By Caroline Valetkevitch and Elizabeth Howcroft
NEW YORK/PARIS, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Stock indexes mostly fell on Friday as technology shares sold off amid concerns about US chipmaker Nvidia, while the dollar was at a 19-month high.
Airline shares dropped in the final minutes of the regular US session after the US Federal Aviation Administration issued a national ground stop of all departing flights. The agency said this was "due to extraordinary circumstance and reasons for safety" after it earlier
reported serious air traffic control communications issues. The NYSE Arca airline index closed down 1.4%.
The Nasdaq and S&P 500 ended lower, but all three of the major US stock indexes and the pan-European STOXX 600 registered gains for the week.
Jensen Huang's resignation on Thursday as Nvidia CEO could have far-reaching consequences for US chip export policy and the broader AI industry and supply chain given his push to preserve access to the Chinese market and close ties with US President Donald Trump. Huang stepped down after revelations of extramarital affairs, including a relationship with a businesswoman suspected by the US of spying for China.
The Financial Times reported that Nvidia's board has approached British chipmaker Arm Holdings CEO Rene Haas in its search for a potential successor to Huang.
The Philadelphia semiconductor index was down 3.4% and shares of Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom were sharply lower. Nvidia shares finished 2% lower.
"Traders probably weren't excited about carrying positions into the weekend," said Chuck Carlson, chief executive officer at Horizon Investment Services in Hammond, Indiana.
"A lot of attention is still going to be paid next week to Nvidia," he said. The company is due to report quarterly results on Tuesday after the closing bell.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 50.46 points, or 0.10%, to 52,347.55, the S&P 500 fell 30.73 points, or 0.40%, to 7,561.67 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 229.82 points, or 0.91%, to 25,136.27. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 both snapped a four-week streak of declines.
MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe fell 4.15 points, or 0.37%, to 1,112.12.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index ended up just 0.02%, but recorded its best week since late June as strong earnings and a rotation out of tech globally helped investors look past geopolitical risks and the volatility involving AI stocks.
A global outage of Microsoft Outlook and Teams was easing on Friday after more than 24 hours of disruption crippled online communications across businesses and governments, though the company said it still had no timeline for full recovery of services.
US 2-YEAR YIELDS HAVE LARGEST WEEKLY RISE IN OVER TWO YEARS
The US dollar index gained for a fourth straight day. Traders this week have been ramping up bets on faster interest rate increases following the consumer price data and hawkish Federal Reserve official commentary.
The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies including the yen and the euro, rose 0.17% to 103.40. It hit its highest since April 2025. The euro was down 0.29% at $1.1021.
Investors digested a report showing the US October Producer Price Index for final demand was slightly softer than expected, but still shot up 6.5% year over year. It followed a hotter-than-expected US consumer prices reading earlier this week.
Traders see rising odds that the US central bank could hike rates by a larger-than-usual 50 basis points in December, or raise rates by 25 basis points at each of the next three meetings.
"Inflation is stubbornly high and the Fed's going to need to act a little bit quicker and a little bit more aggressively," said Molly Brooks, US rates strategist at TD Securities.
Fed funds futures traders are pricing in an 11% chance of a 50-basis-point hike at the Fed’s December 8-9 meeting, which was seen as having zero probability a week ago, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch Tool.
Treasury yields briefly dipped after the PPI data, but interest-rate-sensitive 2-year Treasury yields had the largest weekly increase in over two years.
The 2-year note yield was last up 0.34 basis point at 4.867%. It earlier reached 4.892%, the highest since October 14. It registered the biggest weekly increase since the first week of October 2024.
Oil prices were little changed on Friday, but declined for a second straight week. Washington's focus on blockading Iran and ramping up other economic pressures allayed fears of renewed direct conflict in the Iran war.
Brent futures settled at $95.84 a barrel, up 2 cents, or 0.02%. US West Texas Intermediate futures finished at $88.56 a barrel, down 18 cents, or 0.20%. Both Brent and US crude declined for the week.
(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch in New York and Elizabeth Howcroft in Paris; additional reporting by Karen Brettell and Rae Wee; Editing by Kate Mayberry, Stephen Coates, Sharon Singleton, Tomasz Janowski, Alexander Smith and Sanjeev Miglani)
