NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� An early swoon shook the U.S. stock market on Friday, as , bitcoin, gold and other swung on an increasingly antsy Wall Street, but it quickly calmed.
After starting the day with a sharp drop of 1.3%, the S&P 500 erased all of it and then meandered up and down before finishing with a slight dip of 0.1%. The Nasdaq composite flipped to a gain of 0.1%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average trimmed its loss to 309 points, or 0.7%, after earlier being down nearly 600.
AI stocks were again at the center of the action, a day after dragging since its springtime sell-off. Nvidia, which has become the poster child of the frenzy around technology, began the day with a loss of 3.4%. It then stormed back to a rise of 1.8% and yanked the market in its wake.
Critics that the U.S. stock because of how high prices have shot since April, leaving them looking too expensive. They pointed in particular to stocks swept up in the AI mania. Nvidia鈥檚 stock has more than doubled in four of the last five years, for example, and the chip company is still up more than 40% for this year so far.
Even with sharp swings for the S&P 500 the last couple of weeks, the index that dictates the movements for many 401(k) accounts remains within 2.3% of .
鈥淥ccasional market drops are the price of the ticket for the ride,鈥� said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management.
Outside of tech, Walmart edged down 0.1% after saying in January in a surprise move. It had been down as much as 3.6% in the morning. McMillon helped the retailer embrace technology more.
All told, the S&P 500 fell 3.38 points to 6,734.11. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 309.74 to 47,147.48, and the Nasdaq composite rose 30.23 to 22,900.59.
One way companies can tamp down criticism about too-high stock prices is to deliver solid growth in profits. That鈥檚 raising the stakes for Nvidia鈥檚 profit report coming Wednesday, when it will say how much it earned during the summer.
If it falls short of analysts鈥� expectations, more drops could be on the way. That would have a big effect on the market because Nvidia has grown to become Wall Street鈥檚 largest stock by value. That gives Nvidia鈥檚 stock movements a bigger effect on the S&P 500 than any other鈥檚, and it can almost single-handedly steer the index鈥檚 direction on any given day.
Another way for stock prices broadly to look less expensive is if interest rates fall. That鈥檚 because bonds paying less in interest can make investors willing to pay higher prices for stocks and other kinds of investments.
Treasury yields had been falling for most of this year on expectations that its main interest rate several times. And the Fed has indeed cut twice already in hopes of shoring up .
But questions are rising about whether a third cut will actually come after the Fed鈥檚 next meeting in December, something that traders had earlier seen as very likely. The downside of lower interest rates is that they can make inflation worse, and above the Fed鈥檚 2% target.
have pointed to , which delayed the release of about the economy. With less information and less certainty about how things are going, some Fed officials have suggested it may be better just to wait in December to get more clarity.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.14% from 4.11% late Thursday.
Bitcoin is one of the investments that can get a boost from lower interest rates. It fell below $95,000, back to where it was in May. It had been near $125,000 only in October.
The price of gold, meanwhile, sank 2.4%. It as investors looked for something that could protect from high inflation and big debt loads built by the U.S. and other governments worldwide. But interest rates staying higher can hurt gold, which pays its investors nothing in interest or dividends.
In stock markets abroad, indexes dropped across Europe and Asia. South Korea鈥檚 Kospi fell 3.8% for one of the world鈥檚 largest losses.
尝辞苍诲辞苍鈥檚 the U.K. government may ditch , which would have helped chip away at its debt.
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AP Writer Teresa Cerojano contributed.
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