S and P 500 falls as mega cap tech shares drag down broad gains

The S and P 500 index dropped on Thursday even though two thirds of its constituent stocks posted gains. Yahoo Finance, 24/7 Wall St., and AOL.co.uk reported that heavy losses in a small group of large technology companies pulled down the broad market index. [1][2][6]

According to Yahoo Finance, Meta Platforms suffered a third quarter earnings per share decline of 33 percent after taking a 9.89 billion dollar legal settlement. Meta also burned 2.1 billion dollars in free cash flow during the third quarter, missed earnings per share estimates for a second consecutive quarter, and raised its full year expense target to 179 billion dollars. [1]

Other major technology shares also dragged down the market over the past month. Yahoo Finance reported that NVIDIA fell six percent and Alphabet dropped five percent over the period. Because market capitalisation weighting gives the largest companies an outsized effect on index performance, those declines offset gains across most of the remaining stocks in the benchmark. [1]

The Sunday Guardian reported additional broader market weakness as crude oil topped 117 dollars. The publication reported that the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 600 points, while the S and P 500 fell 0.40 percent and the Nasdaq composite edged lower alongside declines in Nvidia, Intel, Cisco, SpaceX, and other technology stocks. [5]