NEW YORK (AP) — A big rally for global stock markets that began in Asia on Monday petered out by the time trading got to Wall Street.
The S&P 500 slipped 0.2% in its first few minutes of trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 62 points, or 0.1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.4% lower.
The modest moves followed a 3.9% burst higher for Japan’s Nikkei 225 to a record. Stocks rallied there following a landslide victory for the prime minister’s political party in a parliamentary election. The thought is that will give Sanae Takaichi more power to push through reforms that will boost the economy and market.
On Wall Street, the U.S. stock market took a breath following its own big rally on Friday, which was its best day since May. Several concerns still hang over the market, including criticism that stocks have simply become too expensive. The S&P 500 is near its all-time high set last month.
Worries are also rising about whether all the huge spending by Big Tech and other companies on AI will actually produce enough profit to make the investments worth it.
Several other markets that have been whipping through particularly violent moves over recent weeks were also showing some more relative calm.
Bitcoin dipped back below $69,000 after climbing above $71,000 over the weekend. It had dropped close to $60,000 last week, more than halfway below its record set in October.
Gold added 1.2% to climb back above $5,000 per ounce. It’s been swinging sharply after roughly doubling in price over 12 months and has bounced between $4,500 and nearly $5,600. Silver, whose price has been even wilder, rose 3.0%.
In the U.S. stock market, Kroger climbed 6.1% after the grocer named a former Walmart executive as its new chief executive officer.
On the losing end was Workday, which fell 5.9% after the AI platform said its CEO, Carl Eschenbach, is stepping down. Company Co-founder Aneel Bhusri is returning as chief executive.
Transocean slipped 1% after the offshore drilling company said it would buy Valaris in an all-stock deal valued at $5.8 billion. Valaris soared 22.3%.
In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady ahead of several potentially market-moving reports coming later in the week. The U.S. government will offer the latest monthly update on the health of the job market on Wednesday, along with on inflation at the consumer level on Friday.
Either report could sway expectations on what the Federal Reserve will do with interest rates. The Fed has put its cuts to interest rates on hold, but a weakening of the job market could push it to resume more quickly. Too-hot inflation, on the other hand, could keep it on hold for longer.
One of the reasons the U.S. stock market remains close to records is the expectation that the Fed will continue cutting interest rates later this year. Lower rates can give the economy a boost, though they can also worsen inflation.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury held at 4.22%, where it was late Friday.
In stock markets abroad, indexes jumped across Asia with Japan’s surge. South Korea’s Kospi leaped 4.1%, while stocks rose 1.8% in Hong Kong and 1.4% in Shanghai.
The moves were more modest in Europe, where indexes were mixed.
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AP Videojournalist Mayuko Ono and AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.