More drops for AI stocks drag Wall Street to its worst day in nearly a month

NEW YORK (AP) — More drops for AI stocks dragged the U.S. market lower Wednesday, and Wall Street sank to its fourth straight loss.

The S&P 500 fell 1.2% for its worst day in nearly a month, though it’s still not far from its all-time high set last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 228 points, or 0.5%, and the Nasdaq composite dropped 1.8%.

Slightly more stocks rose within the S&P 500 than fell, but they got drowned out by the drops for companies in the artificial-intelligence industry.

Questions continue to dog the former superstars about whether their yearslong dominance of Wall Street meant their prices shot too high, as well as whether all the investment in AI will produce enough profit and productivity to prove worth the cost. Worries are also rising about the debt that some companies are taking on to pay for it all.

Broadcom dropped 4.5%, Oracle fell 5.4% and CoreWeave sank 7.1%. Nvidia, the chip company that’s become Wall Street’s most influential stock because of its tremendous size, fell 3.8% and was the day’s heaviest weight on the S&P 500.

Power companies that jumped earlier in the year on expectations for stronger demand from electricity-sucking data centers also lost some of their shine. Constellation Energy fell 6.7%.

Only 17% of respondents in a survey of relatively big businesses by UBS said they’re in production at scale with their AI projects. That could be “a reminder for tech investors to remain sober about the likely 2026 revenue growth uplift from AI products,” according to UBS analysts, though the rate continues to rise.

Also on the losing end of Wall Street was Lennar, which sank 4.5% following a mixed profit report. The homebuilder delivered a weaker profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected, though its revenue topped expectations.

Executive Chairman Stuart Miller said that conditions remain challenging, with customers feeling less confident while looking for discounts and more affordable options. As a result, the company gave limited forecasts for its upcoming financial performance.

Progressive, meanwhile, fell 2% after the insurer based in Mayfield Village, Ohio, said that its net income for November fell 5% from its year-ago level.

On the winning side of Wall Street were oil companies, after President Donald Trump ordered a blockade of all “sanctioned oil tankers” into Venezuela. It’s Trump’s latest escalation against Venezuela, which may be sitting on more oil than any other country.

That sent the price of a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude higher by 1.2% to $55.94. just a day after it sank to its lowest level since 2021. Brent crude, the international standard, climbed 1.3% to $59.68 per barrel.

That in turn helped ConocoPhillips rise 4.6% and cut into its loss for the year so far, which came into the day at 8.5%. Devon Energy rallied 5.3%, and Exxon Mobil climbed 2.4%.

Oil prices had dropped through most of this year on expectations that companies are pumping more than enough crude to meet the world’s demand.

Netflix added 0.2% after Warner Bros. Discovery’s board said it still recommends shareholders approve a buyout offer from the streaming giant for its Warner Bros. business, rather than a competing hostile bid from Paramount Skydance for the entire company.

Warner Bros. Discovery fell 2.4%, while Paramount Skydance dropped 5.4%.

All told, the S&P 500 fell 78.83 points to 6,721.43. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 228.29 to 47,885.97, and the Nasdaq composite dropped 418.14 to 22,693.32.

In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady ahead of a report coming on Thursday that will show how bad inflation has been for U.S. consumers.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury held at 4.15%, where it was late Tuesday.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Europe following a stronger finish in Asia.

South Korea’s Kospi leaped 1.4% for one of the world’s bigger gains and shaved its loss for the week so far down to 2.7%.

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AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.