Stocks drop after another jarring day as worries about too-high prices
keep dogging Nvidia, bitcoin
[November 19, 2025] By
STAN CHOE
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market fell following another jarring day
on Tuesday, as worries keep dogging Nvidia, bitcoin and other Wall
Street stars that their prices shot too high.
After quickly sliding to a morning loss of 1.5%, the S&P 500 clawed back
nearly all of it before sinking again. It finished with a fall of 0.8%
and pulled further from its all-time high set late last month. The Dow
Jones Industrial Average lost 498 points, or 1.1%, and the Nasdaq
composite sank 1.2%.
Nvidia was again the heaviest weight on the market, and its drop of 2.8%
brought its loss for the month so far to more than 10%. That’s a steep
enough fall that Wall Street has a name for it: a correction.
What Nvidia does matters disproportionately to savers’ 401(k) accounts
because its immense size means it’s the most influential stock on Wall
Street. It single-handedly steers the direction of the S&P 500 some
days, after fervent demand for its artificial-intelligence chips helped
it briefly top $5 trillion in total value.
The U.S. stock market’s recent struggles are a sharp turnaround from its
nearly relentless rally since April, when Wall Street last sold off
after President Donald Trump shocked the world with stiff tariffs.
That rally was so strong that critics say it may have carried prices too
high, too fast and left the market at risk of a sharp drop. They point
in particular to stocks swept up in the AI mania, which have been
surging at spectacular speeds for years.
Nvidia’s price more than doubled in four of the last five years, for
example, while Palantir Technologies’ stock more than doubled in the
first six and a half months of this year.
Many big investors still seem to expect stock prices to rise further,
according to the latest monthly survey of global fund managers by Bank
of America Global Research. But when asked what the No. 1 risk for the
market is, one with a lower probability of happening but a chance of
very big damage, 45% pointed to an AI bubble. That beat out potential
trouble in the bond market, inflation and trade wars.
A record percentage of investors is also saying companies are
“overinvesting,” according to the survey. The worry is that all the
dollars pouring into AI chips and data centers worldwide may not produce
the kind of revolution that AI proponents have been predicting, or at
least not as profitable a one.
Other high-flying areas of the market with their own evangelists have
also been struggling lately. Bitcoin’s price briefly fell below $90,000
in the morning, down from nearly $125,000 last month. It later recovered
some of its losses and climbed back toward $93,000.
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Trader Jonathan Mueller works on the floor of the New York Stock
Exchange, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
 Home Depot also helped drag the
market lower after falling 6%. It reported a weaker profit for the
summer than analysts expected and cited a variety of reasons. Chief
among them was a lack of storms, which would have driven customers
to buy more home-improvement supplies. CEO Ted Decker also pointed
to “consumer uncertainty and continued pressure in housing” for
preventing an expected increase in demand.
Reporting stronger profits is one of the ways a company can make its
stock price look less expensive, because stock prices tend to track
with earnings over the long term. That’s raising the stakes for
Wednesday’s profit report from Nvidia, which could either help halt
its stock’s slide or worsen it.
Elsewhere on Wall Street, Cloudflare fell 2.8% after an earlier
issue at the internet infrastructure provider caused global outages
for ChatGPT and other services.
All told, the S&P 500 fell 55.09 points to 6,617.32. The Dow Jones
Industrial Average dropped 498.50 to 46,091.74, and the Nasdaq
composite sank 275.23 to 22,432.85.
In the bond market, Treasury yields likewise oscillated through the
day. The yield on the 10-year Treasury eventually eased to 4.11%
from 4.13% late Monday.
Yields have been swinging amid doubts about whether the Federal
Reserve will cut its main interest rate at its next meeting in
December, something that traders had earlier seen as very likely.
What the Fed does is critical for the market because stock prices
ran to records in part because of expectations for continued cuts to
rates.
The Fed has cut rates twice already this year in hopes of shoring up
a slowing job market. But lower interest rates can make inflation
worse, and inflation has stubbornly remained above the Fed’s 2%
target.
In stock markets abroad, indexes tumbled across Europe and Asia.
South Korea’s Kospi sank 3.3%, Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 3.2% and
France’s CAC 40 fell 1.9% for some of the world’s larger drops.
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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
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