Wall Street opens higher while gold and silver claw back losses

NEW YORK– The wild swings that swept financial markets overnight are easing somewhat as Wall Street opens up for trading. U.S. stocks are falling slightly on Monday after gains in Europe and sharp declines in Asia, while gold and silver prices are recovering from earlier severe losses. THE&The P 500 fell 0.2% and is on track for a fourth consecutive modest loss. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 173 points and the Nasdaq composite lost 0.2%. Big tech stocks weighed on the market, including Nvidia, whose chips are driving much of the global shift toward artificial intelligence technology. The losses were much worse in Asia, where AI winners plunged.

THIS IS A LATEST UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

U.S. futures slipped Monday as questions persisted over President Donald Trump’s nominee for Federal Reserve chairman and nervousness over a possible AI bubble resurfaced.

The future of the S&The P 500 fell 0.7% before the bell, while Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 0.4%. Nasdaq futures were down 0.7%.

Oil prices fell more than 5% overnight. Gold and silver, which were on a tear before plunging on Friday, regained some of those losses but remained well below their recent highs. The price of gold rose 1.3% to around $4,800 an ounce, while silver gained 5.9% to $83.19.

Bitcoin has stabilized somewhat after falling 12% since Wednesday. It rose about 1.5% to just over $78,000, although many cryptocurrency-related companies continued to decline. Crypto trading platform Coinbase was down 3.7% in early trading and Bitcoin holder Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, fell 7.6%.

This week brings a new round of corporate earnings reports for investors to interpret, as well as three separate sets of government labor market data, including Friday’s January jobs report.

Shares of Walt Disney Co. rose less than 1% Monday morning after the entertainment giant reported strong first-quarter results, fueled by box office hits “Zootopia 2” and “Avatar: Fire and Ash.”

Revenue at Disney Entertainment, which includes the company’s movie studios and streaming service, rose 7%, while revenue at the Experiences division, its parks, rose 6%.

Investors are still considering how Kevin Warsh, Trump’s nominee to head the Federal Reserve, might manage interest rates. Trump has been highly critical of current Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, whose term ends in May.

Warsh’s nomination requires Senate approval. But financial markets fear the Fed could lose some of its independence because of Trump, who has pushed for more and faster rate cuts. This fear has helped drive the price of gold soar and weaken the value of the U.S. dollar over the past year.

“People are not being given the keys to the world’s most powerful central bank because they are planning to go in the opposite direction from those who gave them the keys,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.

The Fed Chairman has great influence over the economy and markets around the world by helping dictate the interest rate directions of the U.S. central bank. This affects the prices of all kinds of investments, as the Fed tries to keep the U.S. labor market going without letting inflation spiral out of control.

A report released Friday showed that U.S. inflation at the wholesale level was stronger last month than economists expected. That could push the Fed to hold interest rates steady for a while instead of cutting them, as it did late last year.

The long-standing assumption has been that the Fed should act separately from the rest of Washington so that it can take actions that are painful in the short term but necessary in the long term. Bringing inflation back up to the Fed’s 2% target, for example, may require making the unpopular choice to keep interest rates high to dampen economic growth for a while.

South Korea’s stock market, heavily influenced by technology-related developments, briefly suspended trading as its benchmark Kospi rebounded, closing down 5.3% at 4,949.67. Samsung Electronics fell 6.3%, while chipmaker SK Hynix fell 8.7%.

The Kospi has been hitting records for weeks as big tech companies capitalize on the AI ​​craze by striking deals with major players like chipmaker Nvidia and OpenAI.

At midday in Europe, the German DAX rose 0.8%, while the CAC 40 in Paris rose 0.6%. Britain’s FTSE 100 index jumped 0.7%.

Benchmark U.S. crude lost $3.19, or 4.9 percent, to $62.02 a barrel, while Brent crude, the international standard, fell $3.16 to $66.16 a barrel. Natural gas, which had soared in recent weeks as the United States endured widespread cold and winter storms, was down 17%.

Speaking to reporters over the weekend, Trump said Iran should negotiate a “satisfactory” deal to prevent the Middle Eastern country from acquiring nuclear weapons.

“I don’t know if they will. But they are talking to us. They are talking to us seriously,” he said.

The comment apparently eased some concerns about possible oil supply disruptions that had driven up prices, analysts said.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index gave up its initial gains, falling 1.3% to 52,655.18.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 2.2% to 26,775.57, while the Shanghai Composite index fell 2.5% to 4,015.75.

In Australia, the S&The P/ASX 200 fell 1% to 8,778.60.

Taiwan’s Taiex lost 1.4%.