Wall Street falls in Thursday trading as technology shares drop and oil rises; Nasdaq down about 2.4%

US stocks were lower in afternoon trading on Thursday 22 October. As of 12:56pm New York time (4:56pm GMT), the S&P 500 was down 1.3%, the Nasdaq Composite down 2.4% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average down about 40 points, or 0.1%, the Associated Press reported. Trading ends at 4pm New York time (8pm GMT), so closing figures were not yet available.

On Wednesday the Dow closed up 0.69% at 52,856.09, the S&P 500 up 0.58% at 7,757.17 and the Nasdaq up 1.05% at 26,702.86.

Technology and semiconductor shares led the declines, Yahoo Finance said. Meta fell about 6% after its quarterly results, while Blackstone rose 5% after giving an outlook for its investment sales. NBC News reported that Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said on CNBC that capital to finance AI investment was becoming “scarce”.

The 10-year Treasury yield fell more than 18 basis points to 4.965%, the first time it has traded below 5% since 23 September, CNBC reported. US weekly initial jobless claims fell to 194,000, the lowest in three months, according to Yahoo Finance.

Earlier, Europe’s STOXX 600 closed 1.05% lower at 637.74 points, its steepest fall in three weeks, with the euro zone banking index down 4.2%, Reuters reported. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 2.7%, South Korea’s Kospi 3.5% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng 3%, the Guardian reported.

For Wednesday’s session, see our earlier report.