On Friday morning, following a significant sell-off in tech stocks on Thursday, futures linked to the three major U.S. stock indices fell; at the same time, affected by tensions in the Middle East, Brent crude oil rose to a five-month high.
As of 6:35 a.m. Friday Eastern Time, the performance of U.S. stock index futures is as follows:
- S&P 500 Index: 7,688 points, down 0.2%
- Dow Jones Industrial Average: 52,749 points, down 0.6%
- Nasdaq 100 Index: 29,139 points, down 0.01%
The Nasdaq 100 index tumbled 2.9% on Thursday, recording its worst single-day performance since June. Despite Meta and Tesla releasing solid financial reports, concerns about AI spending continued to weigh on tech stocks.
Tesla lowered its annual capital expenditure forecast from $25 billion to $20 billion, which has exacerbated concerns from the outside world about CEO Elon Musk's confidence in AI and robotics investments.
This round of selling affected Asian markets on Friday. South Korea's Kospi index tumbled 4% at one point during the session, but then managed to recover and closed up 0.3%; Japan's Nikkei index also narrowed its loss, which at one time reached 2%.
On Friday, SK Hynix announced that it would cancel its plans to list its memory chip subsidiary in the United States due to market conditions. CoreWeave and other AI cloud concept stocks rebounded in pre-market trading in the U.S.
Brent crude oil rose to $114.72 per barrel on Friday, breaking through the $114 mark for the first time since May, before slightly falling back to $114.47 as it approached the futures snapshot.
Rising oil prices are due to attacks on Saudi Arabia, and the Houthi militants' range of operations has expanded. Saudi officials stated that on Wednesday, a drone targeting the Shaybah oil field of Aramco was intercepted, without affecting operations. On Wednesday, the UK Maritime Safety Agency reported that an oil tanker near Oman was hit by an unidentified flying object, but the crew was unharmed.
During the turmoil in the stock market on Thursday, investors turned to U.S. Treasury bonds as a safe-haven, pushing the yield on 10-year U.S. Treasuries down to around 4.97%.
