More swings hit Wall Street, but this time stocks finish higher

NEW YORK (AP) — More swings hit Wall Street on Friday, except the U.S. stock market finished higher this time.

After bobbing up and down through the morning, the S&P 500 took off and rallied nearly 2% before finishing with a gain of 1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 493 points, or 1.1%, and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.9%.

It was a fitting finish for a week that left the S&P 500 just 4.2% below its record but also forced investors to stomach the sharpest hour-to-hour swings since a sell-off in April. The jarring moves are testing investors following a monthslong and remarkably smooth surge for stocks, and they come down to two basic questions, neither of which has been answered yet.

Have prices for Nvidia, bitcoin and other stars of Wall Street shot too high? And is the Federal Reserve done with its cuts to interest rates, which would boost the economy and prices for investments?

On the second question, financial markets found some assurance 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” to interest rates.

That could signal he’ll vote for another cut to rates in December. What the Fed does is critical for Wall Street because stock prices ran to records through last month in part because of expectations for a series of reductions.

Other Fed officials, though, have argued against a December cut given how high inflation remains. The uncertainty created by such sharp disagreement has triggered dramatic moves back and forth for markets.

The swings hit a crescendo on Thursday, when U.S. stocks initially surged after Nvidia seemed to tamp down worries about a potential bubble in artificial-intelligence technology. But the market quickly dropped to a sharp loss in its biggest one-day reversal since April, when President Donald Trump shocked markets with his “Liberation Day” tariffs.

Despite the strong profit report from Nvidia, whose chips are powering the move into AI, worries are still hanging around about the longer term. Will all those AI chips that Amazon, Meta Platforms and other companies are gobbling up actually yield profits and productivity as big as proponents are envisioning? If not, some investors fear, all the investment won’t be worth it.

AI-linked stocks continued to swing on Friday, helping to drag the rest of the market behind them. Nvidia went from an initial gain to a drop of 4.3% and then swung back and forth before finishing with a loss of 1%, for example. Amazon went from an early loss to a gain of 1.6%.

Bitcoin, meanwhile, briefly plunged below $81,000 before pulling back toward $85,000. That’s down from nearly $125,000 last month and brought it back to where it was in April, when markets were shaking because of Trump’s tariffs.

The vast majority of stocks on Wall Street rose despite such swings, with nearly 90% of stocks in the S&P 500 climbing. Their movements often get drowned out by Nvidia and other Big Tech stocks, whose movements have much more effect on the S&P 500 because of their immense sizes.

“When the largest companies drive most of the losses, the market can look weaker than it really is,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management.

Several retailers led the way. Gap jumped 8.2% after reporting 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 rallied 8.4% 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 season.

Homebuilders were also strong on hopes that lower interest rates could make mortgages cheaper and give a kick to the housing market. D.R. Horton jumped 6.8%, Lennar rose 5.9% and PulteGroup gained 5.2%.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 64.23 points to 6,602.99. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 493.15 to 46,245.41, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 195.03 to 22,273.08.

In the bond market, Treasury yields eased on hopes for cuts from the Fed. Traders are now betting on a nearly 72% 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 to 4.06% from 4.10% late Thursday.

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

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

AP Writers Teresa Cerojano and Matt Ott contributed.

Trader Robert Finnerty Jr. works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, Nov. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Options trader Chris Dattolo works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, Nov. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Traders Aaron Ford, left, and James McCarthy work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, Nov. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Options trader Steven Rodriguez works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, Nov. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

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

A currency trader works near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, right, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Nov. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Currency traders work near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, center, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Nov. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A currency trader watches monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Nov. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

BAGHDAD (AP) — An American journalist who was kidnapped in Baghdad had tried to cross from Syria into Iraq three weeks earlier and was initially turned back, an Iraqi official said Wednesday.

U.S. and Iraqi officials said Shelly Renee Kittleson had also been warned of threats against her in the days before her abduction. A freelance journalist who has worked for years in Iraq and Syria and was described by those who knew her as deeply knowledgeable about the region and the communities she covered, Kittleson was kidnapped from a street in the Iraqi capital Tuesday and remains missing.

Hussein Alawi, an adviser to Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, said Kittleson had sought to enter via the al-Qaim crossing from Syria on March 9 but was turned back because she did not have a press work permit and because security concerns due to “the escalation of the war and aerial projectiles over Iraqi airspace as a result of the war on Iran.”

She later entered the country after obtaining a single-entry visa to Iraq valid for 60 days issued to allow foreign citizens stranded in neighboring countries to “transit through Iraq to reach their home countries via available transport routes,” he said.

Kittleson entered Baghdad a few days before she was kidnapped and was staying in a hotel in the capital, he said.

“The incident is being followed closely by Iraqi security and intelligence agencies under the supervision of” al-Sudani, Alawi said. He noted that one suspect believed to be involved in the kidnapping plot has been arrested and is being interrogated.

Iraqi security forces gave chase to her captors and arrested one suspect after the car he was driving crashed, but other kidnappers were able to escape with the journalist in a second car.

An Iraqi intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment, said Iraqi authorities believe she is being held in Baghdad and are trying to locate her and secure her release. He said authorities “have information about the abducting party” but declined to give more details.

U.S. officials have alleged that Kittleson was taken by Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-linked Iraqi militia that has been implicated in previous kidnappings of foreigners. The group has not claimed the kidnapping and the Iraqi government has not publicly said anything about the kidnappers' affiliation.

The Iraqi intelligence official said that prior to Kittleson's abduction, Iraqis had contacted U.S. officials to notify them that there was a specific kidnapping threat against her by Iran-affiliated militias.

Dylan Johnson, U.S. assistant secretary of state for public affairs, said on X Tuesday that the “State Department previously fulfilled our duty to warn this individual of threats against them.”

A U.S. official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly, said, “She was contacted multiple times with warnings of the threats against her," including as late as the night before the kidnapping.

Kittleson’s mother, 72-year-old Barb Kittleson, who spoke to The Associated Press at her home in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, said she heard about the kidnapping from a news report on Tuesday and was visited by the FBI at her house on Tuesday night.

When asked how she felt about the kidnapping she said, “Terrible. Scared. I’ll pray for her.”

Barb Kittleson said she last exchanged emails with her daughter on Monday. Shelly Kittleson sent photos of herself from Iraq, her mother said.

“Journalism is what she wanted to do so bad,” Barb Kittleson said. “I wanted her to come home and not do it, but she said, ‘I’m helping people.’”

Surveillance footage from Baghdad that was obtained by the AP shows what seems to be the moment the journalist was kidnapped. It shows two men approaching a person standing on a street corner and ushering the person into the back of a car. There appears to be a brief struggle to shut the car door before the men get into the vehicle and it drives away.

Iran-backed militias in Iraq have launched regular attacks on U.S. facilities in the country since the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

Bauer reported from Mount Horeb, Wisconsin. Associated Press writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

The street corner in central Baghdad's Saadoun Street where U.S. journalist Shelly Kittleson was kidnapped in central Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, April 1 2026. (AP Photo/ Hadi Mizban)

U.S. journalist Shelly Kittleson poses for a cellphone photo in a cafe in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, March 30, 2026. (AP Photo)

U.S. journalist Shelly Kittleson poses for a cellphone photo in a cafe in Baghdad, Iraq, March 25, 2025. (AP Photo)

A street view shows the street corner in central Baghdad's Saadoun Street where U.S. journalist Shelly Kittleson was kidnapped in central Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, April 1 2026. (AP Photo/ Hadi Mizban)

A street view shows the street corner in central Baghdad's Saadoun Street where U.S. journalist Shelly Kittleson was kidnapped in central Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, April 1 2026. (AP Photo/ Hadi Mizban)