Stocks drift lower as Wall Street stays on track for first weekly gain since early October

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Stocks were mixed in morning trading Friday as Wall Street remained on track for its first weekly gain since early October after several volatile sessions driven largely by AI-related companies.

The S&P 500 fell 0.4% on Friday, while the Nasdaq composite dropped 0.9%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 50 points, or 0.1%. On the week, the S&P 500 was still set for a weekly gain of 2.5%.

The market’s uneven trading came a day after the AI industry was shaken by the resignation of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. The company’s CFO, Colette Kress, was named interim CEO, after the U.S. raised national security concerns related to Huang’s affair with a Chinese tech executive.

Technology stocks were the biggest weights on the market. Nvidia fell 2% again, while Broadcom dropped 5.1% and Advanced Micro Devices lost 9%. Earlier in the week, those companies had risen sharply as the Nvidia management change unfolded.

Outside of AI, Microsoft rose 0.4% despite a global outage affecting its web services. Other gainers included Eli Lilly and Co. (+1.5%), Visa (+1.4%) and Mastercard (+1.3%), while health care and financial stocks outperformed.

In commodities, oil prices were little changed after swinging earlier in the day following President Donald Trump’s comments that the U.S. “didn’t ‘need a deal with Iran’” as the Middle East conflict continues. Brent crude settled at $95.84 a barrel.

Bond markets were also mixed. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 5.15% from 5.10% late Thursday, and the two-year Treasury yield increased to 4.87% from 4.86%. A report showed wholesale inflation cooled somewhat last month, but remained very high; consumer inflation was still above 3% and well above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.

In a research note, Angelo Kourkafas, a senior global strategist at Edward Jones, said, “Nvidia's pullback serves as a reminder of the concentration risk embedded in a market where a small number of mega-cap technology stocks have driven an outsized share of returns.” Chris Osmond, chief investment officer for Fifth Third Wealth Advisors, added, “That suggests inflation is working its way into the broader economy rather than remaining concentrated in the original areas of price pressure,” and said, “If that continues, it becomes much harder for the Fed to simply look through inflation as temporary.”