BENGALURU Wall Street's main stock indexes were mixed in choppy trading on Thursday as Alphabet weighed on the market, while investors also focussed on AI-heavyweight Nvidia's upbeat quarterly results and forecast.

Alphabet dropped 4% after the Justice Department argued to a judge that Google must sell its Chrome browser and take other measures to end its monopoly on online search.

It weighed on the communication services sector, which fell 2.2%.

Megacaps such as Meta Platforms fell 1.1%, Amazon.com lost 1.1% and Apple shed 0.6%.

On the flip side, Wall Street's biggest company, Nvidia, rose 1.3% to a record high after surpassing expectations for quarterly results, and projected fourth-quarter revenue above estimates.

The stock had fallen earlier in premarket trading as some investors were unimpressed that the forecast was its slowest in seven quarters.

"Nvidia had a spectacular quarter ... but it is overshadowed by expectations. Great expectations are built in the stock and have been running at the rate at which Nvidia has been running," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B Riley Wealth.

Other chip stocks were mixed while the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index was up 0.8%.

At 9.48am, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 74.01 points, or 0.14%, to 43,469.95, the S&P 500 gained 1.19 points, or 0.02%, to 5,917.46 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 23.67 points, or 0.12%, to 18,942.48.

Nvidia has led much of the US market rally since mid-2023 on expectations that AI integration could boost corporate profits. The stock has risen more than nine-fold in the past two years and the company boasts a market value of US$3.5 trillion .

On the day, the three indexes had briefly touched their highest level in about a week.

On the data front, a weekly report on jobless claims showed they fell unexpectedly last week, suggesting a rebound in job growth in November.

Money market bets were tied between expectations that the Federal Reserve (Fed) will lower interest rates by 25 basis points at its December meeting or if it will stay put, according to the CME Group's FedWatch.

"The employment picture is a little bit stronger and one could think that would give the Fed another reason to either pause in December or to slow things down in 2025," said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research.

Investors also kept an eye on escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin said the US is more vulnerable to inflationary shocks than in the past, according to a media report.

Comments from Fed officials Austan Goolsbee and Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr are on tap.

Deere shares gained 5.1% after the farm equipment maker beat Street estimates for fourth-quarter profit, while Snowflake jumped 28% after raising its annual product revenue forecast.

Crypto stocks such as MARA Holdings jumped 11.6% and MicroStrategy rose 10.9% as bitcoin prices soared to nearly US$100,000 for the first time.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2.14-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 1.5-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P 500 posted 25 new 52-week highs and three new lows, while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 61 new highs and 54 new lows.

  - Reuters