NEW YORK — A quiet finish for U.S. stocks masked big swings underneath the surface. The S&P 500 rose 0.1% Tuesday after swinging between a gain of 0.5% and a loss of nearly 1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq composite also gained 0.1% each. Paramount Skydance helped lead the market after Warner Bros. Discovery allowed it to make its best and final offer to buy the entertainment company. General Mills dropped after warning about how its customers are feeling less confident. Nvidia swung between being one of the heaviest weights on the market and one of its biggest strengths amid worries about the downside of artificial intelligence.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
The U.S. stock market is swinging in uneasy trading on Tuesday as companies talk about how discouraged their customers are feeling and some tech stocks continue to feel the downside of the artificial-intelligence boom.
The S&P 500 was up 0.4% after flipping earlier between a small gain and a loss of nearly 1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 123 points, or 0.3%, as of 2: 43 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.6% higher.
General Mills sank 8% after the company behind the Cheerios, Nature Valley and Pillsbury brands said customers are feeling uneasy. It cut its forecast for an underlying measure of profit for 2026, saying declines would likely be sharper than it earlier expected.
Several surveys have recently shown weak confidence among U.S. households, which are struggling with inflation that remains higher than anyone would like, a job market coming off a weak year of growth and worries about tariffs.
Genuine Parts, which sells auto and industrial replacement parts, said it’s also “navigating a dynamic environment” while reporting weaker results for the latest quarter than analysts expected.
It plans to split into two separate, publicly traded companies in early 2027, with one focusing on auto parts and the other on industrial parts. Genuine Parts’ stock dropped 13.8%
Helping to support the market was Warner Bros. Discovery. It rose 3.5% after saying it was trying to get the “be