MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Manchester United great Alex Ferguson was taken to the hospital after feeling unwell ahead of his former team's Premier League game against Liverpool on Sunday.
The iconic former United manager was at Old Trafford for the match, but left before kickoff.
A person with knowledge of the situation said the 84-year-old Ferguson was taken to the hospital as a precaution and was “OK.” The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
United coach Michael Carrick was unable to offer updates after the match, which his team won 3-2.
“I did hear about it before the game,” Carrick said. “I was very affected by it, the news. I just don’t know the latest, but we hope for him to be in good shape and we wish him all the best and certainly hope the result, when he hears about it, can give him a good boost.”
In 2018 Ferguson suffered a brain hemorrhage and underwent emergency surgery, before making a recovery.
Ferguson frequently attends home matches and was pictured on social media at the stadium earlier in the day.
Ferguson won 13 Premier League titles with United and two Champions Leagues during a trophy-laden 26-and-a-half years at the club. In total he won 28 major titles with United.
He retired in 2013 having won the last of his 13 league titles.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
FILE - Former Manchester United soccer manager Alex Ferguson arrives on day four of the 2026 Cheltenham Festival in Cheltenham, England, March 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Dave Shopland, file)
FILE - Former Manchester United soccer manager Alex Ferguson arrives on day four of the 2026 Cheltenham Festival in Cheltenham, England, March 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Dave Shopland, file)
Manchester United fans cheer during the English Premier League soccer match between Manchester United and Liverpool in Manchester, England, Sunday, May 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson)
NEW YORK (AP) — Most of the U.S. stock market is rising Friday after oil prices eased back to where they were before the war with Iran, but drops for AI stocks are keeping the market in check.
The S&P 500 rose 0.2% after recovering from an early loss of 0.9%. The index at the heart of many 401(k) accounts is still on track for its second losing week in the last 13, largely because of drops for stocks swept up in the mania around artificial-intelligence technology.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 7 points, or less than 0.1%, as of 1:53 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.1% higher.
Stocks got a boost as the price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, dropped 3.7% to $72.72. That's lower than it was the day before the United States and Israel attacked Iran, which eventually led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the curtailment of oil shipments worldwide.
The easier oil prices helped stocks of companies with big fuel bills, and United Airlines climbed 1.7%.
Health care stocks, meanwhile, were some of the strongest forces pushing upward on the market after a committee of the European Medicines Agency recommended several medicines for approval and the extension for another dozen of their therapeutic indications. That included one for Eli Lilly, whose stock jumped 6.6%.
Besides Lilly, roughly two out of every three stocks within the S&P 500 were rising. But more drops for AI stocks were helping to overshadow them.
After soaring to tremendous heights and leading the market for years, AI stocks been under pressure recently because of worries their profits can’t possibly keep pace with the tremendous rallies for their stock prices. And those drops have an outsized effect because AI stocks have grown into Wall Street’s largest and most influential, giving movements for their stock prices more weight on indexes than others.
Micron Technology's drop of 3.8% was the heaviest weight on the market, for example. The maker of memory for computers has been a big winner this year, with its stock quadrupling, because the AI boom has created a surge of demand for its products.
But investors saw the downside of that surge Thursday, when Apple said it had to raise prices on laptops and many other of its products by significant percentages to make up for the increases in memory prices. The worry is that such higher prices could ultimately lead to lower demand.
Highlighting the roller-coaster ride that AI stocks have been on, SpaceX briefly dropped below $149 in the morning, a loss of 2.9%, before pulling higher to a gain of 1.6%.
After initially selling its stock at $135 apiece in its ballyhooed initial public offering earlier this month, the price briefly soared above $225 within its first few days of trading. Besides rockets, Elon Musk's company also owns the xAI artificial-intelligence business.
The day's largest loss in the S&P 500 was a 23.6% drop for ON Semiconductor, which said it agreed to buy Synaptics in an all-stock deal valued at roughly $7 billion.
In the bond market, Treasury yields eased with oil prices. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.37% from 4.40% late Thursday.
It got some help from a report showing that expectations for inflation in the coming year inched down among U.S. consumers to 4.6% from 4.8% in May. That's still high, but moves downward mean less chance of a vicious cycle where expectations for higher inflation drive changes in behavior that create higher inflation.
High yields in bond markets worldwide caused by worries about inflation have been threatening to slow economies, and they have already sent rates higher for mortgages and other kinds of loans. High yields also hurt prices for investments, particularly those seen as the most expensive. That raises the pressure on AI winners.
Asian stock markets began Friday with sharp drops because of losses for AI winners.
In Japan, a 12.5% plunge for Softbank Group Corp helped pull the Nikkei 225 down by 4.2%. The company is a major investor in OpenAI, the maker of AI chatbot ChatGPT, and a report in The New York Times suggested OpenAI is considering delaying an initial public offering of its stock to next year from the second half of this year.
Such an IPO would give OpenAI the chance to raise more cash to spend on data centers, as well as the opportunity for early investors like Softbank to cash out some of their holdings. But the recent stumbles for SpaceX’s stock and for AI stocks broadly may be a signal of less appetite for big AI stocks among investors.
In South Korea, SK Hynix fell 8.4%, and Samsung Electronics sank 5.3%. That helped pull the Kospi 5.8% lower and trim its gain for the year so far to 99.6%.
AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
Trader Edward Curran works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, June 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Traders Robert Charmak, left, and Mark Puetzer work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Specialist Michael Gagliano works at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Currency traders work near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, June 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Currency traders work near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, June 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A currency trader watches monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, June 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A currency trader passes by a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, June 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
