dow falls heads for fifth down day us stocks were mostly higher on thursday with nvidia corp earning helping lift the nasdaq but the dow was on pace to book a fivesession skid as us debtceiling talks drag on in congress on wednesday the dow fell for a fourth straight session as debtceiling worries continued to hang over the market fears about the looming us debtceiling deadline were offset thursday by excitement about the prospects for artificialintelligence technology after chip maker nvidias results late wednesday resulting in a starkly different performance for the nasdaq and the dow nvidia nvda shares surged 25 today is all about the nasdaq which was briefly up almost 2 because of nvidia and its earnings report said robert pavlik senior portfolio manager at dakota wealth management thats helping lift the semiconductor space fueling activity in the nasdaq he told marketwatch optimism is bleeding over to other major technologyrelated companies depending on where nvidia finishes thursdays session the chip maker could add more than 200 billion to its market capitalization according to dow jones market data it was also on the cusp of joining a small club of companies worth more than 1 trillion while its gains also helped boost shares of related firms shares of advanced micro devices incamd were up 99 while those of microsoft corp were up 37 as the nasdaq jumped the dow briefly turned positive in afternoon trade but gave back earlier ground as debtceiling talks loomed over markets top house republicans and the white house on thursday sounded upbeat on washingtons debtceiling talks with president biden saying negotiations were making progress falling crude oil prices weighed on shares of energy firms and dragged the dow down even further west texas intermediate crude for july delivery cl00cl1cln23 fell 29 settling at 7220 per barrel ructions at the short end of the treasury market  where some 1month bill yields broke above 7  illustrate trader anxiety that unless congress can reach an agreement to extend the debtceiling the us government may technically default at the beginning of june people are nervous and a bit concerned about if the government is going to miss an interest payment pavlik said adding that his expectation is for talks to go past the june 1 deadline rattling markets but then for a resolution to be found ratings agency fitch late wednesday said it was placing the us aaa credit rating on watch for a possible downgrade given what it called the debtceiling brinkmanship the decision by fitch ratings to put the us credit rating at risk of downgrade is a necessary step and will likely trigger limited market stress said edward moya senior market analyst for the americas at oanda in emailed comments investors also parsed us weekly jobless claims data which reached a seasonally adjusted 229000 last week according to data released by the labor department gdp data also showed the us grew at a somewhat faster but still tepid 13 annual pace in the first quarter updated figures show as high inflation and rising interest rates weighed on the economy several fed officials were speaking thursday with boston fed president susan collins saying signs of waning inflation could justify the central bank soon pausing it its interestrate hikes richmond fed president tom barkin said the us economy is experiencing a slowdown in demand this content was created by marketwatch which is operated by dow jones  co marketwatch is published independently from dow jones newswires and the wall street journal