Major United States equity benchmarks ended mixed on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT), with the S&P 500 marking a second straight decline as selling pressure in technology shares intensified and weighed on the broader market.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 260.3 points, or 0.5%, to settle at 49,501.3. The S&P 500 fell 35.1 points or 0.5% to close at 6,882.7, while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 350.6 points or 1.5% to 22,904.6 amid notable weakness across chipmakers and software stocks.
Semiconductor stocks were at the centre of the equity sell-off. Shares of Advanced Micro Devices tumbled 17.3% after the company’s first-quarter forecast disappointed some analysts.
Addressing concerns, Chief Executive Lisa Su said the company had seen rising demand in recent months, telling CNBC: “AI is accelerating at a pace that I would not have imagined.”
Despite that defence, broader chip sector weakness persisted. Broadcom fell 3.8%, and Micron Technology dropped 9.6%, while Nvidia declined 3.4%.
Software shares also extended recent declines. Palantir slumped 11.6%, reversing strong gains from the previous session that had followed robust quarterly sales from the AI-focused data analytics company.
Oracle shed 5.2%, while cybersecurity group CrowdStrike lost 1.5%, continuing its pullback from earlier highs.
Not all technology names were weaker. Microsoft edged up 0.7%, showing relative resilience compared with other large-cap growth stocks.
Elsewhere in the technology hardware space, Super Micro Computer surged 13.8% after raising its full-year revenue forecast. The company cited sustained demand for its AI-optimised servers as customers expand data centre capacity to support artificial intelligence workloads.
Healthcare stocks helped cushion losses in the S&P 500. Eli Lilly rallied 10.3% after forecasting 2026 profit above Wall Street expectations, offering a boost to defensive segments of the market.
Within the Dow, Amgen was among the standout performers. The biotechnology company gained 8.2% after reporting better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings and revenue.
Honeywell also supported the blue-chip index, rising nearly 2% as investors rotated out of technology and into more value-oriented industrial names.
On the macroeconomic front, labour market data remained in focus. The U.S. government’s closely watched January jobs report has been delayed from its scheduled Friday release due to a four-day partial government shutdown that ended on Tuesday.
In the absence of that data, investors assessed the ADP national employment report, which showed U.S. private payrolls rose by less than expected in January.
The report highlighted job losses in professional and business services, as well as in manufacturing, adding to signs of cooling momentum in parts of the labour market.
Attention also turned to corporate earnings. Alphabet reported quarterly results after the closing bell on Wednesday, while fellow “Magnificent Seven” member Amazon is due to report on Thursday, with investors watching closely for further signals on AI-related spending and cloud demand.
On the bond markets, U.S. Treasury yields were mixed. The 10-year yield edged up 0.2% to 4.276%, while the two-year yield fell 0.4% to 3.557%.
