The three major stock indexes on Wall Street fell together at the close. Investor sentiment weakened, led by tech stocks, after a report said Oracle's operating margin in its U.S. cloud infrastructure business fell short of expectations.
On the 7th (local time) at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 46,602.98, down 91.99 points (0.20%) from the previous session.
The Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 fell 25.69 points (0.38%) to 6,714.59, and the Nasdaq composite lost 153.30 points (0.67%) to 22,788.36. The S&P 500 declined for the first time in eight sessions. After a series of large-scale capital expenditure announcements in the recent artificial intelligence (AI) industry, tech stocks that had been rising day after day paused for breath, pulling the indexes lower.
Oracle led the decline. Financial media outlet The Information reported that Oracle's cloud service margin was far below Wall Street estimates, sending Oracle shares lower and dampening overall sentiment in tech. Oracle shares fell more than 7% intraday before trimming losses to the 2% range by the close.
After the negative report on Oracle, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, centered on AI and chips, also fell more than 2%. Nvidia held near flat, but TSMC, ASML and Micron Technology fell around 3%. Lam Research and Applied Materials dropped more than 5%. AMD rose more than 3% on ongoing optimism over a large supply deal with OpenAI.
By sector, consumer discretionary fell more than 1%. Among mega-cap tech companies with market capitalization above $1 trillion, Tesla fell more than 4%, erasing most of the prior day's gains. Alphabet also slipped nearly 2%.
Shares of Canadian mineral exploration company Trilogy Metals jumped 211% on news the U.S. government would make an equity investment. The U.S. government plans to acquire 10% equity in Trilogy.
Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), rose more than 1% on news it acquired $2 billion worth of equity in U.S. prediction market platform Polymarket. Shares of Corona beer maker Constellation Brands were up about 1% despite solid results.
With the U.S. federal government shutdown in its seventh day, U.S. President Donald Trump blamed Democrats for the shutdown and criticized it as "almost a kamikaze-like attack."
Gold futures prices, boosted by stronger preference for safe assets, topped $4,000 per ounce for the first time ever.
According to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) FedWatch Tool, the federal funds futures market reflected an 81.3% probability of a 50-basis-point rate cut by December. It was 84.8% near the previous close. The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) Volatility Index (VIX) rose 0.87 point (5.31%) to 17.2 from the prior session.