Financial Markets                      11/18 15:30

   

   NEW YORK (AP) -- The U.S. stock market fell following another jarring day on 
Tuesday, as worries keep dogging Nvidia, bitcoin and other Wall Street stars 
that their prices shot too high.

   After quickly sliding to a morning loss of 1.5%, the S&P 500 clawed back 
nearly all of it before sinking again. It finished with a fall of 0.8% and 
pulled further from its all-time high set late last month. The Dow Jones 
Industrial Average lost 498 points, or 1.1%, and the Nasdaq composite sank 1.2%.

   Nvidia was again the heaviest weight on the market, and its drop of 2.8% 
brought its loss for the month so far to more than 10%. That's a steep enough 
fall that Wall Street has a name for it: a correction.

   What Nvidia does matters disproportionately to savers' 401(k) accounts 
because its immense size means it's the most influential stock on Wall Street. 
It single-handedly steers the direction of the S&P 500 some days, after fervent 
demand for its artificial-intelligence chips helped it briefly top $5 trillion 
in total value.

   The U.S. stock market's recent struggles are a sharp turnaround from its 
nearly relentless rally since April, when Wall Street last sold off after 
President Donald Trump shocked the world with stiff tariffs.

   That rally was so strong that critics say it may have carried prices too 
high, too fast and left the market at risk of a sharp drop. They point in 
particular to stocks swept up in the AI mania, which have been surging at 
spectacular speeds for years.

   Nvidia's price more than doubled in four of the last five years, for 
example, while Palantir Technologies' stock more than doubled in the first six 
and a half months of this year.

   Many big investors still seem to expect stock prices to rise further, 
according to the latest monthly survey of global fund managers by Bank of 
America Global Research. But when asked what the No. 1 risk for the market is, 
one with a lower probability of happening but a chance of very big damage, 45% 
pointed to an AI bubble. That beat out potential trouble in the bond market, 
inflation and trade wars.

   A record percentage of investors is also saying companies are 
"overinvesting," according to the survey. The worry is that all the dollars 
pouring into AI chips and data centers worldwide may not produce the kind of 
revolution that AI proponents have been predicting, or at least not as 
profitable a one.

   Other high-flying areas of the market with their own evangelists have also 
been struggling lately. Bitcoin's price briefly fell below $90,000 in the 
morning, down from nearly $125,000 last month. It later recovered some of its 
losses and climbed back toward $93,000.

   Home Depot also helped drag the market lower after falling 6%. It reported a 
weaker profit for the summer than analysts expected and cited a variety of 
reasons. Chief among them was a lack of storms, which would have driven 
customers to buy more home-improvement supplies. CEO Ted Decker also pointed to 
"consumer uncertainty and continued pressure in housing" for preventing an 
expected increase in demand.

   Reporting stronger profits is one of the ways a company can make its stock 
price look less expensive, because stock prices tend to track with earnings 
over the long term. That's raising the stakes for Wednesday's profit report 
from Nvidia, which could either help halt its stock's slide or worsen it.

   Elsewhere on Wall Street, Cloudflare fell 2.8% after an earlier issue at the 
internet infrastructure provider caused global outages for ChatGPT and other 
services.

   All told, the S&P 500 fell 55.09 points to 6,617.32. The Dow Jones 
Industrial Average dropped 498.50 to 46,091.74, and the Nasdaq composite sank 
275.23 to 22,432.85.

   In the bond market, Treasury yields likewise oscillated through the day. The 
yield on the 10-year Treasury eventually eased to 4.11% from 4.13% late Monday.

   Yields have been swinging amid doubts about whether the Federal Reserve will 
cut its main interest rate at its next meeting in December, something that 
traders had earlier seen as very likely. What the Fed does is critical for the 
market because stock prices ran to records in part because of expectations for 
continued cuts to rates.

   The Fed has cut rates twice already this year in hopes of shoring up a 
slowing job market. But lower interest rates can make inflation worse, and 
inflation has stubbornly remained above the Fed's 2% target.

   In stock markets abroad, indexes tumbled across Europe and Asia.

   South Korea's Kospi sank 3.3%, Japan's Nikkei 225 dropped 3.2% and France's 
CAC 40 fell 1.9% for some of the world's larger drops.

   ___

   AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.

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