Wall Street hit by Microsoft, Apple results ahead; ASX set to dip
Stan Choe
The worst day for Microsoft in years was the US stock market’s move away from record levels on Thursday. Meanwhile, the excitement in the gold and metal markets may be fading as prices suddenly decline after their jaw-dropping rise.
The S&P 500 index lost 1 percent of its value after reaching an all-time high in the early morning hours. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 113 points, or 0.2 percent, at noon Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.9 percent lower.
The Australian share market is poised to fall, with futures pointing to a 3-point decline at the open at 4.51am AEDT. ASX on Thursday. The Australian dollar was trading at 70.24¢ at 5.20am AEDT.
Microsoft has been Wall Street’s heaviest weight so far, falling 12 percent in the latest quarter even though the tech giant reported stronger profits and revenue than analysts expected. Investors instead focused on how much Microsoft was spending on investments, whether growth in its Azure cloud business would slow and how long it would take for its push into artificial intelligence technology to turn into big profits.
Stocks are on track for the market’s worst day since the Covid crash of 2020 and were single-handedly responsible for more than two-thirds of the S&P 500’s decline.
Tesla also weighed in on the market after falling 2.3 percent. It made more profit than analysts expected in the last quarter, but results were significantly lower than the previous year. Tesla leader Elon Musk is trying to get investors to focus less on weakening car sales and more on the company’s robot axes and robots.
Companies in the market are under pressure to deliver at least solid growth in profits after stock prices broke records. Stock prices tend to follow the path of corporate profits over the long term, and earnings should rise amid muted criticism that stock prices are becoming too expensive.
ServiceNow fell 11.8 percent in its latest quarter, despite reporting stronger-than-expected profits. Analysts praised the performance, but that wasn’t enough to halt the stock’s decline that has continued since the summer.
Still, more stocks in the S&P 500 rose than fell. The most important of these were Meta Platforms. The company behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp jumped 8.6 percent after beating profit expectations even as it said it would continue to invest heavily in artificial intelligence.
IBM was also one of the winners, beating analysts’ expectations for profit and revenue, rising 6 percent. Southwest Airlines flew 15.4 percent higher even though its profits fell short of forecasts. It gave 2026 earnings forecasts that beat analysts’ expectations and said it saw strong momentum after making changes to its business such as charging baggage fees and assigning seats.
One of the craziest movements in the financial markets again occurred in precious metals.
The price of gold rose to around $5600 per ounce in the morning hours, then suddenly fell below $5200. It was last at $5286.90, down 1 percent from the previous day.
The price of gold rose above $5,000 for the first time and has nearly doubled in the last 12 months.
There was a similar and sudden reversal of momentum for silver, which had risen further in its own torrid run.
Precious metal prices were rising as investors looked for safer things to own, while the U.S. stock market, which critics described as expensive, weighed a wide range of risks, including political instability, tariff threats and heavy debt burdens from governments around the world.
But when it’s really expensive, security can come at a price. The massive rush for gold and silver has fueled criticism that their prices have gone too far, too fast, and must pull back. Even Bitcoin, touted as a kind of “digital gold,” has fallen sharply. It fell about 5 percent to $85,000.
The U.S. dollar has fallen in value over the past year due to many of the same risks that have driven up the price of gold, but the dollar remained relatively stable against the British pound, euro and other rivals on Thursday.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell from 4.26 percent to 4.24 percent at the end of Wednesday.
The Federal Reserve decided Wednesday to at least pause cuts to its key interest rate. This comes after the Fed made three consecutive rate cuts to close out 2025 to support the job market.
Helping to keep the Fed on pause is that inflation remains stubbornly above the central bank’s 2 percent target. Low interest rates can worsen inflation. They could also further devalue the US dollar, which could help US exporters.
President Donald Trump has been aggressively pushing for lower interest rates, and on Thursday he once again personally criticized the Fed chairman for being “too late” for a rate cut.
Indices on stock markets abroad rose in most of Europe and Asia.
South Korean Kospi made one of the biggest moves in the world with an increase of 1 percent, breaking another record with the contribution of chip manufacturer SK Hynix.
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