Stock market today: Wall Street intends to make up big gains for May

NEW YORK (AP) – U.S. stocks are slowing on Wednesday and cutting gains for May, which was on track to be Wall Street’s best month in six years.

The S&P 500 index fell 0.8% in early trading and continued to fall from the record set last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 427 points, or 1.1%, as of 9:35 a.m. ET, and the Nasdaq fell 0.7% after setting a recent all-time high.

A group of American airlines sent airline stock prices tumbling after earnings forecasts and other financial targets were lowered in the spring. It said fuel costs may be slightly lower than previously thought, but this is also likely to be a significant revenue trend. It was also announced that commercial director Vasu Raja was leaving the company. He lost 13%.

ConocoPhillips fell 2.8% after this announcement. would buy Marathon Oil in an all-stock transaction valuing the company at $22.5 billion, including $5.4 billion in net debt. This is the latest big deal for an industry that has seen several buyout announcements recently. Marathon Oil increased by 9.2%.

Advance Auto Parts fell 12.3% after last quarter’s results and revenues topped analyst expectations. The retailer said the industry started the year slower than expected.

Another rise in long-term Treasury yields also weighed on the overall stock market, with the 10-year yield rising to 4.58% from 4.54% late Tuesday. It is still low this month, but has dropped below 4.40% since mid-May, but is slowly rising.

The swings came as investors recalibrated their expectations for when the Federal Reserve would be able to do so start reducing the main interest rateand has been at the highest level for over two decades.

Wall Street always wants interest rate cuts because they can raise investment prices and remove downward pressure on the economy. However, traders had to delay them too optimistic forecasts to cut interest rates several times as inflation has proven stubborn when it comes to suppressing it completely.

The Fed tries to balance the effect of weakening the economy with high interest rates enough to fully control inflation, but not so much that it leads to widespread layoffs.

The U.S. stock market continues to set records despite concerns about continued high interest rates, partly due to the continued rally in shares of companies related to artificial intelligence technology. The latest version of Nvidia blowout profit report it helped fuel the craze even more, but the momentum can’t last forever. The company’s shares fell 1.4% and are on track for their first decline since its earnings report a week ago.

That helped offset a 12.1% gain for Dick’s Sporting Goods, which beat analyst expectations for earnings and revenue in the most recent quarter. The retailer also raised its profit forecast for the full year.

Chewy, the online pet supplies retailer, also reported a bigger-than-expected profit for its latest quarter, with its stock rising 20.2%. It also said it would return up to $500 million to its shareholders by buying back its own shares.

On foreign stock exchanges, indexes fell mainly in Asia and Europe. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.8%, South Korea’s Kospi fell 1.7% and France’s CAC 40 fell 1.5%.

Stock markets in Shanghai remained roughly flat after the International Monetary Fund raised its forecast China’s economic prospects, saying he expects the No. 2 economy to grow at an annual rate of 5% this year. However, she also cautioned that consumer-friendly reforms were needed to maintain strong, high-quality growth.

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AP business writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.