HONG KONG (news agencies) — World stocks were mixed Tuesday after another slide for Wall Street heavyweight Nvidia kept U.S. indexes mixed Monday, even as the majority of stocks rallied.
The future for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was little changed while futures for the S&P 500 edged down less than 0.1%.
European markets opened lower. France’s CAC 40 lost 0.7% to 7,652.41. Germany’s DAX sank 1.1% to 18,117.45 while Britain’s FTSE 100 was 0.1% lower to 8,276.46.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 surged 1% to 39,173.15 after data from the Bank of Japan Tuesday showed the services producer price index in May was up 2.5% compared to the same period last year, a slowdown from the 2.7% increase seen in April.
The Japanese yen remains a focus of attention, with the US dollar to Japanese yen exchange rate still trading near its weakest level in approximately 34 years. The yen rose to 159.45 to the dollar in Tuesday trading. The dollar closed at 159.59 yen on Monday.
The Hang Seng in Hong Kong recovered most of the daytime losses to end 0.3% higher at 18,072.90 and the Shanghai Composite index dipped 0.4% to 2,950.00.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 1.4% to 7,838.80. In South Korea, the Kospi climbed 0.4% to 2,774.39.
Elsewhere, Taiwan’s Taiex was up 0.3%, while the SET in Bangkok advanced 0.1%.
On Monday, the S&P 500 slipped 0.3% to 5,447.87. The drops for Nvidia and other winners of Wall Street’s artificial intelligence boom pulled the Nasdaq composite down 1.1% to 17,496.82, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.7% to 39,411.21.
Stocks of oil and gas companies were among the market’s strongest, as seven out of every 10 stocks in the S&P 500 rose. Exxon Mobil climbed 3%, and oilfield services provider SLB gained 4% as oil prices hung near their highest levels since April.
But declines for a handful of high-profile stocks offset all of those gains, and the spotlight shone brightest on Nvidia’s 6.7% tumble. It was a third straight drop for the chip company, which had rocketed 1,000% higher since the autumn of 2022.
The nearly insatiable demand for Nvidia’s chips to power artificial intelligence applications has been a big reason for the U.S. stock market’s record runs recently, even as the economy’s growth slows under the weight of high interest rates. But the AI boom has been so frenzied that it’s raised worries about a possible bubble in the stock market and too-high expectations among investors.
Nvidia’s stock has been receding since it briefly overtook Microsoft as Wall Street’s most valuable last week, and it’s down nearly 13% in just three days. Because Nvidia has become so massive in size, the movements for its stock carry extra weight on the S&P 500 and other indexes. It was the heaviest weight by far on the S&P 500 Monday.
In the bond market, Treasury yields eased a bit. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.23% from 4.26% late Friday.
It’s been mostly falling since topping 4.70% in late April, which has relaxed the pressure on the stock market. Yields have sunk on hopes that inflation is slowing enough to convince the Federal Reserve to cut its main interest rate later this year.
The Fed has been keeping the federal funds rate at the highest level in more than 20 years, hoping to grind down on the economy just enough to get inflation under control.
In other dealings Tuesday, U.S. benchmark crude oil gave up 20 cents to $81.43 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Brent crude lost 12 cents to $85.03 per barrel.
The euro was unchanged at $1.0732.
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