Wall Street sank back to where it was in May on Wednesday, pulled down by steep drops in several Big Tech companies. The S&P 500 dropped after rising bond yields tightened their chokehold on the stock market and some of the most influential companies turned in mixed profit reports.
- The S&P 500 fell 60.91 points, or 1.4%, to 4,186.77.
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 105.45 points, or 0.3%, to 33,035.93.
- The Nasdaq composite fell 318.65 points, or 2.4%, to 12,821.22.
Google parent company Alphabet fell sharply on worries about a slowdown in growth for its cloud-computing business. Amazon, Nvidia, and Apple also fell.
Microsoft was an outlier and rose 3.1% after reporting stronger profit and revenue for the summer than analysts expected, the AP reports. Its movements carry extra weight on the market because it's the second-largest company by market value. But Alphabet was tugging the market lower even though the parent company of Google and YouTube also reported stronger profit than expected. Its stock fell 9.5% on worries about a slowdown in growth for its cloud-computing business. Alphabet is another one of Wall Street's biggest companies and, like Microsoft, a member of the "Magnificent Seven" group of Big Tech stocks that's accounted for a disproportionate amount of the S&P 500's gain this year. The Dow held up better than other indexes because it includes Microsoft but not Alphabet.
Also putting heavy pressure on the overall stock market was a rise in Treasury yields. The 10-year yield climbed to 4.95% from 4.82% late Tuesday, which helped to send the large majority of stocks on Wall Street lower. The 10-year yield earlier this week hit its highest level above 5% since 2007, and high yields knock down prices for stocks and other investments while slowing the overall economy and adding pressure to the financial system. (More stock market stories.)
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