Stock market today: Wall Street’s sell-off eases as Tesla and other recent market losers steady

By STAN CHOE, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street’s sell-off is slowing on Tuesday, for now at least, following a scary stretch where worries about the economy and tariffs sent it close to 9% below its all-time high.

The S&P 500 was 0.2% higher in early trading. While only modest, the gain would provide a respite after the main measure of Wall Street’s health swung by at least 1%, up or down, seven times in the last eight days.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 132 points, or 0.3%, as of 9:50 a.m. Eastern time. A day earlier, it had been down more than 1,100 points at one point. The Nasdaq composite was 0.8% higher.

Several Big Tech stocks helped support the market after getting walloped in recent months. Elon Musk’s Tesla rose 5.9%, for example. President Donald Trump even said he would buy a Tesla in a show of support for “Elon’s ‘baby.’ ”

A day earlier, the electric-vehicle company’s stock tumbled 15.4% to deepen its loss for the young year so far to 45%. Trump blamed political opponents who are “trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla,” as Musk leads efforts in Washington to cut spending by the federal government.

Other Big Tech superstars, which had led the market to record after record in recent years, also held a bit firmer. Nvidia rose 3.2% to trim its loss for the year so far to 17.8%. It’s struggled as the market’s sell-off has particularly hit stocks seen as getting too expensive in Wall Street’s frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology.

Still, warning signals continue to flash about the economy, where Trump’s on -and- off -again rollout of tariffs has caused confusion and pessimism among U.S. households and businesses. The fear is that whipsaw moves will either hurt the economy directly or create enough uncertainty to drive U.S. companies and consumers into an economy-freezing paralysis.

Delta Air Lines said late Monday that it’s already seeing the change in confidence, which is already affecting demand for close-in bookings for flights. That pushed it to roughly halve its forecast for revenue growth in the first three months of 2025, down to a range of 3% to 4% from a range of 7% to 9%.

Delta’s stock lost 3.6%.

Southwest Airlines also cut its forecast for an important underlying revenue trend, pointing to less government travel, among other reasons. But its stock nevertheless rallied 8% after the airline said it would soon begin charging some passengers to check bags and announced changes to encourage its most loyal customers.

Oracle dropped 4% after the technology giant reported profit and revenue for the latest quarter that fell short of analysts’ expectations.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across Europe and Asia.

Stocks rose 0.4% in Shanghai and were nearly unchanged in Hong Kong as China’s annual national congress wrapped up its annual session with some measures to help boost the slowing economy.

In the bond market, Treasury yields held steadier after tumbling in recent months on worries about the U.S. economy. The yield on the 10-year Treasury was holding at 4.22%, where it was late Monday. In January, it was nearing 4.80%.

AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.