NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are drifting toward a quiet close of the week on Friday, as Nvidia continues to cool from its torrid run and worries rise about the strength of Europe’s economy.
The S&P 500 was 0.1% lower in early trading, though it’s still near its all-time high set on Tuesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 6 points, or less than 0.1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was virtually flat.
Nvidia again was dragging on the market again after dipping 2.7%. The company’s stock has soared more than 1,000% since October 2022 on frenzied demand for its chips, which are powering much of the world’s move into artificial-intelligence technology, and it briefly supplanted Microsoft this week as the most valuable company on Wall Street.
But nothing goes up forever, and Nvidia’s drops the last two days put its stock on track for its first losing week in the last nine.
The U.S. stock market broadly followed European markets lower, after preliminary data reports suggested business activity among countries that use the euro currency is weaker than economists expected.
Worries about a fragile European economy dragged down yields there, which also pressured Treasury yields in the U.S. bond market.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.22% from 4.26% late Thursday. Preliminary data on U.S. business activity will arrive later in the morning.
Trading could feature many shifts during the day, with wide swaths of futures contracts to buy stocks and other types of investments set to expire.
On Wall Street, gun maker Smith & Wesson Brands fell 9.8% despite reporting stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected.
Sarepta Therapeutics jumped 31.5% after U.S. regulators approved the use of its medicine for children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy who are at least 4.
In stock markets abroad, many Asian indexes were also lower. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 1.7%, and South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.8%.
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AP Business Writer Yuri Kageyama contributed.
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