By Anietie anii- bassey
A sharp sell-off in Microsoft shares on Thursday dragged U.S. stocks away from record territory, overshadowing otherwise solid corporate earnings and coinciding with wild swings in precious-metal markets after months of blistering gains.
The S&P 500 fell 0.7% after briefly hovering near an all-time high earlier in the session. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 101 points, or 0.2%, by early afternoon, while the Nasdaq composite dropped 1.4%, weighed down heavily by large technology companies.
Microsoft was by far the biggest single force behind the market’s retreat. Its shares plunged 12.1% despite the company reporting quarterly profit and revenue that exceeded Wall Street forecasts.
Investors instead focused on the company’s heavy spending on new investments, concerns that growth in its Azure cloud-computing business could slow, and questions about how long its aggressive expansion into artificial-intelligence technology will take to generate sizable returns.
The decline put Microsoft on pace for its worst trading day since the market collapse at the start of the pandemic in 2020. By itself, the company accounted for more than two-thirds of the S&P 500’s overall drop, underscoring its outsized influence on major indexes.
Tesla also weighed on sentiment, slipping 2.3%. The electric-vehicle maker delivered higher-than-expected profits for the quarter, but earnings were sharply lower than a year earlier. Chief executive Elon Musk has been urging investors to focus less on weakening vehicle sales and more on the company’s ambitions in robotaxis and robotics.
The broader market reflected growing pressure on corporations to keep delivering strong growth after a multiyear surge in stock prices that has pushed valuations higher. Over time, share prices tend to track the path of corporate profits, and recent rallies have left some investors wary that stocks may have outpaced underlying fundamentals.
ServiceNow dropped 12.2% even after topping profit expectations, extending a decline that has been underway since last summer. Analysts praised the company’s results but said optimism was already largely priced into the stock.
Not all earnings news was negative. Meta Platforms surged 9.9% after beating profit forecasts, even as it reiterated plans for heavy spending on artificial-intelligence projects. IBM gained 4.6% after surpassing expectations for both revenue and earnings.
Southwest Airlines jumped 15.8% despite missing quarterly profit estimates, buoyed by an upbeat outlook for 2026 that reflected confidence in recent strategic changes such as charging for checked bags and introducing assigned seating.
Stocks inside the S&P 500 were nearly evenly divided between gainers and losers, highlighting how a handful of major names can sway the broader market.
Outside equities, investors witnessed some of the most dramatic price action in months. Gold surged close to $5,600 an ounce early in the day before abruptly tumbling below $5,200, then rebounding to around $5,386, still up nearly 1% from the prior session.
The metal only crossed the $5,000 mark for the first time earlier this week and has nearly doubled over the past year. Silver experienced a similar sudden reversal after its own meteoric rise.
The surge in precious metals has been fueled by demand for perceived safe havens as investors weigh concerns about lofty stock valuations, geopolitical tensions, the threat of new tariffs and swelling government debt across major economies.
But the rapid ascent in prices has also sparked criticism that gold and silver climbed too far, too fast, making them vulnerable to sharp pullbacks.
Even digital assets were not immune to the volatility. Bitcoin fell more than 6%, sliding toward $83,000 as traders reassessed risk.
The U.S. dollar, which has weakened over the past year amid many of the same anxieties that lifted gold, was relatively stable Thursday against the euro, British pound and other major currencies. In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 4.23% from 4.26% late Wednesday.
Markets continued to digest the Federal Reserve’s decision a day earlier to pause further cuts to its benchmark interest rate after three consecutive reductions late last year aimed at supporting the labor market.
Policymakers remain wary that inflation, still running above the central bank’s 2% target, could accelerate if rates are lowered too quickly. Cheaper borrowing can also pressure the dollar, which would benefit U.S. exporters but potentially complicate the inflation outlook.
President Donald Trump renewed his criticism of the Fed on Thursday, saying the central bank’s leadership was moving too slowly to ease policy.
Overseas markets offered a mixed picture. European indexes wavered, while many Asian markets advanced. South Korea’s Kospi climbed 1% to another record, boosted in part by strength in semiconductor maker SK Hynix, one of the region’s heavyweight technology firms.
The day’s trading underscored how quickly sentiment can shift in markets that have been riding high, with a single corporate shock and abrupt swings in commodities enough to pull Wall Street off its peaks.