AI darlings prop up Wall Street as most other stocks fall

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NEW YORK (AP) — More gains for Nvidia, Amazon and other AI superstars are propping up Wall Street on Monday, even as most U.S. stocks fall.

The S&P 500 was virtually unchanged in morning trading and holding near its all-time high set last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 303 points, or 0.6%, as of 10:45 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.4% higher.

The losses were widespread, and four out of every five stocks within the S&P 500 fell. Treasury yields also edged lower in the bond market following a discouraging report on U.S. manufacturers. Activity for them shrank by more last month than economists expected, with several telling surveyers for the Institute for Supply Management that President Donald Trump's tariffs are creating financial pain.

Kimberly-Clark fell 12.8% to one of the market's sharpest losses after it said it would buy Kenvue in a deal valuing it at $48.7 billion. Kimberly-Clark, which makes Kleenex and Huggies, will pay for it in cash and stock. Kenvue, which sells Tylenol, Band-Aids and Listerine, jumped 15.3%.

Beyond Meat tumbled 16% after the plant-based meat company delayed its report for the latest quarter’s results to Nov. 11 from Tuesday. It said it needs more time to assess how big of a non-cash charge it will take against its earnings due to issues it had previously disclosed with some of its assets.

Beyond Meat’s stock has been mostly falling since topping $4 in July, but it went on a wild ride last month where it suddenly soared from 52 cents to $3.62 in three days, a nearly 600% surge. It got swept up in the “meme stock” craze, where prices can rise solely due to online hype rather than any change to the company’s actual business.

A much longer-lasting frenzy on Wall Street has been the furor around artificial-intelligence technology, which proponents say is in the midst of changing the world.

Nvidia was one of the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500 Monday, much like it has been for the year so far. The chip company rose 2.7% to bring its gain for the year so far to nearly 55%.

Microsoft added 0.3% after it announced a $9.7 billion contract with AI cloud service provider IREN that will give it access to some of Nvidia’s chips. The five-year deal will help Microsoft as it looks to keep up with AI demand. IREN jumped 10.9%.

Amazon rallied 4.9% after announcing a $38 billion agreement with OpenAI, which will use Amazon’s cloud computing services to run its AI workloads.

Palantir Technologies, which came into the day with a stunning 165% gain for the year so far, rose another 1.1%. Traders are pushing up the AI darling in the final hours before the data platform company reports its latest quarterly results after trading closes for the day.

It and companies across the U.S. stock market will need to hit expectations in order to justify the big gains for their stocks since hitting a low in April. Criticism has been rising that the broad U.S. market, and AI stocks in particular, have become too expensive and could be inflating into a dangerous bubble similar to the 2000 dot-com bust.

For the most part, companies have been meeting high expectations for profits. Four out of every five companies in the S&P 500 that have delivered their results for the latest quarter so far have topped analysts’ forecasts, according to FactSet. With the reporting season roughly two-thirds done, companies in the S&P 500 are on track to deliver healthy growth of nearly 11% from a year earlier.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury dipped to 4.10% from 4.11% late Friday.

It dropped following the weaker-than-expected report on manufacturing, which appears to be “a reflection of continuing economic uncertainty,” according to Susan Spence, chair of the ISM″s manufacturing business survey committee.

“Wonder has turned to concern regarding how the tariff threats are affecting our business,” a chemical products manufacturer told the survey. “Orders are down across most divisions, and we’ve lowered our financial expectations for 2025.”

“In general, business is really strained,” another manufacturer told the survey.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Europe following a stronger finish in Asia.

South Korea’s Kospi jumped 2.8% to another record. SK Hynix soared nearly 11%, helped by recent moves to team up with Nvidia in developing the country’s artificial intelligence infrastructure and capabilities. South Korean shipbuilders also logged gains after China said it would cancel added port fees on U.S.-invested or U.S. flagged vessels after U.S. President Donald Trump met last week with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.