A day of dramatic swings on Wall Street, including a sudden reversal for the price of gold, finished with only relatively modest moves on Thursday.
The S&P 500 slipped 0.1% after flirting with its record high in the morning and dropping by as much as 1.5% later in the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 55 points, or 0.1%, after erasing an earlier loss of more than 400 points, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.7%.
Microsoft slide weighs heavily on indexes
Microsoft was the heaviest weight on the market by far, and 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.
It was the stock's worst day since the market's COVID crash in 2020.
Some stocks rise despite broader volatility
Still, 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.
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 like charging baggage fees and having assigned seating.
Precious metals see sharp reversals
Some of the wildest action in financial markets was again for precious metals.
Gold's price rallied near US$5,600 per ounce in the morning before suddenly and briefly dropping back below $5,200. It then steadied somewhat and rose modestly to another record.
It was only on Monday that gold's price topped US$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 ticking higher again.
US dollar steady, oil jumps on geopolitical risks
The US dollar has seen its value sink over the last year because of many of the same risks that drove gold's price higher, but the dollar held relatively steady against the British pound and euro Thursday.
Oil prices rose roughly 3.5% on worries about potentially rising tensions between the United States and Iran, which could ultimately constrict the flow of crude. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned the US military "will be prepared to deliver whatever the president expects," just a day after President Donald Trump told Iran to "make a deal" on its nuclear program.
Bonds and overseas markets
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury dipped to 4.23% from 4.26% late Wednesday.
In other stock markets abroad, indexes rose across much of the rest of the world.
South Korea's Kospi climbed 1% for one of the world's bigger moves, lifted to another record in part by chipmaker SK Hynix.
