Financial Markets                      01/29 15:47

   

   NEW YORK (AP) -- A day of dramatic swings on Wall Street, including 
Microsoft's worst drop in years and a sudden reversal for the price of gold, 
finished with only relatively modest moves on Thursday.

   The S&P 500 slipped 0.1% after flirting with its record high in the morning 
and dropping by as much as 1.5% later in the day. The Dow Jones Industrial 
Average rose 55 points, or 0.1%, after erasing an earlier loss of more than 400 
points, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.7%.

   Microsoft was the heaviest weight on the market by far, and the tech giant 
tumbled 10% even though it reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest 
quarter than analysts expected. Investors honed in instead on how much 
Microsoft is spending on investments, whether growth in its Azure cloud 
business will slow and how long its push into artificial-intelligence 
technology will take to turn into big profits.

   It was the stock's worst day since the market's COVID crash in 2020.

   Tesla also weighed on the market after falling 3.5%. It delivered a bigger 
profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected, but the results were 
sharply lower than from a year earlier. Tesla's leader, Elon Musk, has been 
trying to get investors to focus less on its flagging car sales and more on the 
company's robotaxis and robots.

   Companies across the market are under pressure to deliver at least solid 
growth in profits following record-setting runs for their stock prices. Stock 
prices tend to follow the path of corporate profits over the long term, and 
earnings need to rise to quiet criticism that stocks have grown too expensive.

   ServiceNow dropped 9.9% even though it reported a stronger profit for the 
latest quarter than expected. Analysts praised the performance, but it wasn't 
enough to stop a slide for the stock that's been underway since the summer.

   Still, more stocks rose within the S&P 500 than fell. Leading them was Meta 
Platforms, which rallied 10.4% after the company behind Facebook, Instagram and 
WhatsApp topped profit expectations, even though it also said it will continue 
its massive investments in AI.

   IBM was another winner and climbed 5.1% after surpassing analysts' 
expectations for profit and revenue. Southwest Airlines flew 18.7% higher even 
though its profit fell short of forecasts. It gave a forecast for earnings in 
2026 that blew past analysts' expectations, saying it's seeing strong momentum 
after making changes like charging baggage fees and having assigned seating.

   All told, the S&P 500 slipped 9.02 points to 6,969.01. The Dow Jones 
Industrial Average added 55.96 to 49,071.56, and the Nasdaq composite fell 
172.33 to 23,685.12.

   Some of the wildest action in financial markets was again for precious 
metals.

   Gold's price rallied near $5,600 per ounce in the morning before suddenly 
and briefly dropping back below $5,200. It then steadied somewhat and rose 
modestly to another record.

   It was only on Monday that gold's price topped $5,000 for the first time, 
and it had nearly doubled over the last 12 months.

   Silver, which has been zooming higher in its own feverish run, had a similar 
and sudden reversal of momentum before ticking higher again.

   Prices for precious metals have been surging as investors look for safer 
things to own while weighing a wide range of risks, including a U.S. stock 
market that critics call expensive, political instability, threats of tariffs 
and heavy debt loads for governments worldwide.

   But safety can come at a price when it's expensive. The huge runs for gold 
and silver raised criticism that their prices had gone too far, too fast and 
were due for a pullback. Bitcoin, which is pitched as a form of "digital gold," 
also fell sharply. It sank nearly 6% and dropped toward $84,000.

   The U.S. dollar has seen its value sink over the last year because of many 
of the same risks that drove gold's price higher, but the dollar held 
relatively steady against the British pound and euro Thursday.

   Oil prices rose roughly 3.5% on worries about potentially rising tensions 
between the United States and Iran, which could ultimately constrict the flow 
of crude. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned the U.S. military "will be 
prepared to deliver whatever the president expects," just a day after President 
Donald Trump told Iran to "make a deal" on its nuclear program.

   In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury dipped to 4.23% from 
4.26% late Wednesday.

   In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across much of the rest of the world.

   South Korea's Kospi climbed 1% for one of the world's bigger moves, lifted 
to another record in part by chipmaker SK Hynix.

   ___

   AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.

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