Tech stocks pull Wall Street lower as gold and silver prices bounce back
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market sank in mixed trading on Tuesday, while gold and silver bounced higher after their latest sell-off.
The S&P 500 fell 0.8 percent and pulled further from its all-time high set last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 166 points, or 0.3 percent, and the Nasdaq composite sank 1.4 percent.
Several influential Big Tech stocks weighed on the market, including drops of 2.8 percent for Nvidia and 2.9 percent for Microsoft. Such giants have been hampered by worries that their stock prices shot too high and became too expensive following their years-long dominance of the market.
READ: Nvidia unveils new AI chip platform amid rising competition
Stocks of software companies and others seen as potential losers to competitors powered by artificial intelligence also slumped.
ServiceNow fell 7 percent to bring its loss for the young year so far to 28.3 percent.
Such declines dragged the S&P 500 to its fourth loss in the last five days, even though the majority of stocks in the index rose. That included a 6.8 percent climb for Palantir Technologies, which reported a bigger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Its forecast for 61 percent growth in revenue this year also topped analysts’ expectations.
Precious metals
Some of the day’s strongest action remained in the metals markets.
Gold’s price climbed 6.1 percent to settle at $4,935.00 per ounce in the latest swing since its jaw-dropping rally suddenly halted last week.
Silver’s price, which has been whipping through even wilder moves, rallied 8.2 percent.
Gold and silver prices had been climbing for more than a year as investors looked for safer places to park their cash amid worries about everything from tariffs to a weaker U.S. dollar to heavy debt loads for governments worldwide. Their prices took off in particular last month, and gold’s price at one point had roughly doubled over 12 months.
READ: Gold soars toward $5,600 as Trump rattles saber over Iran
But those rallies suddenly gave out last week, and gold’s price dropped from close to $5,600 to less than $4,500 on Monday. Silver plunged 31.4 percent on Friday alone.
Fed watch
Many traders say that what turned the momentum was expectations that President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates high to fight inflation, though some disagree. Most agree that simple gravity took over afterward.
READ: Trump names former Fed official Warsh as next Chair to replace Powell
After gold and silver prices had shot up so much, so quickly, they were bound to fall back at some point, particularly with so many investors piling in to gold as a way to bet on continued weakness for the U.S. dollar.
“The move underscored how stretched anti-USD positioning had become,” according to strategists at Barclays.
On Wall Street, PayPal dropped 20.3 percent after reporting weaker results for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It also named a new CEO after it said “the pace of change and execution” over the last two years “was not in line” with the board of directors’ expectations.
Pfizer fell 3.3 percent even though it reported stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The pharmaceutical company gave a forecasted range for profit in 2026 whose midpoint was below analysts’ expectations.
Shares of Banco Santander, the Spanish bank, that trade in the United States fell 6.4 percent after it said it will buy Webster Financial in a cash-and-stock deal valued at roughly $12.3 billion. The parent company of Webster Bank rallied 9 percent.
Winners
On the winning side of the market was PepsiCo, which rose 4.9 percent after the snack and beverage giant’s profit and revenue for the latest quarter nudged past analysts’ expectations.
It also said it would cut prices this year on Lay’s, Doritos and other snacks to try and win back inflation-weary customers.
DaVita rallied 21.2 percent after the provider of dialysis and other health care services likewise delivered a better profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected.
All told, the S&P 500 fell 58.63 points to 6,917.81. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 166.67 to 49,240.99, and the Nasdaq composite sank 336.92 to 23,255.19.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.26 percent from 4.29 percent late Monday.
Asian markets
In stock markets abroad, indexes bounced back in Asia from sharp losses the prior day.
South Korea’s Kospi surged 6.8 percent for its best performance since the wild days of the COVID crash and recovery in early 2020. Just a day earlier, it had tumbled 5.3 percent from its record for its worst day in almost 10 months. The Kospi is home to many tech stocks, including Samsung Electronics, which surged 11.4 percent.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 rallied 3.9 percent, while stocks rose 1.3 percent in Shanghai and 0.2 percent in Hong Kong.
Indexes nudged lower in Europe, with France’s CAC 40 edging down by less than 0.1 percent.
