Microsoft yanks Wall Street lower as gold’s price swings sharply
NEW YORK (AP) — The worst day for Microsoft in years is yanking the U.S. stock market away from its record heights on Thursday. Gold and silver prices meanwhile, are swinging sharply following their jaw-dropping runs.
The S&P 500 sank 0.7% after flirting with its all-time high earlier in the morning. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 101 points, or 0.2%, as of 1:29 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.4% lower.
Microsoft was the heaviest weight on the market by far, and it tumbled 12.1% even though the tech giant reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Investors honed in instead on how much Microsoft is spending on investments, whether growth in its Azure cloud business will slow and how long its push into artificial-intelligence technology will take to turn into big profits.
Its stock is on track for its worst day since the market’s COVID crash in 2020, and it was alone responsible for more than two-thirds of the S&P 500’s drop.
Tesla also weighed on the market after falling 2.3%. It delivered a bigger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected, but the results were sharply lower than from a year earlier. Tesla’s leader, Elon Musk, has been trying to get investors to focus less on its flagging car sales and more on the company’s robotaxis and robots.
Companies across the market are under pressure to deliver at least solid growth in profits following record-setting runs for their stock prices. Stock prices tend to follow the path of corporate profits over the long term, and earnings need to rise to quiet criticism that stocks have grown too expensive.
ServiceNow dropped 12.2% even though it reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than expected. Analysts praised the performance, but it wasn’t enough to stop a slide for the stock that’s been underway since the summer.
Stocks were nearly evenly split between gainers and losers within the S&P 500. Meta Platforms led the gainers. The company behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp rallied 9.9% after topping profit expectations, even though it also said it will continue its massive investments in AI.
IBM was another winner and climbed 4.6% after surpassing analysts’ expectations for profit and revenue. Southwest Airlines flew 15.8% higher even though its profit fell short of forecasts. It gave a forecast for earnings in 2026 that blew past analysts’ expectations, saying it’s seeing strong momentum after making changes to its business like charging baggage fees and having assigned seating.
