The US stock market holds steadier, for now, following its wildest day since April

Options trader Phil Fracassini works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

(AP) — Wall Street seems to be holding steadier on Friday, for now at least, following weeks of scary swings driven in part by worries that stars like AI stocks and cryptocurrencies shot too high.

The S&P 500 rose 0.4% in morning trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 216 points, or 0.5%, as of 10:05 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.4% higher.

Stocks appeared to get a boost from a speech by the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Markets perked up immediately after John Williams told a conference in Chile that he sees “room for a further adjustment” in the near term for interest rates.

That could indicate he may vote for another cut to interest rates in December. What the Fed does with rates is critical for the stock market because prices ran to records through last month partly because of expectations for a series of invigorating cuts by the central bank.

But a gain for the U.S. stock market in the morning guarantees nothing, as Thursday’s violent pivot showed.

The market began that day with a surge after Nvidia seemed to tamp down worries about a potential bubble for stocks riding the mania around artificial-intelligence technology. But it quickly gave up all of it and dropped to a sharp loss for its biggest reversal since April, when President Donald Trump shocked financial markets with his “Liberation Day” tariffs.

Despite the strong profit report from Nvidia, whose chips are powering the move into AI and are proving indispensable for many buyers, worries are still hanging around about the longer term. Will all those AI chips and data centers that Amazon, Meta Platforms and other companies are paying for actually turn into big profits and productivity eventually? If not, some investors fear, all the investment won’t be worth it.

AI-linked stocks were still skittish on Friday. Nvidia went from an initial gain to a dip of 0.7%, for example. Palantir Technologies also bounced between gains and losses following its 5.8% slide from the day before. Proponents are still professing their belief in a revolution for the economy because of AI, while critics say stock prices are simply too high and frenzied.

Other big swings also continued underneath the market’s surface. Bitcoin briefly plunged below $81,000, before pulling back toward $85,000. That’s down from nearly $125,000 last month, and it’s back to where it was in April, when markets were shaking because of Trump’s tariffs.

Helping to lift Wall Street, meanwhile, were several retailers. Gap jumped 6.6% after the apparel company reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. CEO Richard Dickson said it saw strong sales trends at each of its Old Navy, Gap and Banana Republic brands.

Ross Stores rose 5.4% after it likewise delivered a better profit than expected. CEO Jim Conroy said it saw broad-based growth during the quarter and raised the company’s forecast for an important measure of sales during the holiday shopping season.

In the bond market, Treasury yields eased. Following Williams’ speech, traders were betting on a 73% probability of a December cut, up sharply from 39% a day before, according to data from CME Group. That helped send the yield on the 10-year Treasury down to 4.06% from 4.10% late Thursday.

The Fed has already cut rates twice this year to shore up the slowing job market. But lower rates can worsen inflation, which has stubbornly remained above the Fed’s 2% target. That, along with delays for several important updates on the economy because of the U.S. government’s earlier shutdown, raised doubts about whether the Fed will cut again in December.

Treasury yields edged further down after a report from the University of Michigan said that U.S. consumers’ expectations for inflation in the coming year and in the longer term aren’t as bad as they were a month before. That could give the Fed more leeway to cut rates, because increasing expectations of inflation can lead to a vicious cycle that only worsens it.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Europe after markets tumbled in Asia following Wall Street’s stunning reversal.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 2.4%, and South Korea’s Kospi dropped 3.8% for two of the larger losses.