S&P 500 dips under 5,000, Nasdaq sinks
Stocks moved mostly lower Friday afternoon as Big Tech stocks continued a sell-off that sent the S&P 500 back under the 5,000 mark.
The S&P 500 (^GSPC) fell about 0.8%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) slid 1.8%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) rose about 0.2%.
The S&P 500 on Thursday notched five losing days in a row as investors absorbed disappointing earnings from Netflix (NFLX). That weighed on hopes that quarterly earnings will meet high expectations to help revive the equity rally. Shares of the streaming giant, the first of the megacap techs to report, slid 9% in afternoon trading.
Other tech stocks followed on the path down. Market darling Nvidia (NVDA) lost more than 4%, while Amazon (AMZN) saw a drop of more than 2%. Apple (AAPL) decreased 1%.
The market had come back from a deeper sell-off after Israel’s retaliatory strike on Iran spooked traders overnight and spurred a rush to safe havens such as gold. But investors are still on high alert, though Iran has confirmed the drone attack and said it failed.
Stocks were already under pressure before the shock amid persistent uncertainty about Federal Reserve interest rate cuts.
Friday brought results from Procter & Gamble (PG), which raised its full-year profit forecast despite missing quarterly sales estimates. Also on the docket, American Express (AXP) posted a profit beat as wealthy customers kept spending.
Meanwhile, US government bonds pulled back almost fully from their biggest rally of the year. The yield on the safe-haven 10-year Treasury (^TNX) fell to trade around 4.6%.
In commodities, Brent crude futures (BZ=F) — the global oil benchmark — traded around 0.4% higher to around $87 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate crude futures (CL=F) were up 0.3% to roughly $83 a barrel. Gold (GC=F) increases cooled a bit after earlier earlier gains, trading up 0.3%.
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