NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market is swinging between gains and losses on Friday, as Wall Street's wildJuly remains rocky. Amazon is leaping, but Apple is sinking, and rising oil prices are adding to worries about inflation already squeezing the bond market.
The S&P 500 fell 0.4% after erasing an early gain of 0.7%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 151 points, or 0.3%, as of 10:10 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.3% lower.
U.S. stocks initially seemed to be heading for gains as Amazon leaped 13.8% after reporting much stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Its profit more than tripled from a year earlier, thanks in part to an acceleration of growth in its cloud computing business.
Analysts said that could be a signal Amazon’s huge investments in artificial-intelligence technology are paying off, and Amazon increased its forecast for how much it will spend on investments this year.
The stock reaction was similar to what Microsoft got a day before, when it soared to its best day in nearly 18 years on signals that its AI investments may also be yielding higher profits.
Worries had been rising on Wall Street that companies pouring billions of dollars into AI data centers may not get enough profit and productivity to make all the investments worth it. That weighed on the broad U.S. stock market, causing its sharp swings throughout July, along with worries that prices shot too high for the stocks of companies selling the processors and computer memory that such “hyperscalers” are scrambling to buy.
Those chipmakers swung sharply again on Friday. Micron Technology, for example, went from an early jump of 6.4% to a loss of 4.8%, and its moves helped pull the S&P 500 behind it.
More firmly on the losing end of Wall Street was Apple, which fell 9.3% despite reporting stronger profit for the latest quarter than expected. Its forecast for growth in the current quarter fell short of expectations, which executives pinned on a supply crunch in components that are getting vacuumed up in the AI boom.
Analysts say Apple has almost become an “anti AI” bet among Big Tech stocks because of its more limited spending on the technology versus rivals.
Also pressuring stocks was another swing higher in oil prices as uncertainty continues about when crude can begin flowing freely from producers in the Middle East to customers worldwide because of the war with Iran.
The price for a barrel of Brent crude rose 1.8% to $88.42 after careening between $72 and $102 earlier in July.
Higher oil prices have pushed up prices for gasoline, with a gallon of regular costing an average of nearly $4.11 across the United States, up from $3.85 a month ago, according to AAA. More expensive oil puts upward pressure on prices for virtually every product that rides on a ship, plane or track before it gets to a customer.
The worries about inflation sent yields in the bond market even higher.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury jumped to 4.73% from 4.68% late Thursday and from just 3.97% before the war with Iran sent oil prices shooting higher. That's a notable move for the bond market, and the leap has already sent the average long-term U.S. mortgage rate to its highest level in a year.
Longer-term yields jumped on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve's chair, Kevin Warsh, promised again to get inflation back down to 2% but did not say how he plans to get it there. The Fed voted again to keep interest rates steady on Wednesday, even though inflation continues to remain well above 2%.
Higher interest rates could keep a lid on inflation, but they could also slow the economy and undercut prices for stocks and other investments. President Donald Trump, who nominated Warsh to lead the Fed, has also lobbied for lower interest rates instead of higher.
In stock markets abroad, the swings were even wilder for chip stocks.
Seoul’s Kospi index soared 17.9% for its best day in history. The index is dominated by two tech giants, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, which both surged at least 26.8% on Friday.
The Kospi, though, still lost 22% in July despite Friday’s historic move. That’s after it more than doubled in the first six months of the year.
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AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed to this report.
