Microsoft Just Had Its Worst Day Since the COVID Crash

A day of dramatic swings on Wall Street, including the worst day for Microsoft in years, finished with relatively modest moves on Thursday.

• The S&P 500 fell 9.02 points, or 0.1%, to 6,969.01 after flirting with its record high in the morning and falling by as much as 1.5% in the midday hours.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 55.96 points, or 0.1%, to 49,071.56.
• The Nasdaq composite fell 172.33 points, or 0.7%, to 23,685.12.

Microsoft tumbled following its profit report, but a big gain for Meta Platforms helped to nearly offset it, the AP reports. Oil prices rose roughly 3.5% on worries about rising tensions between the United States and Iran, which could ultimately constrict the flow of crude.

Microsoft was the heaviest weight on the market by far. The tech giant tumbled 10% even though it 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 had its worst day since the market's COVID crash in 2020, and the S&P 500 would have been higher for the day if not for Microsoft.

• Tesla also weighed on the market after falling 3.5%. 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.
• ServiceNow dropped 9.9% 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.

Still, slightly more stocks rose within the S&P 500 than fell. Leading them was Meta Platforms, which rallied 10.4% after the company behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp topped profit expectations, even though it also said it will continue its massive investments in AI. IBM was another winner and climbed 5.1% after surpassing analysts' expectations for profit and revenue. Southwest Airlines flew 18.7% 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.

Some of the wildest action in financial markets was again for precious metals. Gold's price rallied near $5,600 per ounce in the morning before suddenly and briefly dropping back below $5,200. It settled at $5,354.80, up 0.6% from the prior day. It was only on Monday that gold's price topped $5,000 for the first time, and it had nearly doubled over the last 12 months. Silver, which has been zooming higher in its own feverish run, had a similar and sudden reversal of momentum before settling slightly higher.