Futures Slip as Big Tech Falters, Oil Extends Relentless Advance
Stocks fell on Friday with technology megacaps again trading lower after Thursday’s selloff. Oil prices rose, with the US midterm elections less than two weeks away. Investors were parsing mixed earnings from payments giant American Express Co. for signals about spending and the health of the economy.
The S&P 500 Index fell 0.4% of 10:01 a.m. in New York, while the Nasdaq 100 Index was little changed. Bloomberg’s Magnificent Seven guage dropped 0.4%. West Texas Intermediate crude oil added 2.9% to top $102 a barrel, while Brent rose almost 4% this week as conflict in Saudi Arabia intensified. Yields on 10-year Treasuries rose to 4.99%.
A cautious tone lingered, with mounting anxiety about financing the artificial intelligence boom. Meta Platforms Inc. extended losses into a second day after reporting results and boosting its capital spending outlook. On Thursday, a gauge of the company’s credit risk surged as spending plans reignited fears tech giants will issue more debt in an already-saturated market. Shares of memory and storage company Western Digital Corp. slipped even after an earnings beat and an outlook that was well above expectations.
Stocks are likely to stay under pressure with “risk aversion heading into a consequential two weeks of central bank policy decisions, growth and inflation data and election outcomes,” RSM chief economist Joseph Brusuelas said. He also flagged concerns about the cost of capital and debt levels in the tech and AI ecosystem.
On Thursday, the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 sank 2.9%, the most intraday since late June, with selling concentrated in top tech stocks. Still, investors weren’t fleeing equities entirely. More than 300 of the S&P 500’s constituents advanced even as the benchmark shed more than 1%, the second-widest divergence in data back to 1990. The disparity was only topped in January 2025, when Chinese startup DeepSeek rattled markets by unveiling an AI model that was competitive with US rivals’ systems.
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