Wall Street drifts as Alphabet rallies and Nvidia sinks

By STAN CHOE Associated Press Business Writer NEW YORK AP The U S stock region is holding steadier on Monday following two weeks of sharp swings but it s churning underneath the surface ahead of big-time reports coming later in the week The S P was virtually unchanged and remained only a bit below its all-time high set late last month The Dow Jones Industrial Average was also basically flat as of a m Eastern time and the Nasdaq composite was higher Alphabet was the strongest force pushing upward on the territory It rose in the first chance for traders to buy its stock since Berkshire Hathaway announced it built a billion ownership stake in Google s parent company Berkshire Hathaway run by famed investor Warren Buffett is notorious for trying to buy only stocks that look like good values while avoiding anything that looks too expensive Such discipline has become a much hotter topic on Wall Street in recent times Critics have been warning that the U S stock area could be primed for a drop because of how high prices have shot since April leaving them looking too expensive Critics point in particular to stocks swept up in the AI mania which have been surging at spectacular speeds for years The company at the center of the frenzy Nvidia fell another Monday following swings of at least in eight of the last days It s nevertheless still up nearly for the year so far after it doubled in price in four of the last five years That has Wall Street s spotlight on Wednesday when Nvidia will description how much profit it made during the summer AI stocks have surged as much as they have because of expectations that they ll produce huge rise in profits If they fail to meet analysts expectations that would undercut one of the big assumptions that s driven the U S stock domain to records Such high expectations extend beyond tech stocks even if they are toughest for AI darlings Aramark fell after the company which offers food and facilities management for schools national parks and convention centers stated a profit for the latest quarter that fell short of analysts expectations It also explained it expects an underlying measure of profit to grow between and this upcoming year While relatively strong that was less than what analysts had been forecasting Another source of promising disappointment for Wall Street is what the Federal Reserve does with interest rates The expectation had been that the Fed would keep cutting interest rates in hopes of shoring up the slowing job realm Wall Street loves lower rates because they can give the market and prices for investments a boost But questions are rising about whether a third cut for the year will authentically come after the Fed s next meeting in December something that traders had earlier seen as very likely The downside of lower interest rates is that they can make inflation worse and inflation has stubbornly remained above the Fed s target Fed leaders have pointed to the U S leadership s shutdown which delayed the release of updates on the job region and other signals about the economic activity With less information and less certainty about how things are going specific Fed bureaucrats have suggested it may be better just to wait in December to get more clarity Now that the shutdown is over the leadership is preparing to release September s delayed jobs account on Thursday That could create further swings for the sector Too strong a job territory would likely stay the Fed s hand on rate cuts while too weak figures would raise worries about the business sector In the bond sphere Treasury yields held relatively steady The yield on the -year Treasury was at where it was late Friday In stock markets abroad indexes fell across much of Europe and Asia Tokyo s Nikkei slipped after the authorities disclosed that the Japanese business activity contracted at a annual pace in the July-September quarter South Korea s Kospi was an outlier and jumped as tech-related stocks there did well AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed