Stock market today: Asian shares slide after slight gains on Wall Street

BANGKOK (AP) — World shares were mixed Thursday after U.S. stock indexes drifted to a lackluster finish, with the S&P 500 closing just an iota higher.

Germany’s DAX lost 0.9% to 22,584.04 and the CAC 40 in Paris slipped 0.3%, to 8,122.00. Britain’s FTSE 100 was nearly unchanged at 8,734.36.

The future for the S&P 500 was up 0.5% while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.2%.

Later Thursday, the U.S. Commerce Department will issue its third and final estimate of how the U.S. economy performed in the final three months of 2024. The economy still appears to be in solid shape, and growth is continuing, though uncertainty is rising about the future. Another report on Friday will show how the gauge of inflation that the Federal Reserve prefers to use has been behaving.

Worries have been rising about whether U.S. shoppers may cut back on their spending, a key driver of growth, given stubbornly high inflation and jitters about outlook.

In Asian trading, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 added 0.3% to 38,256.17.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.3% to 23,718.29. Tech shares that had gained earlier in the week were among the heavier sellers. The Shanghai Composite index reversed early losses, closing 0.2% higher at 3,388.06.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 500 climbed 0.3% to 8,268.20, while the Kospi in South Korea dropped 0.7% to 2,621.75.

Elsewhere in Asia, Taiwan’s dropped 1.5% and the SET in Thailand sank 1.3%.

On Wednesday, U.S. stock indexes drifted to a mixed finish. The S&P 500 inched up by 0.1%, breaking a four-day losing streak that had knocked it off its all-time high. The Dow industrials fell 0.4% and the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.3%.

The stock market has generally been struggling following some weaker-than-expected reports on the economy, including a couple that showed U.S. households growing pessimistic about inflation and higher tariffs pushed by President Donald Trump. Some of the harshest drops hit Big Tech and other high-growth stocks, whose incredible momentum had earlier seemed unstoppable.

Super Micro Computer, one of the stocks that has soared in the frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology, lost nearly a quarter of its value over four days, for example. But it jumped 12.2% Wednesday after filing its annual report for its fiscal year that ended in June.

Much of the market’s attention remained on Nvidia, the chip company that’s become the poster child of the AI rush. It rose 3.7% ahead of its latest profit report, which arrived after trading ended for the day.

The company reported a surge in fourth-quarter profit and sales as demand for its specialized Blackwell chips, which power artificial intelligence systems, continued to grow.