U.S. stocks were mostly trading below flat on Friday as a tech-led rally showed signs of serious fatigue for the first time in more than a week.
The benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC) fell about 0.2%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index (^IXIC) lost 0.3%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) rose nearly 0.1%.
Thursday’s declines in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were notable because they were anomalies in recent weeks. The S&P continued to climb, briefly topping 5,500 for the first time on Thursday, but the Nasdaq’s drop the previous day ended a streak of seven consecutive days of record closing highs.
The AI ​​rally was led by Nvidia (NVDA), which briefly became the world’s most valuable company this week. The company was down more than 2% in morning trading on Friday after a big sell-off on Thursday. Other chip stocks, including Broadcom (AVGO), Super Micro Computer (SMCI) and Qualcomm (QCOM), also fell along with Nvidia in the early session.
Investors are also assessing the overall health of the U.S. economy and the direction of interest rates. Inflation hawk James Bullard, a former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, said Thursday that last week’s weak consumer price index reading could lead to a rate cut in September. About two-thirds of traders still expect rate cuts to start then, according to CME FedWatch.
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