Netflix Stock, Gold Prices Drop

US stocks and the price of gold fell as momentum on Wall Street reversed on Wednesday.

• The S&P 500 fell 35.95 points, or 0.5%, to 6,699.40, though it's still not far below the all-time high it set earlier this month.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 334.33 points, or 0.7%, to 46,590.41 from its record set the day before.
• The Nasdaq composite fell 213.27 points, or 0.9%, to 22,740.40.

Netflix helped drag the market lower with a 10.1% drop after delivering a weaker profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The pressure is on the video streamer and on companies broadly to deliver solid growth in profits, the AP reports. That would help counter criticism that their stock prices have shot too high in recent months. Netflix's stock came into the day with a jump of 39.3% for the year so far.

AT&T fell 1.9% after delivering a profit that only matched analysts' expectations, while Texas Instruments sank 5.6% after its profit fell just short of forecasts. On the winning side of Wall Street was Intuitive Surgical, which sells robotic-assisted surgical systems. It jumped 13.9% after reporting better profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Boston Scientific climbed 4% after likewise topping analysts' profit expectations. Capital One Financial rose 1.6% and Western Alliance Bancorp climbed 3.2% following their better-than-expected profit updates. The report from Western Alliance was particularly welcome after it helped shake confidence in the industry last week. It's one of several banks that had warned of potentially bad loans on its books, possibly because of fraud.

Beyond Meat, meanwhile, swung sharply up and down through a manic Wednesday. After more than doubling in the morning, its stock erased all of that gain to finish with a drop of 1.1%, though it's surged around 500% so far this week. Part of Beyond's rise could be due to a recent announcement that Walmart will increase availability of some of its products at over 2,000 US stores. Its stock was trading at an all-time low of 50 cents per share late last week.

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Momentum was continuing to head the other way for gold, which slipped 1.1% to $4,065.40 per ounce. That's after Tuesday's 5.3% slide knocked it off its record high. Many of the same factors that drew buyers to gold this year are still there. Expectations are still for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates through next year. Concerns are growing about inflation remaining high. And the worrisome mountains of debt that the US and other governments worldwide have amassed are only rising further. But no investment's price goes up forever, and criticism had been growing that gold's price had gone too far, too fast after it shot up even more than the US stock market. Gold's price is still up roughly 55% for the year so far.