Wall Street was quietly mixed early Tuesday after a mixed day the previous day, as shares of fast-rising chipmaker Nvidia Inc. fell for a third straight day.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 0.1%, while S&P 500 futures rose just under 0.2%.
Nvidia rose 2.2% before the close, recouping some of the losses it had made in recent trading as enthusiasm for artificial intelligence began to subside. Nvidia’s shares have fallen since briefly overtaking Microsoft last week to become Wall Street’s most valuable company, dropping nearly 13% in just three days.
Shares in software giant Microsoft Inc. were little changed after the European Union said it had violated antitrust laws by linking its messaging and video conferencing app Teams to its widely used business software, calling it “probably abusive.”
Solar panel manufacturer SolarEdge plunged more than 17% before the close after it said customer PM&M Electric, which owes the company more than $11 million, is filing for bankruptcy. SolarEdge also announced plans on Monday to raise $300 million through a sale of convertible senior notes.
Tools maker EPAC Inc. saw its shares fall more than 9% after the company missed third-quarter sales targets and provided a fourth-quarter earnings outlook that fell short of analysts’ expectations.
The Conference Board’s latest consumer confidence report is due to be released later Tuesday. U.S. consumer confidence trended higher in May after three straight months of declines amid persistently high inflation and interest rates.
Meanwhile, in European markets as of midday, France’s CAC 40 index was down 0.8%, Germany’s DAX index was down 1%, and Britain’s FTSE 100 index was down 0.2%.
Japan’s stock index, the Nikkei average, rose 1 percent to 39,173.15 after the Bank of Japan released data on Tuesday showing the service industry price index rose 2.5 percent in May from a year earlier, slowing from a 2.7 percent increase in April.
The Japanese yen remains in focus, with the U.S. dollar/Japanese yen exchange rate still hovering near its lowest in nearly 34 years. The yen strengthened to 159.44 yen to the dollar in trading on Tuesday, after closing at 159.59 yen to the dollar on Monday.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index recovered most of its intraday losses to finish 0.3% higher at 18,072.90, while the Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.4% to 2,950.00.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.4% to 7,838.80. In South Korea, the KOSPI rose 0.4% to 2,774.39.
Meanwhile, Taiwan’s Taiex rose 0.3% and Bangkok’s SET added 0.1%.
In the bond market, government bond yields were little changed. The yield on the 10-year note was unchanged from Monday’s close at 4.23%, while the yield on the two-year note rose to 4.73% from 4.72%.
Yields have fallen on expectations that inflation is slowing and that the Federal Reserve will cut its key interest rate later this year.
The Fed wants to squeeze the economy enough to keep inflation under control, and has kept the federal funds rate at its highest level in more than two decades.
In other trading on Tuesday, benchmark U.S. crude oil fell 55 cents to $81.08 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Brent crude fell 52 cents to $84.63 a barrel.
The euro fell to $1.0712.
On Monday, the S&P 500 fell 0.3% to 5,447.87. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell 1.1% to 17,496.82, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.7% to 39,411.21, due to losses in Nvidia Inc., a winner of Wall Street’s artificial intelligence boom, and other stocks.
