The US stock market is dropping as Nvidia and other AI superstars dim some more

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market is sinking on Monday as Nvidia and other superstars created by the frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology dim some more.

The S&P 500 fell 1.1% and pulled further from its all-time high set late last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 544 points, or 1.2%, as of 2:45 p.m. Eastern time, while the Nasdaq composite was 1.1% lower.

Nvidia was again the heaviest weight on the market, as it's often been in its last couple of tumultuous weeks. The chip company fell 2.9%, while losses for other AI winners included a 3.2% fall for Palantir Technologies and 6.8% slide for Super Micro Computer.

Critics have been warning that the U.S. stock market could be primed for a drop because of how high prices have shot since April, leaving them looking too expensive. Critics point in particular to stocks swept up in the AI mania, which have been surging at spectacular speeds for years.

Even with Monday's loss, Nvidia is still up nearly 38% for the year so far after it doubled in price in four of the last five years. Over the last two weeks, the worries about a potentially too-high price have sent it swinging by at least 1.8% in eight of the last 10 days, up or down.

That has Wall Street’s spotlight on Wednesday, when Nvidia will report how much profit it made during the summer. AI stocks have surged as much as they have because of expectations that they’ll produce huge growth in profits. If they fail to top analysts’ expectations, that would undercut one of the big assumptions that’s driven the U.S. stock market to records.

Such high expectations extend beyond tech stocks, even if they are toughest for AI darlings.

Aramark fell 4.4% after the company reported a profit for the latest quarter that fell short of analysts’ expectations. The company, which offers food and facilities management for schools, national parks and convention centers, also said it expects an underlying measure of profit to grow between 20% and 25% this upcoming year. While relatively strong, that was less than what analysts had been forecasting.

That helped offset a rise of 2.9% for Alphabet. It jumped after Berkshire Hathaway said it built a $4.34 billion ownership stake in Google’s parent company. Berkshire Hathaway, run by famed investor Warren Buffett, is notorious for trying to buy stocks only when they look like good values while avoiding anything that looks too expensive.

Another source of potential disappointment for Wall Street is what the Federal Reserve does with interest rates. The expectation had been that the Fed would keep cutting interest rates in hopes of shoring up the slowing job market. Wall Street loves lower rates because they can give a boost to the economy and to prices for investments.

But questions are rising about whether a third cut for the year will come out of the Fed’s next meeting in December, something that traders had earlier seen as very likely. The downside of lower interest rates is that they can make inflation worse, and inflation has stubbornly remained above the Fed’s 2% target.

Fed officials have also pointed to the U.S. government’s shutdown, which delayed the release of updates on the job market and other signals about the economy. With less information and less certainty about how things are going, some Fed officials have suggested it may be better just to wait in December to get more clarity.

Now that the shutdown is over, the government is preparing to release September’s delayed jobs report on Thursday. That could create further swings for the market. Data that's very strong would likely stay the Fed’s hand on rate cuts, while figures that are very weak would raise worries about the economy.

In 2026, the Fed is likely to cut interest rates only in response to a slowing economy instead of trying to cut ahead of it, according to Barry Bannister, chief equity strategist at Stifel. That's not as good an environment for stock prices, and Bannister said the “Fed’s ‘free lunch’ is over.”

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.12% from 4.14% late Friday.

In stock markets abroad, indexes fell modestly across much of Europe and Asia.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 slipped 0.1% after the government reported that the Japanese economy contracted at a 1.8% annual pace in the July-September quarter.