By Caroline Valetkevitch and Marc Jones
NEW YORK/LONDON, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Major stock indexes ended lower on Friday even as tech shares mostly steadied, while Brent crude oil rose to its highest level in nearly six months after Houthi attacks in Saudi Arabia.
The Nasdaq eased. European shares also ended lower.
An index of semiconductors rose 0.4%. On Thursday, it posted its biggest daily percentage drop since June after a report from Meta Platforms reignited worries about the AI trade. The S&P 500
technology index was also up 0.4%.
The S&P 500 energy sector rose 2.5%, hitting a record high. Houthi attacks in Saudi Arabia fanned fears over further disruption to energy supplies from the Middle East, where United Arab Emirates authorities also reported an oil spill.
Brent crude futures settled at $116.72 a barrel, up $3.55 or 3.14%, their highest since April 29. US West Texas Intermediate crude closed at $103.27 a barrel, up $3.80 or 3.8%. Brent finished the week up 6% and WTI ended 2.3% higher.
US Treasury yields rose after the benchmark 10-year yield posted on Thursday its biggest one-day drop in nearly four years.
"There are still all these headwinds in terms of sticky inflation," said JoAnne Bianco, partner and senior investment strategist at BondBloxx Investment Management in Chicago.
The 10-year yield remained under 5% as concerns about the durability of a rally in AI-related stocks lingered. The yield on the US 10-year Treasury note was up 3.7 basis points at 4.99%.
AI SHARES MIXED
Investor focus remains on the earnings season, with robust corporate profit growth underpinning gains for major equity indexes this year.
Next week, about one-third of S&P 500 companies report quarterly results, including Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon, three AI hyperscalers whose capital spending forecasts will be closely watched on Wall Street.
Meta shares ended down 1%, while Microsoft was up 0.7%. Shares of Alphabet and Amazon eased.
"After Meta's report, there's still anxiety over the AI trade to a certain extent," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth in Boston.
Investors also digested other corporate earnings news. American Express shares fell 3.7% after it reported results and its CEO said the company had good momentum, but needed to become a more "agile and efficient" organization.
Telecom company shares, including Verizon, dropped after a report that SpaceX was in talks with cellular infrastructure companies about launching a US wireless carrier program.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 652.82 points, or 1.23%, to 52,215.16; the S&P 500 lost 39.75 points, or 0.52%, to 7,623.68 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 53.52 points, or 0.21%, to 25,955.34.
For the week, the S&P 500 fell 0.5% and the Nasdaq dropped 0.7%. The blue-chip Dow rose 0.4%, notching its third straight weekly gain.
MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe fell 3.96 points, or 0.35%, to 1,118.97. Asia's bourses steadied overnight, with South Korea's KOSPI ending its session higher after shedding as much as 4% earlier. [.T]
EURO FALLS
The euro fell and was down for the week, while euro zone bonds stabilized after recent volatility.
The euro has been hit by concerns about unrest in France and the country's budget problems. France will deploy 70,000 police backed by specialist units for protests on Saturday, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said.
The euro was last down 0.21% at $1.1191.
European stocks recorded their steepest weekly loss since early September. The pan-European STOXX 600 index fell 0.31% to close at 635.77 points. For the week, the benchmark is down about 1.4%.
French yields, which were down 5 basis points at 5.04%, have risen nearly 27 bps this week, the most of any major euro zone country and the most in a week since late May.
A selloff in French government bonds this week pushed the country's debt risk premium to its highest level since the euro zone sovereign debt crisis in 2011.
(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch in New York and Marc Jones in London; Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak in New York Stella Qiu in Sydney; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle and Rod Nickel)
