Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, Thursday. Reuters-Yonhap
NEW YORK — The U.S. stock market is slipping Thursday after oil prices resumed their climb.
The S&P 500 fell 0.3 percent and is on track for a fourth drop in five days after setting its all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 83 points, or 0.2 percent, as of 1:01 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.4 percent lower.
A halt in the torrid run for stocks benefiting from the artificial-intelligence boom has slowed the U.S. market recently. Not even another better-than-expected profit report from Nvidia was enough to kick it back into gear.
The chip company reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected, while also forecasting revenue for the current quarter that cleared analysts’ estimates. “The buildout of AI factories — the largest infrastructure expansion in human history — is accelerating at extraordinary speed,” CEO Jensen Huang said.
But such performances and such talk have become routine, and Nvidia's stock swiveled between losses and gains before falling 1.4 percent.
Some analysts said the weakness may have simply been because investors were locking in profits after Nvidia’s stock had soared nearly 70 percent over the prior year, more than double the S&P 500’s 27 percent jump. The broad AI industry is also getting criticism for becoming too expensive, as well as too circular as Nvidia has bought ownership stakes in companies that use its own chips that drive Nvidia’s revenue.
Pressure built on Wall Street, meanwhile, as the price for a barrel of Brent crude oil climbed 1.7 percent to $106.81 and trimmed its loss for the week. Oil prices have been swinging up and down with uncertainty about how long the war with Iran will keep the Strait of Hormuz shut, which is preventing oil tankers from exiting the Persian Gulf to deliver crude.
The higher oil prices pushed Treasury yields upward in the bond market, resuming rises following a slowdown the day before.
Climbing yields have cranked up the pressure on financial markets worldwide. They're slowing economies and weighing on prices for stocks and all kinds of other investments. Besides driving up rates for mortgages, high yields could also curtail companies’ borrowing to build the AI data centers that have been supporting the U.S. economy’s growth recently.
Source: Korea Times News
