.0% in October from 2.9% in September.
Japan reported Friday that its exports to the rest of the world rose in October, while those to the U.S. fell. Higher shipments to elsewhere in Asia helped offset the drop in exports to the U.S due to President Donald Trump's higher tariffs.
In the stock market, selling of tech shares dominated, with computer chip test equipment maker Advantest sinking 12.1%, while chip maker Tokyo Electron lost 7.1%.
South Korea’s KOSPI tumbled 3.8% to 3,853.26, reversing Thursday’s gains. Samsung Electronics sank 5.8%, while SK Hynix plunged 8.8%.
In Chinese markets, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index skidded 2.4 % to 25,220.02 while the Shanghai Composite index slid nearly 2.5% to 3,834.89, with pressure also coming from escalating friction between China and Japan over Taiwan.
Taiwan’s Taiex shed 3.6%, with market heavyweight TSMC, the world's biggest contract maker of semiconductors, falling 4.8%.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 1.6% to 8,416.50. while India's BSE Sensex declined 0.5%.
“What began as a textbook “Nvidia bounce” flipped into one of the most violent intraday reversals since the April dump, and Asia — ever the obedient understudy — marched directly into the same plunge tank on the open," Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.
In energy trading, U.S. benchmark crude oil slid 45 cents to $58.45 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, lost 33 cents to $63.05 per barrel.
