New York — The violent volatility that swept financial markets overnight calmed slightly as Wall Street opened for trading. US stocks fell modestly early Monday after gains in Europe and sharp declines in Asia, while gold and silver prices rose from earlier sharp losses. S&The P 500 index fell 0.2% and is on track for a fourth modest loss in a row. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 173 points, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.2%. Shares of major technology companies influenced the market, including Nvidia, whose chips support most of the world’s moves towards artificial intelligence technology. The losses were much worse in Asia, where the number of AI winners declined.
This is a breaking news update. The previous AP story follows below.
US futures fell on Monday as questions remained over President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the next head of the Federal Reserve and concerns about a potential artificial intelligence bubble resurfaced.
S futures contracts&The P 500 index fell 0.7% before the bell, while Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 0.4%. Nasdaq futures fell 0.7%.
Oil prices fell more than 5% overnight. Gold and silver, which were on tear before He drowned on FridayIt has recovered some of those losses but remains well off its recent highs. The price of gold rose 1.3% to about $4,800 per ounce, while silver gained 5.9% to $83.19.
Bitcoin has stabilized somewhat after falling 12% since Wednesday. It rose about 1.5% to just over $78,000, although many cryptocurrency-related companies continued to decline. Cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase fell 3.7% in early trading, and bitcoin holder Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, fell 7.6%.
This week brings another slew of corporate earnings reports for investors to interpret, along with three separate sets of government data on the labor market, including the January jobs report.
Walt Disney Co. shares rose less than 1% early Monday after the entertainment giant reported strong first-quarter results, boosted by box office revenue. “Zootopia 2” And “Avatar: Fire and Ashes.”
Disney Entertainment revenues, which include the company’s movie studios and streaming service, rose 7%, while revenues from its Experiences and Parks division rose 6%.
Investors are still thinking about how Kevin WarshTrump’s nominee Federal Reserve leadershipMay deal with interest rates. Trump has been highly critical of current Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, whose term ends in May.
Warsh’s nomination requires Senate approval. But financial markets fear the Fed will lose some of its independence because of Trump, who has pushed hard for deeper and faster interest rate cuts. This fear has helped raise gold prices sky-high and weaken the value of the US dollar over the past year.
“People don’t get the keys to the most powerful central bank on Earth because they plan to drive in the opposite direction to the people who gave them the keys,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.
The Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank has significant influence over the economy and markets around the world by helping to determine the direction in which the US central bank moves interest rates. This affects the prices of all types of investments, as the Federal Reserve attempts to keep the US labor market afloat without allowing inflation to get out of control.
A report released on Friday showed the United States Wholesale inflation was hotter last month than economists expected. This could put pressure on the Fed to hold interest rates steady for a while rather than lower them, as it did late last year.
The assumption has long been that the Fed should operate separately from the rest of Washington so that it can take steps that are painful in the short term but necessary in the long term. For example, lowering inflation to the Fed’s 2% target would require the unpopular choice to keep interest rates high to suppress economic growth for a period of time.
South Korea’s stock exchange, which is highly affected by technology-related developments, briefly suspended trading as the KOSPI rebounded, closing 5.3% lower at 4,949.67. Samsung Electronics shares fell by 6.3%, while chip manufacturer SK Hynix shares fell by 8.7%.
Kospi has been faking records for weeks as big tech companies cash in on the AI craze through deals with major players like chip maker Nvidia and OpenAI.
At midday in Europe, Germany’s DAX rose 0.8%, while the CAC 40 in Paris rose 0.6%. The British FTSE 100 index jumped 0.7%.
Benchmark U.S. crude lost $3.19, or 4.9%, to $62.02 a barrel, while Brent crude, the international standard, fell $3.16 to $66.16 a barrel. As for natural gas, which rose in recent weeks as the United States was exposed to widespread cold and winter storms, it fell by 17%.
Speaking to reporters over the weekend, Trump said Iran must negotiate a “satisfactory” deal to prevent the Middle Eastern country from obtaining any nuclear weapons.
“I don’t know that they will do that,” he said. “But they are talking to us. They are talking to us seriously.”
Analysts said the comment appeared to allay some concerns about potential disruptions to oil supplies that had pushed prices higher.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index gave up early gains, falling 1.3% to 52,655.18 points.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 2.2% to 26,775.57, while the Shanghai Composite Index fell 2.5% to 4,015.75.
In Australia, S&The P/ASX 200 index fell 1% to 8,778.60 points.
Taiwan’s Taiex shares lost 1.4%.