US STOCKS-S & P 500, Nasdaq Fall As Earnings Season Gathers Speed;
FMC plunges 33% on lower quarterly profits forecast
Uber declines after guiding Q1 bookings below estimates
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Indexes: Dow up 0.15%, S&P 500 down 0.08%, Nasdaq down 0.34%
(Updates with afternoon costs)
By Shashwat Chauhan and Sukriti Gupta
Feb 5 (Reuters) -
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq slipped on Wednesday, with Alphabet the greatest drag after the tech giant's dour cloud revenue and significant financial investments into synthetic intelligence disappointed investors, while a multitude of incomes contributed to the volatility.
Google-parent Alphabet dropped 8.2% after posting downbeat cloud profits development and earmarking a higher-than-expected $75 billion for its AI buildout this year.
"The marketplace has some proof to recommend that there are other business that potentially doing it more affordable, much better, faster, quicker," said Dave Grecsek, managing director in preparation technique and research at Aspiriant.
"So what is the wisdom of continuing to maintain high capex?"
AI-related stocks were rocked last week following the skyrocketing popularity of an inexpensive Chinese expert system design developed by startup
DeepSeek
. Nvidia, one of the companies that was the worst hit, was up 3.8% on the day.
Advanced Micro Devices, on the other hand, lost 8.9% after CEO Lisa Su said the company's current-quarter data center sales - a proxy for its AI earnings - would fall about 7% from the previous quarter.
On the data front, U.S. services sector activity all of a in January amid cooling demand, helping curb price growth, a reading from the Institute for Supply Management revealed.
Private payrolls increased by 183,000 jobs last month, compared with an estimated 150,000 boost, per financial experts polled by Reuters. The critical January nonfarm payrolls report is anticipated to be released on Friday.
Shares of Apple eased 1.2% as Bloomberg News reported that China's antitrust regulator was getting ready for a possible investigation of the iPhone maker.
At 11:33 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 65.83 points, systemcheck-wiki.de or 0.15%, to 44,621.87, the S&P 500 lost 4.37 points, or 0.08%, to 6,033.51 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 70.17 points, or 0.34%, to 19,586.61.
Eight of the 11 S&P 500 sectors traded higher, though interaction services' over 3% fall obscured gains.
Uber Technologies dropped 7.2% after the ride-hailing company forecast current-quarter reservations listed below price quotes.
Fiserv advanced 7.1% as the payments company beat estimates for fourth-quarter revenue, helped by strong need in its banking and payments processing system.
Markets likewise tried to find developments on the tariffs front after U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he remained in no rush to talk to Chinese President Xi Jinping to try to pacify a brand-new trade war between the nations.
Richmond Fed president Thomas Barkin said the Fed was still leaning towards more rate cuts this year, yogaasanas.science but flagged uncertainty around the effect of new tariffs, migration, regulations and other Trump administration efforts.
Among leading movers, FMC Corp plunged 33.6% after the agrichemicals producer forecast first-quarter income listed below estimates.
Johnson Controls jumped 11.1% as the building options business called Joakim Weidemanis as primary executive officer and raised its 2025 profit projection.
Advancing problems surpassed decliners by a 2.03-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 1.6-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P 500 published 27 new 52-week highs and 12 new lows, while the Nasdaq Composite taped 81 brand-new highs and 69 new lows.
(Reporting by Shashwat Chauhan and Sukriti Gupta in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai, Devika Syamnath and Maju Samuel)