Why the Dow Is Holding Up Better Than the Nasdaq and S&P 500 Today

The stock market has been choppy recently and is ending the week on a sour note. The three major market indexes are down again, and Nvidia (NVDA 3.41%) is still setting the tone on Wall Street.

As of 1:10 p.m. ET, the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC 1.28%) index fell 2% and the S&P 500 (^GSPC 0.70%) is down by 1.1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI 1.20%) saw another milder drawdown, just like on Thursday. The oldest index only lost 0.4% today:

^SPX data by YCharts

AI nerves have market-moving power

Most of the hyperscalers are slouching today. Meta Platforms (META 2.39%) and Apple (AAPL 2.52%) dropped 2.5% lower and Microsoft (MSFT 2.17%) is down by 2%. But Nvidia’s 3% drop is larger, and amplified by the stock’s market-leading market cap of $4.3 trillion. Nvidia’s total market value fell by $132 billion today. If that value belonged to a stand-alone company, it would rank among the 90 largest names in the S&P 500. But I’m talking about Nvidia, so it’s just a 3% price drop.

Nvidia investors are still digesting Wednesday’s earnings report, which didn’t beat analyst estimates enough to impress investors. Yeah, it’s one of those high-priced market darlings that must deliver absolute perfection to support a lofty valuation.

On top of that, investors across the artificial intelligence (AI) industry aren’t seeing a strong return on investment from multi-billion-dollar AI systems. ChatGPT maker OpenAI landed $110 billion of cash infusions today, and the stocks of OpenAI’s new investors lost market value in response. That’s bad news for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq, where these trillion-dollar stocks play leading roles in the index’s total value and daily moves.

Image source: Getty Images.

The Dow fell, too, but for very different reasons

Once again, the Dow walked a different path because of its price-weighted structure. Tech stocks like Nvidia, Microsoft, and Apple barely moved the needle for this classic index, and the heaviest downward pressure came from a 7.2% retreat in Goldman Sachs (GS 7.23%) stock.

The financial sector is suffering as a producer-side inflation metric came in higher than expected in January. Stubborn inflation may keep Federal Reserve interest rates high in 2026, narrowing the profit margins of traditional banking and financial service operations.

American Express (AXP 6.94%) was the second-largest mover on the Dow, though its impact on the index score was about one-third of Goldman Sachs’.

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DJINDICES: ^DJI

Dow Jones Industrial Average

Today’s Change

(-1.20%) $-594.26

Current Price

$48904.94

Key Data Points

Day’s Range

$48678.78 - $49253.57

52wk Range

$36611.78 - $50512.79

Volume

357M

So that’s the end of the week. By Thursday evening, the ups and downs of recent days added up to almost perfectly breakeven moves from last Friday’s closing, across all three of the leading indexes. Next week is also a new month, and the fourth-quarter earnings season is winding down. Investors will probably focus more on macroeconomic trends than single-company reports for a few weeks.