Stock market today: Dow slides, S&P 500, Nasdaq retreat from records as rally takes another breather

Stocks retreated on Thursday as long-term bond yields rose and gold (GC=F) fell below $4,000 amid an uptick in the US dollar (DX-Y.NYB) and a peace plan for the Middle East.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) fell 0.2%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) decreased less than 0.1%, retreating from record highs in the prior session.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) fell 0.5%.

Despite Thursday’s pullback, Nvidia (NVDA) stock hit an all-time intraday high during the session, while airline stocks popped after Delta Air Lines (DAL) reported strong earnings.

Meanwhile, shares in rare earth stocks rose sharply after Beijing announced new export controls on the minerals from China.

Yahoo Finance’s Ben Werschkul reports:

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Yahoo Finance’s Jennifer Schonberger reports:

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Intel (INTC) stock reversed earlier losses after the chipmaker unveiled the specs for its latest Panther Lake personal computer chip, also known as the Core Ultra series 3 processor, which is produced using the company’s latest manufacturing technology, 18A.

The company also gave a first look at its next-generation Clearwater Forest data center server chip, also known as Xeon 6+, and said that the processor will launch in the first half of 2026.

Intel’s latest manufacturing process, called 18A, is critical for the company’s struggling contract manufacturing business, Intel Foundry Services (IFS). Intel has said it will use 18A to make its own internal products rather than chips for outside customers, as analysts had expected. Still, the success of the technology will be a key indication of whether the chipmaker can draw in external customers for its next-generation manufacturing process, 14A.

Intel’s debut of its latest chips comes after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman snubbed the company’s manufacturing segment in an interview with Stratechery on Wednesday.

Asked whether he sees a need in the chip production market — which is dominated by Taiwan’s TSMC (TSM) — for companies to bring business to Intel, Altman said, “I would like TSMC to just build more capacity.”

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US mortgage rates fell slightly this week as the markets continue to navigate the government shutdown and ensuing dearth of financial data. Yahoo Finance’s Claire Boston reports:

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Oil prices fell Thursday after President Trump said Wednesday night that Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas have agreed to the “first phase” of a peace plan proposed by the US administration.

Futures contracts on Brent (BZ=F) crude, the global benchmark for crude oil, fell by more than 0.8% Thursday after a week of positive movement. Futures on West Texas Intermediate (CL=F) crude, the US benchmark, fell by roughly the same margin.

Under the terms of the peace plan proposed by the Trump administration, both sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict would release all hostages and Israel would begin a withdrawal from Gaza, the nexus of the war. The agreement by Israel and Hamas to President Trump’s proposal marks the first substantive step in months toward negotiations to potentially end the war.

As conflict in the Middle East had spilled outside of Israel and Palestine’s borders, oil prices initially spiked upward — especially as Israel and Iran briefly exchanged airstrikes in early June — on worries of a substantive decrease of Iranian oil supply to the global market. But the spike was short-lived, and both Brent crude and WTI crude are down roughly 12% on the year.

Rystad Energy, a global energy consultancy and research firm, said substantive price movement will hinge on the long-term success or failure of a peace deal and, separately, developments in the war in Ukraine.

“As of today, the immediate impact on the oil markets will be a slight decrease in the geopolitical risk premium as the markets figure out the details of the peace plan,” said Rystad chief economist Claudio Galimberti.

Galimberti “If the plan for stable peace proves credible, its impact on prices could be more structural and profound. Yet, as long as the war in Ukraine continues, the geopolitical risk premium is destined to remain elevated.”

Shares in rare earth stocks rose sharply Thursday morning after Beijing announced new export controls on the minerals from China.

MP Materials (MP), which operates the only large-scale rare earth mine in the US, gained more than 10% through the first hour and a half of the trading day, while mining companies Lithium Americas Corp (LAC) and Trilogy Metals (TMQ) gained more than 7% and 5%, respectively.

The Trump administration has invested in each of those companies throughout the summer and early fall. In July, the Department of Defense announced a $400 million investment in MP Materials. In October, the administration announced deals for 10% stakes in both Lithium Americas and Trilogy Metals. The latter deal includes provisions that ban exports.

The investments in Lithium Americas and Trilogy Metals pushed the stocks upward by 230% and 95%, respectively, on the days each deal was reported.

China’s new export controls tighten restrictions on the export of items that contain even small traces of rare earth minerals mined in China, as well as on some technologies used to process the materials.

The minerals included in the controls include yttrium, terbium, gadolinium, and cobalt, among others. These minerals have applications ranging from fuel cells in electric vehicle batteries and cooling systems for data centers to medical imaging technology.

The spot price of silver topped $50 per ounce for the first time in decades on Thursday in a rally for precious metals driven by investors seeking flight-to-safety hard assets. Futures prices (SI=F) were approaching the same high as of 9:30 a.m. ET.

The metal climbed by more than 3.8% Thursday morning, surpassing a 2011 peak of roughly $48.40 per ounce and adding to a rally of more than 60% year to date.

The previous all-time high for the white metal is widely understood to have occurred on “Silver Thursday” in March 1980, when commodity investors attempted to corner the market. Just how high a peak the metal reached is unclear due to a lack of standardized data between indexes, but prices have been quoted by New York, London, and Chicago exchanges above $49 and above $50.

Precious metals as a group have performed well this year as investors have fled to the safe harbor assets as part of the “debasement trade. The spot price of gold crossed $4,000 per ounce for the first time on Wednesday, rallying more than 50% on the year, while platinum spot prices have gained more than 70% on the year, according to pricing data from Trading Economics.

Nvidia (NVDA) stock hit an all-time intraday high of $195.30 on Thursday in morning trading. Shares rose nearly 3%, extending a gain from the prior trading session.

The rise in Nvidia stock comes as Cantor analyst C.J. Muse raised his price target on shares to a Street high and the US approved exports of Nvidia’s chips to the United Arab Emirates.

Airline stocks popped after Delta Air Lines (DAL) reported strong earnings, raising optimism around improving fundamentals in the sector through the end of the year.

Delta CEO Ed Bastian told Yahoo Finance that the airline is back on track after geopolitical events and tariffs shook consumer confidence. “Personally, for businesses, I think confidence has been restored,” he said.

Delta stock led the gains on Thursday morning, with a gain of nearly 7%. Shares of the other major carriers rose in sympathy:

Shares of UiPath (PATH) rose another 9% just after the opening bell on Thursday after climbing 5% on Wednesday. The stock is up 33% over the past five days.

UiPath develops robotic automation software, and the company recently announced its move into agentic AI automation in partnership with OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) and Nvidia (NVDA), which are seen as the two major leaders in artificial intelligence.

UiPath has been just one of several stocks that have been propelled higher by OpenAI’s dealmaking. Stocks from Figma (FIG) to Expedia (EXPE) have seen a lift in prices after receiving shoutouts from OpenAI, as optimism around AI continues to fuel markets — and bubble concerns.

US stocks were broadly steady at the open on Thursday.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) inched up more than 0.1% after another record close for the index on Wednesday, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) added nearly 0.2%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) traded flat.

The muted open comes as the US enters its ninth day of a government shutdown, putting on pause the release of key federal data that would factor into the Federal Reserve’s path to interest rate cuts. Investors are also eyeing sentiment around the AI trade, weighing bullish sentiment among many on Wall Street against concerns over a bubble.

Costco (COST) stock rose 1.5% in Thursday’s premarket session after the wholesaler reported an increase in sales in September and early October.

Sales increased 8% to $26.58 billion in the five weeks ending Oct. 5, the company said. US comparable sales rose 5.1%, Canada sales increased 6.3%, and other international sales grew 8.5%.

Digitally-enabled sales, which were previously called e-commerce comparable sales, rose 26.1%. Costco updated the metric to include all sales initiated through a digital device.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has warned that US stocks face a bigger risk of a sharp drop than widely expected, as investors debate the odds of an AI bubble.

Asked whether he sees a crash or correction coming, Dimon told the BBC: “I am far more worried about that than others.”

“I would give it a higher probability than I think is probably priced in the market and by others,” he said in an interview broadcast on Thursday. “So if the markets price in 10%, I would price in — I would say it’s more like 30%.”

Dimon said the timing was “impossible to figure out” but could come in as soon as six months or as long as two years.

He pointed to the level of uncertainty in markets, with geopolitics, fiscal spending, and the remilitarization of the world among the key factors. “All these things cause a lot of issues that we don’t know … the answer to,” he said.

Tesla (TSLA) stock fell 2% before the bell on Thursday following news that US auto safety regulators have opened a probe into Tesla over incidents involving its vehicles running red lights and violating other traffic laws while using the system Full Self-Driving.

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Nvidia (NVDA) stock climbed nearly 2% early Thursday morning amid a nod from Wall Street and positive industry signals.

Cantor analyst C.J. Muse raised his price target on Nvidia to $300 a share from $240 — a new call high on Wall Street — citing what he sees as growing AI demand.

“We are still in the early innings of a multi-trillion AI Infrastructure build-out with just the Hyperscalers providing significant line-of-sight into hundreds of billions of demand for the next handful of years,” he wrote.

Muse’s view highlights the bull side of the AI bubble debate, which sees Big Tech as justifiably rushing to build data centers to meet unprecedented AI demand.

“Thus, this is not a bubble, and we are still in the early innings of this investment cycle,” Muse wrote.

Meanwhile, bears question whether demand is as strong as those companies say and point to concerns over circularity in the AI market.

In other Nvidia news, the US granted approval for exports of billions of dollars’ worth of the AI giant’s chips to the United Arab Emirates, Bloomberg reported. The move follows the announcement of a large AI infrastructure project called Stargate UAE during President Trump’s visit to the country earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Nvidia’s contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM) posted third quarter revenue that topped expectations.

The country’s largest banks are navigating a delicate balancing act in President Trump’s Washington, reports Yahoo Finance’s David Hollerith.

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PepsiCo (PEP) beat Wall Street projections on both the top and bottom line in its third-quarter results before the bell on Thursday, but its US snacking business continues to see turbulence.

The drinks and convenience foods giant’s stock nudged up slightly in premarket after the report.

Yahoo Finance’s Brooke DiPalma reports:

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