Global investors on Friday digested new data, policy statements, and earnings reports. In Europe, the British FTSE edged down 0.41%, the German DAX rose 0.67%, the French CAC edged down 0.06%, and the broad STOXX 600 index eked up 0.09%. In the US, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA ) edged down 0.13% to 29,888.78, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (QQQ ) rose 1.43% to 10,798.35, and the broad S&P 500 (SPY ) index rose 0.22% to 3,674.84. The major US indices recovered some of their steep losses from earlier this week in volatile trading Friday, but all three still ended the week in the red. The S&P recorded its worst week since 2020, declining 5.8% with all 11 of its sectors down over 15% from recent highs. The small cap Russell 2000 (IWM ) rose 0.96%. John Canavan, lead analyst at Oxford Economics, said: "It's clear that there's still some volatility and that's a situation that's going be with us for a while given the rising uncertainty."
In the S&P 500, the biggest decliners were led by oil and gas firm Diamondback Energy (FANG ), whose shares fell 8.52% as hydrocarbon names broadly tumbled due to a decrease in the price of crude oil. The other biggest decliners were oil and gas giant Conocophillips (COP ), down 8.48%, oil and gas firm Devon Energy (DVN ), down 8.3%, oil and gas firm Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD ), down 8.17%, and oil and gas firm Coterra Energy (CTRA ), down 7.3%. Shares of supermarket retail firm Kroger (KR ) also fell 7.27%. The biggest gainers were led by cruise operator Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (NCLH ), whose shares soared 10.12% as investors feel more upbeat about upcoming travel demand. The other biggest gainers were cruise operator Carnival (CCL ), up 9.78%, solar energy technology firm Enphase (ENPH ), up 8.94%, Israeli solar energy firm Solaredge Technologies (SEDG ), up 8.44%, and American Airlines (AAL ), up 6.41%.
In the Nasdaq, shares of dating app firm Match Group (MTCH ) fell 5.96%, while biotech firm Seagen (SGEN ) soared 12.72% and Australian software firm Atlassian (TEAM ) jumped 7.73%. Among COVID stocks, German biotech firm BioNTech (BNTX ) fell 3.1%, while US biotech firm Inovio Pharmaceuticals (INO ) jumped 8.11%. In fixed income markets, the yields on US Treasury bonds were largely unchanged.
In commodities markets, as of press time, the price of international Brent crude oil futures fell 5.39%, and US West Texas Intermediate crude tumbled 6.15%. The price of natural gas futures tumbled 6.15%, and heating oil fell 3.9%. The price of gold futures dipped 0.43%, silver slipped 1.17%, copper fell 2.35%, wheat futures fell 4.2%, and soybean futures dipped 0.44%. In crypto asset markets, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) dipped 0.5%, Ether (ETH) slipped 0.6%, Binance Coin (BNB) rose 0.9%, Cardano (ADA) rose 0.8%, and XRP edged up 0.3%. Bitcoin was on track for its worst week in over a year.
