By Johann M Cherian and Purvi Agarwal
(Reuters) – Wall Street’s main indexes were mixed in volatile trading on Thursday, with Alphabet (NASDAQ:)’s losses weighing on the benchmark and the Nasdaq, while the blue-chip Dow touched a one-week high, boosted by shares of cloud company Salesforce (NYSE:).
Alphabet slid 6.2% to touch a more than three-week low after the Justice Department argued to a judge that Google must sell its Chrome browser and take other measures to end its monopoly on online search.
The stock’s losses weighed on the communication services sector, which fell 2.6%, while nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors traded higher.
Megacaps also took a hit, with Meta (NASDAQ:) down 1.2% and Apple (NASDAQ:) flat.
Amazon.com (NASDAQ:) lost 3% after a report said it will likely face an EU investigation next year into whether it favors its own brand products on its online marketplace.
Shares of Wall Street’s biggest company, Nvidia (O:), were choppy and were last down 0.5%. The chip company surpassed expectations for quarterly results, and projected fourth-quarter revenue above estimates.
However, some investors were unimpressed that the forecast was its slowest in seven quarters.
“It has a lot to do with some disappointments in terms of Nvidia’s guidance on the margins, the story on Google doesn’t help (either) and that’s bringing down the entire technology complex,” said Dan Eye, chief investment officer at Fort Pitt Capital Group.
The broader was up 1%.
At 11:42 a.m. ET, the rose 372.11 points, or 0.86%, to 43,780.58, the S&P 500 gained 18.99 points, or 0.32%, to 5,936.10 and the lost 48.96 points, or 0.26%, to 18,917.19.
Nvidia has led much of the U.S. market rally since mid-2023 on expectations that AI integration could boost corporate profits. The stock has risen more than nine-fold in the past two years and the company boasts a market value of $3.5 trillion.
Gains on the blue-chip Dow were aided by Salesforce’s 4.5% advance after three brokerages lifted their price targets on the stock.
On the data front, a weekly report on jobless claims showed they fell unexpectedly last week, suggesting a rebound in job growth in November.
Money market bets tiled in favor of a 25 basis points interest rate cut by the Fed at its December meeting, according to the CME Group’s (NASDAQ:) FedWatch.
Meanwhile, Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin said the United States is more vulnerable to inflationary shocks than in the past, according to a media report.
Comments from Federal Reserve officials Austan Goolsbee and Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr are on tap.
Traders also monitored geopolitical tensions between Ukraine and Russia, that sent crude prices higher and aided a 1.4% gain in the energy sector.
Deere (NYSE:) shares gained 7.8% after reporting an upbeat fourth-quarter profit, while Snowflake (NYSE:) jumped 32% after raising its annual product revenue forecast.
Crypto stocks were mixed as bitcoin prices came off session highs. MARA Holdings jumped 7.6%, while Coinbase Global (NASDAQ:) dropped 4.4%.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 3.44-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 1.88-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P 500 posted 52 new 52-week highs and four new lows, while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 102 new highs and 108 new lows.
