Wall Street is drifting in mixed trading on Wednesday after another discouraging update on inflation and a recovery for technology stocks.
The S&P 500 slipped 0.1 per cent in early trading, still near its all-time high set at the start of the week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 235 points, or 0.5 per cent, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2 per cent higher.
Gains for tech stocks helped support the market, like Micron Technology’s 4.3 per cent. They had stumbled the day before after momentum suddenly halted for stocks riding excitement around artificial-intelligence technology.
Nvidia, the chip company that became one of the first faces of the AI boom, rose 2.4 per cent and was the strongest force pushing upward on the S&P 500. Its CEO, Jensen Huang, got an invitation to join U.S. President Donald Trump on his trip to China, where they could discuss allowing shipments of Nvidia AI chips to the world’s second-largest economy.
Earlier in the day, Japan’s Softbank Group Corp. said that its profit for the 12 months through March zoomed by nearly five-fold from the previous year as its AI investments paid off.
But most stocks outside of the technology industry fell, as pressure builds on Wall Street.
“Corporate earnings and AI momentum are acting as the market’s primary shock absorbers, but the road is getting significantly rougher,” said Tim Waterer, chief market analyst at KCM Trade.
A report on Wednesday showed that U.S. inflation at the wholesale level was significantly worse last month than economists expected. That followed a report on Tuesday showing accelerating inflation at the U.S. consumer level.
Prices are rising for fuel, transportation and all kinds of other things for various reasons, including tariffs and bad weather affecting food prices. But atop all of them is the jump in oil prices created by the war with Iran, which has slowed the global flow of crude to customers worldwide.
On Wednesday, oil prices moved more modestly following big gains early in the week, and the price for a barrel of Brent crude oil slipped 0.2 per cent to $107.55.
But that’s still well above its price of roughly $70 from before the war, and the resulting jump has forced traders to give up most hopes for a possible cut to interest rates this year by the Federal Reserve. If anything, a hike to rates seems like the next-best bet after no move in rates this year.
Lower rates would give the economy a boost by making mortgages and other loans cheaper. But they can also worsen inflation at the same time as they push upward on prices for stocks and all kinds of other investments.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury edged up to 4.47 per cent from 4.46 per cent late Tuesday and is well above its 3.97 per cent level from before the war. .
In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Europe following a stronger showing in Asia.
South Korea’s Kospi led the way with a jump of 2.6 per cent. It had sunk 2.3 per cent the day before after a senior figure in the administration suggested the government may redistribute windfall AI profits from companies to citizens. That sapped momentum from AI stocks worldwide on Tuesday.
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AP Business Writer Stan Choe contributed to this report.
Yuri Kageyama, The Associated Press
