Stocks continued to slid during Friday's session as growing tensions between the U.S. and China casted a dark cloud over future geopolitical relations. Wall Street was further impacted by some major corporate earnings that fell short of consensus expectations, resulting in all three major benchmarks declining throughout the trading session. Moreover, all three indices ended the week with declines: the Nasdaq led with a 1.33% drop, the S&P 500 dropped 0.28% and the Dow fell 0.26%.
On Friday, China ordered the United States to close its consulate located in the city of Chengdu. This was a responsive move similar to the U.S. ordering Beijing to close its consulate in Houston, Texas earlier this week. The two nations have been at odds since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
Here's how major market benchmarks closed out the week:
S&P 500 Index (NYSE: SPY): -0.62% or -20.01 points to 3,215.65
Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DIA): -0.69% or -182.65 points to 26,469.68
Nasdaq Composite Index (NASDAQ: QQQ): -0.94% or -98.24 points to 10,363.18
For Major Stock News, Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) sank over 16% after the company reported that it is experiencing production delays for its next-era chips. Conversely, rival AMD gained over 16%, benefiting from Intel's decline. Big tech companies continued to drag down the Nasdaq as investors pulled money from the market: Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Facebook (NASDAQ: FB), Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA).
For Sector Performance, almost every industry, excluding Consumer Discretionary +0.33%, sank during Friday's sell-off. The negative performance decline were as follows: Information Technology -1.19%, Health Care -1.11%, Industrials -0.80%, Utilities -0.63%, Energy -0.59%, Real Estate -0.40%, Financials -0.37%, Materials -0.32%, Consumer Staples -0.14% and Communication Servicer -0.06%.
For Commodities and Currency, crude oil futures ticked slightly higher, with gains being held back by increased tensions between U.S. and China. Brent Crude (NYSE: BNO) settled at $43.34 per barrel, while West Texas Intermediate (NYSE: USO) increased to $41.29 per barrel. Amid the tensions and economic fears, gold (NYSE: GLD) prices pushed towards a new record peak on Friday with spot gold increasing to $1,901.54 per ounce, which is about $20 from its all-time peak in 2011. Gold futures also gained, settling up 0.4% to $1,897.50 per ounce. Finally, the U.S. Dollar (NYSE: UUP) recorded another day of weakening by 0.4%, ended the week with the biggest decline in almost four months against other currencies.
For the week ahead, investors will focus on coronavirus headlines, U.S. stimulus package progress, and more quarterly earnings including Facebook and Google.