Source: Sharecast
At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.51% at 48,458.05, while the S&P 500 shed 1.07% to 6,827.41 and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 1.69% weaker at 23,195.17.
The Dow closed 245.96 points lower on Friday, taking a bite out of gains recorded in the previous session.
Broadcom traded lower despite beating fourth-quarter expectations and offering up some strong guidance for the current quarter, while the AI sector continued to face pressure, with names like AMD, Palantir and Micron all heading south on Friday.
While no major data points were released on Friday, investors turned their attention to comments from a number of Federal Reserve bankers throughout the session.
Philadelphia Fed president Anna Paulson said she views unemployment as a bigger economic threat than inflation, indicating that she sees the Fed having more room to cut interest rates, while Cleveland Fed president Beth Hammack said that while the labour market has been gradually cooling, inflation was still above the central bank's target and noted that not having government data had created somewhat of a fog for the Fed.
Kansas Fed president Jeffrey Schmid also said concerns about elevated inflation drove his dissenting vote against the FOMC's rate cut decision this week. He said price increases were still higher than the Fed's target and said that the rest of the US economy remained in good stead, putting him at odds with the bulk of the FOMC, whose concerns regarding the labour market led them to opt to cut interest rates.
Chicago Fed president also said he voted against this week's interest rate cut, stating he believed policymakers should have waited until they had access to more data on inflation and unemployment. "I'm pretty optimistic that for 2026 rates will will be able to be a fair bit lower than they are today," he said. "But I've just been uncomfortable front-loading too many rate cuts and assuming that what we've seen in inflation will be transitory."
No major corporate earnings were slated for release on Friday.
Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com
