Wall Street Today: S&P 500, Nasdaq Composite Sink as MSFT, NOW, CRM Losses Beat META, IBM Gains

The $Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC.US)$ shed 172.33 points (0.7%) to a 23,685.12 close, while the $S&P 500 Index (.SPX.US)$ lost 9.02 ticks (0.1%) to 6,969.01 just one day after setting an intraday record high.

However, the $Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI.US)$ managed to gain 55.96 points (0.1%) on Thursday to a 49,071.56 ending.

The Nasdaq and S&P 500 fell in large part due to a 10% drop for $Microsoft (MSFT.US)$, a member of both indexes. MSFT tanked on word its cloud unit's growth slowed in fiscal Q2, while investors panned management's fiscal Q3 operating-margin guidance.

Markets also awaited quarterly results from tech giant $Apple (AAPL.US)$ due out after the bell. (Apple later reported earnings and revenue beats.)

Other tech stocks to see major declines Thursday included $ServiceNow (NOW.US)$ (down 9.9% following earnings Wednesday night), $CoreWeave (CRWV.US)$ (off 6.1%), $Salesforce (CRM.US)$ (also 6.1% lower), $NEBIUS (NBIS.US)$ (5.5% weaker) and $Palantir (PLTR.US)$ (which lost 3.5%).

Such red ink offset gains by Big Techs $Meta Platforms (META.US)$ (which soared 10.4% on well-received earnings Wednesday evening) and $IBM Corp (IBM.US)$ (5.1% better following better-than-expected quarterly results).

$Gold Futures (APR6) (GCmain.US)$ initially rose 5.3% to a $5,586.20-an-ounce all-time high in Comex New York trading before dropping back to as low as $5,097.50. $Silver Futures (MAY6) (SImain.US)$ likewise gained 7.3% to a $121.785-an-ounce best-ever level, then dropped down to $106.61.

$Bitcoin (BTC.CC)$ shed 5.5% to $84,267.99 as of shortly before 4:15 p.m. New York time, while $Ethereum (ETH.CC)$ lost 6.7% to $2,812.63, $Solana (SOL.CC)$ gave up 6.8% to $117.09 and $Ripple (XRP.CC)$ lost 6.1% to $1.80.

$Meta Platforms (META.US)$ led Mag-7 gainers with its previously noted 10.4% gain, followed by $Apple (AAPL.US)$ (up 0.7% ahead of its earnings), $Alphabet-A (GOOGL.US)$ (0.7% better) and $NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$ (0.5% firmer).

That said, $Microsoft (MSFT.US)$ topped the Mag-7 decliners with its 10% loss, followed by $Tesla (TSLA.US)$ (off 3.2% despite reporting earnings and revenue beats Wednesday evening) and $Amazon (AMZN.US)$ (down 0.5%).

-- $Richtech Robotics (RR.US)$, down 20.9%. The hotel-focused robotics firm continued to give back part of a 44.6% gain seen Tuesday on word of a deal to develop AI-powered robots with $Meta Platforms (META.US)$. RR also sank on word Wednesday of a $38.7 million stock private placement that will presumably dilute existing shareholders.

-- $Joby Aviation (JOBY.US)$, off 16.7%. The flying-taxi firm fell after disclosing plans to sell some $1 billion of new stock and convertible bonds – again, likely diluting current investors.

-- Select rare-earth stocks, which fell on a combination of Thursday's risk-off sentiment and a Reuters report saying the Trump administration won't guarantee firms other than MP Materials minimum prices for their materials. Decliners included $Critical Metals (CRML.US)$ (off 17.9%), $USA Rare Earth (USAR.US)$ (down 12.4%), $Energy Fuels (UUUU.US)$ (10.3% lower) and $MP Materials (MP.US)$ (7.3%).

-- -- Certain crypto-related stocks, which fell on cryptocurrencies' declines. Losers included $Strategy (MSTR.US)$ (off 9.6%), $Circle (CRCL.US)$ (7.3% weaker), $IREN Ltd (IREN.US)$ (4.9% lower), $Coinbase (COIN.US)$ (4.9% softer) and $Robinhood (HOOD.US)$ (down 2.1%).

-- $SanDisk (SNDK.US)$, up 2.2%. The storage-device maker beat Big Tech's general sell-off ahead of earnings due out after the bell. (SNDK rose another 12.5% as of about 4:30 p.m. New York time in after-hours trading following the release of well-received results).