Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during morning trading on Oct. 14, 2026 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
Stocks were lower on Friday as traders headed for a mostly losing week amid a rotation out of tech and artificial intelligence-related names.
The S&P 500 traded down 1%, while the Nasdaq Composite shed 1.9%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average outperformed as it fell 241 points, or 0.5%.
Chipmakers were lower again. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) lost 1%, led by declines in Micron Technology, Advanced Micro Devices and Sandisk. Semiconductors have struggled this week amid jitters about competition from China. The SMH is down 8% week to date, on pace for its biggest weekly decline since July.
Those declines, coupled with drops in other stocks linked to AI, put the S&P 500 on pace for a losing week. The benchmark index is down nearly 2% this week, while the Nasdaq has shed more than 4%. The Dow, on the other hand, has moved higher by less than 1% on the week.
Investors have also grown concerned that tech companies are borrowing too much for the AI buildout. Shares of neoclouds like CoreWeave, which has seen its total debt rise to more than $51 billion, were down 10%, putting the stock’s week-to-date losses at more than 23%.
“The question is: Is this a systemic issue?” said Michael Rosen, Angeles’ chief investment officer. “Obviously, increased debt issuance is something to observe and continue to watch and be concerned about if it continues to get to levels of excessiveness. But we’re not remotely close to that right now.”
Other areas of the market such as energy saw gains Friday, with stocks like Chevron helping to keep the Dow’s losses in check. That’s as oil prices moved higher amid rising tensions between the U.S. and Iran as well as between Russian and Ukraine. West Texas Intermediate crude futures increased 2% to above $100 per barrel, while Brent crude futures advanced 3% to above $109.
Simultaneously, investors have been grappling with hotter-than-expected inflation data, which has been exacerbated by elevated energy prices in the wake of the U.S.-Iran war. Wholesale inflation this week saw its biggest gain since 2022, while consumer inflation remained well above the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%.
Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh spoke at an IMF event in Bangkok overnight. And while he didn’t comment on whether the Fed would raise rates before year-end, traders took that as a sign that the central bank will hold policy steady later this month. The CME Group’s FedWatch tool points to an 85% chance the Fed keeps its overnight rate unchanged at its Oct. 27-28 meeting.
