US Stocks Mostly Steady at End of Wild Week

NEW YORK (AP) -- U.S. stocks are holding relatively steady on Friday at the tail end of a wild, whipsaw week for Wall Street.

The S&P 500 was virtually unchanged in morning trading after earlier drifting between small gains and losses. It's coming off its best day since 2022, but it's still it's on track to close a fourth straight losing week after yo-yoing through several sharp swings. That would be its longest such streak in almost a year.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 41 points, or 0.1%, as of 10:30 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was basically flat. Both are also heading for losing weeks.

The listless activity came even though more big U.S. companies piled on to the group that's reported better profit for the spring than analysts expected.

Expedia Group jumped 7.5% after delivering stronger results than expected, though it said it saw a softening of demand in July like some other companies. Take-Two Interactive rose 3.3% after the company behind the Grand Theft Auto and NBA 2K video games likewise reported a better profit than forecast.

Wall Street's relative calm followed a mixed performance for stocks worldwide, which have also been frenetic since last week because of a number of factors slamming into markets all at once. At the forefront is the value of the Japanese yen, whose sudden and sharp strengthening recently has forced hedge funds and other traders to scramble out of a popular trade en masse.

They had been borrowing Japanese yen at very low cost and then investing it elsewhere around the world, but a hike to interest rates by the Bank of Japan forced many to abandon the trade at the same time and sent global markets reeling. A promise by a top Bank of Japan official in the middle of the week not to raise rates further as long as markets are "unstable" helped stabilize the yen, but its value climbed modestly against the U.S. dollar in morning trading.

Also weighing on the market have been worries about a slowing U.S. economy. A raft of weaker-than-expected reports has forced questions about whether the Federal Reserve has kept interest rates at too high of an economy-crunching level for too long in order to beat inflation. Last Friday's report showing much weaker hiring by U.S. employers than expected was the lowlight.

Such worries dragged Treasury yields lower in the bond market this week, and they fell again Friday as investors looked for safer places for their money. Expectations have also built for deeper cuts to rates coming from the Fed, starting with an anticipated easing at its next meeting next month.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 3.93% from 3.99% late Thursday. But it's still well above the 3.70% level that it briefly sank to on Monday, when fear was surging and investors were speculating the Fed may even have to call an emergency meeting to cut rates.

Reports next week could drive more swings. On Thursday will come an update on how much shoppers are spending at U.S. retailers. Households at the lower end of the income spectrum have been struggling for a while to keep up with still-rising prices, but economists expect the report to show a return to growth after a stall in retail spending during June.

Another report on Thursday will show how many U.S. workers are applying for unemployment benefits. The most recent such report raised hopes for the economy after the prior week's frightened investors.

Looming over them all will be the latest updates on inflation. A worst-case scenario for markets would be if Tuesday's and Wednesday's updates on inflation at the wholesale and consumer levels show higher-than-expected rises in prices while the week's other reports show the economy is weakening sharply.

That would be a toxic mix for the Federal Reserve, which doesn't have a good way to fix such a mess. The central bank could lower interest rates, which would give the U.S. economy an upward push but also threaten to worsen inflation. Or it could keep its main interest rate at a two-decade high, where it's been roughly a year. That would put downward pressure on inflation but also inflict more pain on the economy.

A third factor that's sent markets spinning recently is increased skepticism about Wall Street's rush into artificial-intelligence technology, and how much in profit growth it will really provide.

The frenzy around AI allowed a handful of Big Tech stocks to drive the S&P 500 to dozens of all-time highs this year, almost singlehandedly, as high rates weighed on other areas of the market. But the group of Big Tech stocks known as the "Magnificent Seven" lost momentum last month amid criticism investors got carried away and took their prices too high.

How this handful of stocks performs carries extra impact on the S&P 500 and other indexes because they're by far the market's most valuable companies. They were mixed Friday after Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., a major chip producer, said its revenue in July soared nearly 45% from a year earlier.

TSMC's stock that trades in the United States rose 0.4%. Nvidia, which has become the poster child for the AI trade, slipped 0.7% and was one of the heaviest weights on the S&P 500.