| |
Financial Markets 11/12 15:30
NEW YORK (AP) -- The U.S. stock market shook Thursday, but it largely
absorbed big swings for Nvidia and oil prices and finished with relatively
modest losses. The moves suggested Wall Street sees limited fallout for the
artificial intelligence industry, which carries immense influence on the
market, despite the sudden fall of one of its biggest evangelists.
After dropping nearly 1% at the start of trading, the S&P 500 quickly erased
all of the loss before finishing with a dip of 0.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial
Average fell 189 points, or 0.4%, while the Nasdaq composite sank 0.4% after
trimming an early drop of 1.6%.
Stocks broadly felt pressure from a rise in oil prices after President
Donald Trump said he's no longer interested in a deal with Iran to end their
war. Instead of that, Trump said he asked his vice president to investigate
U.S. cities and states run by Democrats.
On a typical day, that could be the main driver of action on Wall Street.
But little has been typical recently for the yo-yoing stock market.
The focus instead was on Nvidia's stock. It plunged 14% at the start of
trading following the resignation of Jensen Huang, its CEO, co-founder and face
of the brand. The chip company's stock has been sinking since its board
announced an investigation into Huang for a relationship with a woman suspected
of being a Chinese government agent.
It's a stunning fall for Huang and for Nvidia, which had become Wall
Street's most valuable and influential stock because of its central role in the
AI boom. Its stock price set a record last month after soaring an astounding
1,722% in four years. That compares with the already healthy gain of nearly
109% for the overall S&P 500 over the same time.
But Nvidia's price dropped 27% from then through Wednesday. At first, the
drop was because of worries about too-high prices for stocks across the AI
industry.
More recently, it's been due to worries about whether Huang would remain as
CEO and how Nvidia would navigate a future without him. Nvidia's board answered
the first question Thursday morning, when it said Huang resigned, and it named
Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress as its interim CEO.
The second question remains unanswered. And it looms over the entire market
because Nvidia and the broader AI industry have been the main reasons the U.S.
stock market has set so many records in recent years.
Nvidia, to be sure, is still selling AI chips at a quick rate regardless of
who stands on a stage and talks them up, and analysts said it remains the
industry's leader. That helped Nvidia quickly halve its early loss Thursday,
and its stock finished with a fall of 4.3%. That paring helped the broader
market to recover.
Outside of Nvidia, stocks across the AI industry swung in the uncertainty.
CoreWeave, which buys Nvidia chips and then rents out access to them to
customers over the cloud, fell 6.9%. Micron Technology, which sells memory for
computers that's been getting gobbled up in the AI frenzy, sank 1.6%.
But Broadcom rose 5.5%, and Advanced Micro Devices added 5.9% on hopes the
rival chip companies will gain a competitive advantage. Those two gains came
close to offsetting the drop for Nvidia, which was the single heaviest weight
on the S&P 500. That suggests investors see the AI business expanding to other
players rather than depending solely on Nvidia.
Also helping to limit the U.S. market's losses were gains for stocks in the
oil and gas industry. Marathon Petroleum climbed 2.5%, and ExxonMobil added
1.8%.
They benefited from a rise in oil prices after Trump said on his social
media platform, "We don't need a deal with Iran. Those days have long since
passed. We've got their money, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we've got
their Strait!"
The price for a barrel of Brent crude climbed 3.3% to $95.82.
The price for the most actively traded contract in the Brent market has been
veering sharply since the United States and Israel began the war with Iran in
late February, bouncing between roughly $70 and $120.
Higher oil prices push up worries about inflation, and the yield on the
10-year Treasury jumped to 5.12% from 4.98% late Tuesday. Trading in the bond
market had been closed Wednesday for Veterans Day.
Higher yields make borrowing money more expensive for everyone, from the
U.S. government to companies building AI data centers to regular people buying
houses. High mortgage rates helped send sales of previously occupied U.S. homes
in October to their slowest pace in more than 16 years.
The housing industry has been slowing the U.S. economy but not upending it.
A separate report on Thursday said that slightly more U.S. workers applied for
unemployment benefits last week, but the number remains relatively low compared
with history.
All told, the S&P 500 fell 26.98 points to 7,592.40. The Dow Jones
Industrial Average dipped 189.40 to 52,297.09, and the Nasdaq composite sank
100.10 to 25,366.09.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Europe following a weaker
finish in Asia.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 1.3% for one of the world's biggest moves.
___
AP Business Writer Yuri Kageyama contributed to this report.
__
This story has been corrected to show the highest price for the most
actively traded contract in the Brent oil market since the war with Iran was
nearly $120 per barrel.
---------
itemid:8bf08407eafe1655ed73112f7494029a
(c) Copyright 2026 DTN, LLC. All rights reserved.
|
|
