U.S. shares fell Friday, with the S&P 500 down 1.09%, as investors reassessed rate expectations and the debt behind the AI infrastructure boom.
Global stocks slipped Friday as markets steadied after a technology-led selloff, with the S&P 500 down 1.09% on the session—the same decline as the SPY benchmark cited for the day. Technology and communication services shares led Wall Street lower, while utilities and energy stocks were among the gainers. The retreat came amid renewed concern about interest rates and the debt financing behind the artificial-intelligence buildout.
Preliminary Reuters data put the S&P 500 at 7,658.62 at the close, the Nasdaq Composite at 26,137.85 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average at 51,990.05. Reuters reported declines of 1.09% for the S&P 500, 2.1% for the Nasdaq and 0.34% for the Dow. The S&P and Nasdaq recorded weekly losses. The Dow reversed early gains to finish lower on Friday but still ended the week higher.
The immediate pressure followed stronger-than-expected U.S. inflation data released Wednesday. Traders increased bets on further Federal Reserve rate hikes, while investors bought Treasuries and other government bonds. Reuters said lower Treasury yields reduced the dollar’s appeal, but the supplied report did not provide verified closing yield levels. Bond markets steadied Friday as investors reversed some of the prior session’s moves.
The week’s selling also put scrutiny on the cost of financing AI infrastructure. CoreWeave shares fell 12% Friday and lost about a quarter of their value over the week, according to Reuters, as investors questioned whether companies building data centers can sustain the borrowing required. CoreWeave bonds had already drawn attention after falling to 81 cents on the dollar and yielding more than 15%, according to MarketWatch reporting cited in background material.
Tom Plumb, portfolio manager at Plumb Balanced Fund, told Reuters that investors were beginning to see cracks in data-center financing and could not yet know which companies would emerge as winners. He cautioned that businesses can run into trouble through liquidity problems even when their assets exceed their liabilities. That distinction matters beyond the stock market: a capital-intensive boom can produce valuable infrastructure, but high borrowing costs leave little room for delays, weaker demand or refinancing difficulties.
Outside the United States, the MSCI World Equity Index fell 0.40% and posted a weekly loss. European markets, which had been less affected by Thursday’s selloff, advanced: the STOXX 600 rose 0.72%, and London’s FTSE 100 gained 0.38%. Both finished the week higher. Asian stocks mostly rose. Indonesian equities, however, suffered their biggest drop since 1998 after index provider MSCI said the market no longer merited emerging-market status and outlined plans to remove it from key indexes tracked by funds.
Currency trading reflected the shift in rates and risk sentiment. The dollar index fell 0.26% and was on course for its first weekly decline after four weeks of gains. The euro rose 0.16% to $1.1238, recovering from a recent 17-month low, while the yen gained 0.01% to 157.98 per dollar. Reuters cited analysts who said further concern about AI financing could put additional pressure on the dollar.
The supplied market report did not give Friday price moves for oil or other commodities, so the session’s effect on fuel and grocery costs cannot be measured from these data. For households, the clearest near-term signal is that financial markets are weighing both inflation-driven rate risk and the cost of financing a major investment boom. Those forces can affect borrowing conditions and investment values, but one day’s share-price decline does not establish how household costs or future rates will move.
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