NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are retreating from record highs on Wall Street Wednesday, while the price of gold falls again to further pare its huge gain for the year.
The S&P 500 slipped 0.4% but is still within 1% of this is a record levelwhich was set earlier this month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 123 points, or 0.3%, from his own file set the day before, and the Nasdaq Composite Index was down 0.9%, as of 11:45 a.m. Eastern Time.
Netflix led the market lower after delivering a weaker profit for the last quarter than analysts expected. The pressure is on it, and on companies as a whole, to deliver solid earnings growth. This would help counter criticism that their stock prices have soared too high following a 35% drop in the S&P 500 since its April low.
Netflix stock began the day jumping 39.3% for the year so far, more than double the S&P 500’s gain, before falling 9.7% on Wednesday.
AP AUDIO: US stocks near record highs as gold price falls again
Stocks remain high as gold prices fall. The AP’s Seth Sutel reports.
AT&T fell 1.4% after reporting a profit that barely matched analysts’ expectations, while Texas Instruments fell 5% after its profit fell just short of forecasts.
On the winning side of Wall Street was Intuitive Surgical, which sells robot-assisted surgical systems. It jumped 13.9% after announcing a profit for the last quarter that was better than expected by analysts. Boston Scientific climbed 4.4% after also beating analysts’ profit expectations.
Bank stocks remained relatively flat after Capital One Financial, Western Alliance Bancorp and others reported summer earnings that were higher than analysts expected. The Western Alliance report was particularly appreciated after having helped shake confidence in the industry last week. It is one of several banks that have warned of potentially bad loans on their books, possibly due to fraud.
Meanwhile, Beyond Meat, continued its meme stock run and increased by another 31%. Earlier in its Wednesday frenzy, it rose as much as 112% before paring its gain.
Part of Beyond’s rise could be due to a recent announcement that Walmart would increase the availability of some of its products in more than 2,000 stores in the United States. The maker of plant-based meat alternatives was also the largest holding company in the market. Exchange Traded Fund Roundhill Memefrom Tuesday. The ETF holds shares of companies that investors have flocked to almost regardless of their financial prospects, simply in the hope of catching a wave.
Momentum continues to swing in the other direction for gold, which slipped 1.3% to $4,056.90 an ounce. That’s after Tuesday’s 5.3% drop knocked it from its all-time high.
Many of the factors that attracted buyers to gold this year are still present. Expectations are always for the The Federal Reserve will lower interest rates until next year. Concerns are growing about inflation remains high. And the worrying mountains of debt that the United States and other governments around the world have accumulated are only growing.
But the price of an investment doesn’t rise forever, and criticism was mounting that the price of gold had gone too far, too fast, after rising even more than the U.S. stock market. The price of gold is still up more than 50% over the year.
In foreign stock markets, indices were mixed in Europe and Asia.
London’s FTSE 100 rose 1% after a report on inflation in the United Kingdom raised hopes of another interest rate cut next month. South Korea’s Kospi jumped 1.6%, another of the world’s biggest gains. But the indices fell 0.9% in Hong Kong and 0.7% in Paris.
On the bond market, the yield on 10-year Treasury bills fell slightly to 3.96% compared to 3.98% Tuesday evening.
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AP Business writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.
