US STOCKS-S & P 500, Nasdaq Fall As Earnings Season Gathers Speed;

FMC plunges 33% on lower quarterly earnings projection

Uber decreases after guiding Q1 bookings listed below price quotes

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Indexes: Dow up 0.15%, S&P 500 down 0.08%, Nasdaq down 0.34%

(Updates with afternoon prices)

By Shashwat Chauhan and Sukriti Gupta

Feb 5 (Reuters) –

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq slipped on Wednesday, with Alphabet the biggest drag after the tech giant’s dour cloud profits and hefty investments into synthetic intelligence disappointed financiers, while a variety of incomes contributed to the volatility.

Google-parent Alphabet dropped 8.2% after publishing downbeat cloud income development and allocating a higher-than-expected $75 billion for its AI buildout this year.

“The market has some evidence to suggest that there are other business that perhaps doing it less expensive, better, quicker, quicker,” said Dave Grecsek, managing director in preparation technique and research at Aspiriant.

“So what is the knowledge of continuing to maintain high capex?”

AI-related stocks were rocked last week following the soaring popularity of an affordable Chinese expert system design developed by startup

DeepSeek

. Nvidia, one of the business that was the worst hit, wiki.vifm.info was up 3.8% on the day.

Advanced Micro Devices, on the other hand, lost 8.9% after CEO Lisa Su said the business’s current-quarter information center sales – a proxy for its AI earnings – would fall about 7% from the previous quarter.

On the data front, U.S. services sector activity suddenly slowed in January amidst cooling demand, assisting curb price growth, a reading from the Institute for Supply Management revealed.

Private payrolls increased by 183,000 jobs last month, compared with an approximated 150,000 increase, per economic experts polled by Reuters. The all-important January nonfarm payrolls report is expected to be launched on Friday.

Shares of Apple alleviated 1.2% as Bloomberg News reported that China’s antitrust regulator was preparing for a possible examination of the .

At 11:33 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 65.83 points, or 0.15%, to 44,621.87, the S&P 500 lost 4.37 points, or 0.08%, to 6,033.51 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 70.17 points, or 0.34%, to 19,586.61.

Eight of the 11 S&P 500 sectors traded greater, though communication services’ over 3% fall obscured gains.

Uber Technologies dropped 7.2% after the ride-hailing business forecast current-quarter reservations listed below price quotes.

Fiserv advanced 7.1% as the payments firm beat price quotes for fourth-quarter earnings, helped by strong need in its banking and payments processing system.

Markets likewise looked for developments on the tariffs front after U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he remained in no hurry to speak to Chinese President Xi Jinping to try to pacify a brand-new trade war between the countries.

Richmond Fed president Thomas Barkin said the Fed was still leaning towards more rate cuts this year, however flagged uncertainty around the impact of brand-new tariffs, immigration, regulations and other Trump administration efforts.

Among top movers, FMC Corp plunged 33.6% after the agrichemicals producer forecast first-quarter earnings below price quotes.

Johnson Controls jumped 11.1% as the building services company named Joakim Weidemanis as chief executive officer and oke.zone raised its 2025 earnings projection.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2.03-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 1.6-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P 500 published 27 new 52-week highs and 12 new lows, while the Nasdaq Composite taped 81 brand-new highs and 69 new lows.

(Reporting by Shashwat Chauhan and Sukriti Gupta in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai, Devika Syamnath and Maju Samuel)