NEW YORK (AP) — More drops for chip stocks and other AI winners overshadowed gains for the majority of Wall Street. The S&P 500 was little changed Thursday, even though more than two-thirds of the stocks within the index rose. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 1.1% to another record, while the Nasdaq composite dropped 0.8% after erasing an early gain. Stocks broadly got help from data showing U.S. hiring slowed last month. That pushed traders
to trim bets for a possible hike to interest rates later this month. But chip stocks from Seoul to New York continued to slide.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
NEW YORK (AP) — More drops for stocks of computer chip companies and other winners of the artificial-intelligence boom are weighing on Wall Street Thursday, and they're continuing to mute gains for the majority of the U.S. market.
The S&P 500 fell 0.4%, even though two out of every three stocks within the index were rising. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 372 points, or 0.7%, with an hour of trading remaining, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.1% lower after erasing an early gain.
Stocks broadly got some help from a report showing that U.S. employers added 57,000 jobs to their payrolls last month. That’s growth, which is good for the economy, but it was also short of the 100,000 jobs that economists expected and a slowdown from May’s hiring pace.
The bright side of the weaker-than-expected result is that it could keep pressure off inflation, which has been accelerating worldwide because of jumps in oil prices caused by the war with Iran. And now that oil prices are back below where they were before the war, if inflation slows in upcoming months, the Federal Reserve may feel less need to raise interest rates several times this year.
That would be a relief for investors, who tend to love lower interest rates because they can give the economy a boost by making it cheaper for U.S. households and businesses to borrow money and spend. Lower rates also tend to push upward on prices for stocks and other investments.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury got to 4.50% in the morning, up from 3.97% just before the war. But after the release of the U.S. hiring data, it immediately fell back to 4.46% before drifting to 4.48%.
Traders now see an 80% chance that the Fed and its new chairman, Kevin Warsh, will not raise the federal funds rate at its next meeting later this month. That’s up from the 71% chance seen a day earlier, according to data from CME Group.
“The labor market isn’t overheating,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economic strategist at Annex Wealth Management. He said the data could allow the Fed to wait through the summer to get more clues about how inflation is behaving before having to decide on hiking rates.
On Wall Street, the company behind LaCroix sparkling waters helped lead the market and climbed 8.4% after National Beverage said it will pay a special dividend of $3.25 for each share that investors hold.
Dollar Tree rose 2.1% after the retailer said it approved a program to send up to $2.5 billion to its shareholders by buying back its stock.
Stocks of companies in the crypto industry were also strong after the price of bitcoin rose roughly 2.6%, a day after dropping near its lowest level since 2024. Robinhood Markets rose 4.2%, and Coinbase Global gained 4.6%.
But more drops for computer chip companies weighed on indexes. They’ve come under pressure because of worries that their stock prices shot too high in the frenzy around AI and that all the spending on chips and data centers may not result in as much profit and productivity growth as hoped.
Memory maker Micron Technology erased an early gain to drop 5.8%, a day after plunging 10.6%. Nvidia fell 2.2%, and Lam Research sank 11.4%. They were some of the heaviest weights on the S&P 500 because they've grown so huge in size amid AI mania.
Nvidia has a total value of nearly $4.7 trillion on the stock market, for example, which means that its stock's movements have more weight on the S&P 500 than any other.
In stock markets abroad, continued drops for chip companies sent indexes sharply lower in several Asian markets. South Korea's Kospi index sank 7.9% due to losses for companies like SK Hynix. That’s its worst drop since a 10% plunge a little more than a week ago.
Indexes also fell 2.5% in Tokyo and 2% in Shanghai.
European indexes were stronger, and France’s CAC 40 rallied 1.7%.
In the oil market, prices swung through the day on hopes for negotiations for a permanent end to the war with Iran. Brent crude, the international standard, settled at $71.80 per barrel, up 0.3%.
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AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Matt Ott contributed to this report.
