By STAN CHOE, AP Business Writer<\/p>\n
NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 The U.S. stock market continues to shake on Friday, a day after\u00a0one of its worst drops<\/a>\u00a0since its springtime sell-off, as\u00a0Nvidia<\/a>, bitcoin, gold and other\u00a0high flyers on Wall Street<\/a>\u00a0swing.<\/p>\n The S&P 500 fell 0.5% after paring a loss that reached 1.3% shortly after the start of trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 485 points, or 1%, as of 10 a.m. Eastern time, while the Nasdaq composite was 0.4% lower.<\/p>\n AI stocks once again were at the center of the action. Nvidia, which has become the poster child of the AI frenzy, went from an early loss of 3.4% to a modest gain of 0.1% and pulled the rest of the market in its wake.<\/p>\n Critics\u00a0have been warning<\/a>\u00a0that the U.S. stock\u00a0market could be primed for a drop<\/a>\u00a0because of how high prices have shot since April, leaving them looking too expensive. They pointed in particular to stocks swept up in the mania around\u00a0artificial-intelligence<\/a>\u00a0technology. Nvidia\u2019s stock has more than doubled in four of the last five years, for example.<\/p>\n But even with the S&P 500\u2019s recent swings, the index that dictates the movements of many 401(k) accounts is still within 3% of\u00a0its record set late last month<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cOccasional market drops are the price of the ticket for the ride,\u201d said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management.<\/p>\n Outside of tech, Walmart sank 1.5% after saying its\u00a0CEO, Doug McMillon, will retire<\/a>\u00a0in January in a surprise move. He had helped the nation\u2019s largest retailer embrace technology more.<\/p>\n One way companies can tamp down criticism about too-high stock prices is to deliver solid growth in profits. That\u2019s raising the stakes for Nvidia\u2019s profit report coming on Wednesday, when it will say how much it earned during the summer.<\/p>\n If it falls short of analysts\u2019 lofty expectations, even more drops could be on the way. That would have a huge effect on the market because Nvidia has grown to become Wall Street\u2019s largest stock by value, briefly topping $5 trillion. That gives Nvidia\u2019s stock movements a bigger effect on the S&P 500 than any other\u2019s, and it can almost single-handedly steer the index\u2019s direction on any given day.<\/p>\n Another way for stock prices broadly to look less expensive is if interest rates fall. That\u2019s because bonds paying less in interest can make investors willing to pay higher prices for stocks and other kinds of investments.<\/p>\n Treasury yields had been falling for most of this year on expectations that\u00a0the Federal Reserve would cut<\/a>\u00a0its main interest rate several times this year. And the Fed has indeed cut twice already in hopes of shoring up\u00a0the slowing job market<\/a>.<\/p>\n But questions are rising now about whether a third cut, which traders had earlier seen as likely, will actually happen at the Fed\u2019s next meeting in December. The downside of lower interest rates is that they can make inflation worse, and\u00a0inflation has been stubbornly remaining<\/a>\u00a0above the Fed\u2019s 2% target.<\/p>\n Fed officials<\/a>\u00a0have pointed to the U.S. government\u2019s shutdown, which delayed the release of many\u00a0updates on the job market and other signals<\/a>\u00a0about the economy. With less information and less certainty about how the economy is doing, some Fed officials have said it may be better to just wait in December to get more clarity.<\/p>\n In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury held at 4.11%, where it was late Thursday.<\/p>\n Bitcoin is one of the investments that can get a boost from lower interest rates. It briefly fell below $95,000 in the morning and is back to where it was in May. It had been near $125,000 only in October.<\/p>\n