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Alphabet shares dive after Google AI chatbot Bard flubs answer
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Microsoft climbs on AI integration
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CVS Health rises on offer to buy Oak Street
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Indexes down: Dow 0.5%, S&P 500 1%, Nasdaq 1.5%
(Updates to late afternoon, adds NEW YORK dateline)
By Caroline Valetkevitch
NEW YORK, Feb 8 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks were down in
afternoon trading on Wednesday, paring some of the strong gains
in the previous session, with tech-focused shares leading the
way lower.
Alphabet shares were down about 8% after its new
AI chatbot Bard delivered an incorrect answer in an online
advertisement.
Among the day's Federal Reserve speakers, Fed Governor
Christopher Waller said inflation seems poised to continue
slowing this year but the U.S. central bank's battle to reach
its 2% target "might be a long fight" with monetary policy kept
tighter for longer than anticipated.
Stocks rallied on Tuesday following Fed Chair Jerome
Powell's session before the Economic Club of Washington, where
he said interest rates might need to move higher than expected
if the U.S. economy remained strong, but said he felt a process
of "disinflation" is under way.
Investors have been concerned about how aggressive the Fed's
actions may be this year following Friday's surprisingly strong
U.S. jobs report.
They have also been concerned about mixed reports from U.S.
companies this earnings season. With results in from more than
half of the S&P 500 companies, earnings still are expected to
have declined year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2022,
according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
"After this kind of run and a move to a valuation certainly
in the richer camp, you need to have more evidence to keep the
market climbing higher," said Quincy Krosby, chief global
strategist at LPL Financial in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 157.71 points,
or 0.46%, to 33,998.98, the S&P 500 lost 41.4 points, or
0.99%, to 4,122.6 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped
182.63 points, or 1.51%, to 11,931.16.
Shares of entertainment company Walt Disney were
nearly flat ahead of its quarterly results due after the closing
bell.
Microsoft Corp shares were up 0.5% after it said it
was revamping its Bing search engine and Edge Web browser with
artificial intelligence.
Investors also were digesting comments from President Joe
Biden late Tuesday at the State of the Union address, supporting
calls to tax corporate share buybacks.
CVS Health Corp were up 4.6% after its $9.5 billion
cash buyout offer for Oak Street Health Inc . Oak Street
Health rose 4.9%.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a
2.11-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.25-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 11 new 52-week highs and two new lows;
the Nasdaq Composite recorded 69 new highs and 30 new lows.
(Additional reporting by Johann M Cherian, Shubham Batra and
Shreyashi Sanyal in Bengaluru; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
