Big Tech Rebound Lifts S&P 500 0.4% Despite Apple Drop As Midterm Voting Underway

New York: A rebound for some influential Big Tech stocks lifted the U.S. market on Tuesday despite a drop for Apple and mixed trading elsewhere on Wall Street.

The S&P 500 rose 0.4%, even though most of the stocks within the index fell. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 197 points, or 0.4%, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.8%.

The stock market has been shaky recently as technology and artificial-intelligence stocks swing on worries their prices shot too high in the frenzy around AI. Several of the most influential AI-related stocks were firmer Tuesday, which supported the market, after flipping from gains in the morning to losses in the afternoon a day earlier.

Nvidia rose 2.3% and was the strongest force pushing upward on the S&P 500. Close behind was another chip company, Broadcom, which rose 3.1%. Also boosting the market were several companies that are spending heavily on AI. Microsoft, Amazon and Meta Platforms all rose more than 2%.

Apple was long seen on Wall Street as a Big Tech company that’s less dependent on AI. But it’s still feeling the effects of the AI boom.

Memory chips for computers have become more expensive because of the demand created by the rush to build AI data centers. Those higher costs are hitting Apple, which said it expects to make less profit from each $1 of its revenue during the final three months of this year.

That helped send Apple’s stock down 1.9%, even though the seller of iPhones and Mac computers reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected.

Palantir Technologies fell 1.6% even though it likewise reported a better profit than expected. The software company said it made more money working with U.S. companies than from the U.S. government for the first time, as U.S. commercial revenue soared 148% from a year earlier.

The market's moves came as voters cast their ballots in Tuesday’s midterm elections, where the rising cost of living and AI were issues that crossed party lines.

History suggests such elections may not matter much for the broad market. Going back to 1970, the S&P 500 has had a positive return every time in the six months following a midterm election, according to Brock Weimer, an analyst at Edward Jones.

Some on Wall Street speculate that a Democratic sweep of Congress this time around could lead to more regulations and restrictions on AI development. But Donald Trump would still be president and have the power to veto. And Wall Street generally prefers split control of Washington, which it sees as offering less risk of transformative policies that could reshape the economy.

On the winning side of Wall Street Tuesday were stocks of several companies that reported stronger profits for the summer than analysts expected.

DuPont rallied 8.6% for one of the biggest gains in the S&P 500, and Celanese climbed 5%.

Revvity rose 7.8% after the life sciences company topped analysts’ expectations and CEO Prahlad Singh said end market conditions are continuing to improve.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 27.52 points to 7,568.92. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 197.26 to 51,786.72, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 207.65 to 25,372.01.

Expectations are high for all kinds of companies to continue to deliver big gains in profits as the U.S. economy keeps chugging along, even with high inflation and elevated interest rates. That helped send the S&P 500 to a record high last month.

An encouraging report on the U.S. job market said Tuesday that employers were advertising more job openings at the end of September than economists expected. That helped push the yield on the 10-year Treasury up to 4.96% from 4.91% late Monday.

In the oil market, prices continued to swing. Brent crude climbed above $107 per barrel overnight before briefly dropping below $101 in the morning amid continued uncertainty about what will happen in the war with Iran. It settled at $103.60, down 1.1% from Monday.

In stock markets abroad, indexes fell in Europe following a mixed finish in Asia. South Korea’s Kospi dropped 3.6% for one of the world’s sharpest moves due to losses for its two tech giants, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.

Stocks rose 0.3% in Australia after the country’s central bank raised its benchmark interest rate for the fifth time this year.