NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is edging back from its records on Tuesday as the price of crude oil tumbles and technology stocks weaken.
The S&P 500 was down 0.3% in midday trading, a day after setting an all-time high for the 46th time this year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 77 points, or 0.2%, as of 11:30 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.8% lower.
Exxon Mobil dropped 2.3%, and energy stocks fell to some of Wall Street’s sharpest losses after oil prices tumbled roughly 5%. A barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, has fallen back below $74 from more than $80 last week.
Crude has weakened as China’s flagging economic growth raises concerns about weaker-than-expected demand for oil. At the same time, worries have receded about Israel possibly attacking Iranian oil facilities as part of its retaliation against Iran’s missile attack early this month. Iran is a major producer of crude, and a strike could upend its exports to China and elsewhere.
Nvidia was the heaviest weight on the S&P 500 and fell 4.5%. It’s a cooldown for the chip company, whose stock is still up 166.3% for the year so far on euphoria about the profits created by the boom around artificial-intelligence technology.
Dutch chip supplier ASML fell, with its U.S.-traded shares down 16.3%, after CEO Christophe Fouquet said AI continues to offer strong upside potential but “other market segments are taking longer to recover.”
Also dragging on the U.S. stock market was UnitedHealth Group. The insurer fell 6.2% despite reporting better results for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It lowered the top end of its forecasted range for profit over the full year.
Helping to keep the S&P 500 and Dow close to their records set on Monday were gains for several financial companies following better-than-expected profit reports for the summer.
Bank of America rose 1.9%, and CEO Brian Moynihan said his company benefited from higher average loans and fees for investment banking and asset management. Charles Schwab jumped 8.2% after likewise delivering better results than expected. More customers opened brokerage accounts at the company, helping to bring its total client assets to a record $9.92 trillion.
Walgreens Boots Alliance was another winner, up 13.1%, after topping analysts’ forecasts. The drugstore chain also said it will close about 1,200 locations over the next three years as it tries to turn around its struggling U.S. business.
Chipmaker Wolfspeed jumped 22.3% to trim its loss for the year to 68% after the Biden-Harris administration announced Tuesday that it plans to provide up to $750 million in direct funding to the company. The money will support its new silicon carbide factory in North Carolina that makes the wafers used in advanced computer chips.
In the bond market, trading of Treasurys resumed after a holiday on Monday, and yields slipped following a weaker-than-expected report on manufacturing in New York state.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.04% from 4.10% late Friday. Manufacturing has been one of the areas of the U.S. economy hurt most by high interest rates caused by the Federal Reserve in its efforts to slow the economy enough to stamp out high inflation.
Now, though, the Fed has begun cutting interest rates as it’s widened its focus to include keeping the economy humming instead of just fighting high inflation.
Recent reports showing the U.S. economy remains stronger than expected have also raised optimism that the Fed can pull off a perfect landing where it gets inflation down to 2% without causing a recession that many had thought would be necessary.
In stock markets abroad, Chinese stocks fell sharply as doubts continue about whether the government will offer enough fiscal stimulus to prop up the world’s second-largest economy.
Stocks in Shanghai fell 2.5%, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dropped 3.7%.
Indexes were mixed elsewhere in Asia and in Europe.
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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
