Wall Street steadies itself as Alphabet rallies and pressure eases from the bond market

Key Points

• Asian shares declined following a drop on Wall Street, with Japan's Nikkei 225 falling 0.2% amid political uncertainty regarding Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's future.
• The S&P 500 faced its worst day in a month, dropping 0.7% as rising bond yields pressured the stock market and major tech companies like Nvidia and Amazon saw significant declines.
• Confusion from Trump's tariffs and challenges in the manufacturing sector have increased economic uncertainty, potentially influencing future decisions by the Federal Reserve regarding interest rates.
• Gold prices have reached a record high, reflecting a trend where investors seek safe havens amid market volatility and geopolitical tensions.

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street steadied on Wednesday after Alphabet and other technology stocks rallied. It also got some relief from easing pressure from the bond market, where the latest discouraging report on the U.S. job market bolstered expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates soon to support the economy.

The S&P 500 climbed 0.5% to break the two-day losing slide it had been on since setting its latest all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 24 points, or 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 1%.

Google’s parent company was one of the strongest forces lifting the market and jumped 9.1% after avoiding some of the worst-case scenarios in its antitrust case. A federal judge on Tuesday ordered a shake-up of Google’s search engine but did not force a sale of its Chrome browser.

Because Alphabet is one of Wall Street’s most valuable companies, its stock movements carry much more weight on the S&P 500 and other indexes than the typical company’s.

Also helping to steady Wall Street was a calming bond market. A day earlier, yields climbed worldwide on worries about governments’ abilities to repay their growing mountains of debt, as well as concerns that President Donald Trump’s pressure on the Federal Reserve to cut short-term interest rates could lead to higher inflation in the long term.

Such worries have pushed investors to demand higher yields before lending money to governments. And when bonds are paying more in interest, investors feel less need to pay high prices for stocks, which are riskier investments.

On Wednesday, Treasury yields retreated following the latest report on the U.S. job market to come in weaker than expected. The 10-year Treasury yield fell to 4.22% from 4.28% late Tuesday, for example.

The report showed that U.S. employers were advertising 7.2 million job openings at the end of July, fewer than economists had forecast. The number bolsters the sense on Wall Street that the job market may be ossifying into a low-hire, low-fire state.

A weakened job market could push the Federal Reserve to cut its main interest rate for the first time this year at its next meeting, which is scheduled for later this month. That’s the widespread expectation among traders, with the next big data point coming on Friday via an update on U.S. hiring during August.

Lower interest rates could give the job market and overall economy a boost. The downside is that they can also push inflation higher when Trump’s tariffs may be set to raise prices for all kinds of imports.

Trading on Wall Street was mixed outside of tech stocks, which benefited from the Alphabet ruling. Apple rose 3.8% after analysts highlighted how the ruling will still allow it to sign lucrative search deals with Google.

“This is a relief, an outcome that is much better than feared for Google and for Apple,” according to Chris Marangi, co-chief investment officer of value at Gabelli Funds.

Macy’s jumped 20.7% for one of the market’s bigger gains after the retailer reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The owner of Bloomingdale’s delivered the best growth in an important measure of sales in three years, and it also raised its forecasts for sales and profit this fiscal year.

American Bitcoin, a bitcoin treasury and mining company linked to the Trump family, rose 16.5% in a manic first day of trading after completing its merger with Gryphon Digital Mining. Its stock price more than doubled at one point, and its movements were so frenetic that trading was halted several times through the day.

Campbell’s rose 7.2% after the company behind the Goldfish and V8 brands reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It also said, though, that customers are continuing to be “increasingly deliberate” and that tariffs may help drag its overall earnings lower in its upcoming fiscal year.

On the losing end of Wall Street was Dollar Tree, even though the retailer likewise reported a better profit than analysts expected. A chunk of that performance came because of the timing of tariffs, which could drag down its results in the current quarter.

Analysts also said expectations were high for the value retailer coming into its report. Its stock fell 8.4%, slicing into its gain for the year that came into the day at a stellar 48.6%.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 32.72 points to 6,448.26. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 24.58 to 45,271.23, and the Nasdaq composite jumped 218.10 to 21,497.73.

In stock markets abroad, European indexes climbed following a weaker finish across much of Asia.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.9% amid uncertainty about the political future of Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.

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AP Business Writer Yuri Kageyama contributed.