By Lewis Krauskopf, Tharuniyaa Lakshmi and Ragini Mathur
Oct 23 (Reuters) - The Dow Industrials and S&P 500 fell on Friday while technology shares steadied to end a turbulent week for the market-driving AI trade, while investors looked ahead to a busy slate of corporate earnings and a Federal Reserve interest-rate policy meeting.
The Nasdaq Composite was little changed a day after the tech-heavy index suffered its biggest one-day drop since June, as concerns flared over financing costs to support heavy AI
investment spending.
Most S&P 500 sectors were weaker on Friday, with the consumer staples and financial groups leading the declines.
Next week, about one-third of the S&P 500 reports quarterly results, including Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon, three AI hyperscalers whose capital spending forecasts will be closely watched on Wall Street.
"There is still fallout from the questioning of the AI trade," said Kristina Hooper, chief market strategist at Man Group. "There's certainly the potential that we see less invested in an AI data center build-out next year than has been projected. So I certainly think that's giving pause."
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 626.43 points, or 1.18%, to 52,241.55, the S&P 500 lost 33.51 points, or 0.43%, to 7,629.92 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 21.91 points, or 0.08%, to 25,986.95.
For the week, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq were on track for modest losses, while the blue-chip Dow remained slightly higher, supported by gains in defensive stocks.
The Philadelphia Semiconductor index edged up 0.6% on Friday, a day after a steep drop. The S&P 500 tech sector rose 0.4%.
Telecommunications stocks fell, weighing on the communication services sector, after a report that SpaceX was seeking thousands of cell sites for a fourth wireless carrier.
Shares of AT&T and T-Mobile both sank more than 6% while Verizon dropped 1.6%. SpaceX shares rose 1.5%. US cell tower operators gained, with Crown Castle up 10% and American Tower up 3.7%.
The energy sector rose 2.4%, hitting a record high. Brent crude hit its highest level since late April, after Houthi attacks in Saudi Arabia stoked concern over further disruption to energy supplies from the Middle East.
American Express shares fell 3.9%. The company raised its profit forecast as it also announced plans to eliminate 5% of its workforce.
SLB shares rose 6.7% after the oilfield services provider beat Wall Street estimates for third-quarter profit.
Data from the University of Michigan showed US consumer sentiment edged down near a record low in October, as rising prices because of the Middle East conflict soured households' views of the economy.
Market focus remains on the earnings season, with robust corporate profit growth underpinning gains for major equity indexes this year. S&P 500 companies are on track to have increased earnings by more than 32% in the third quarter, according to LSEG IBES data.
The Fed is expected to keep interest rates steady when it gives its policy statement on Wednesday, but investors will be eager for clues about whether the US central bank will hike rates at its December meeting. Wall Street is also increasingly focused on the November 3 midterm elections, which will decide control of the US Congress.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.97-to-1 ratio on the New York Stock Exchange. On the Nasdaq, declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.65-to-1 ratio.
The S&P 500 posted 18 new 52-week highs and 6 new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 61 new highs and 299 new lows.
(Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf in New York, Tharuniyaa Lakshmi and Ragini Mathur in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and Matthew Lewis)
