Major European stock indices closed lower across the board on Friday as traders in London and across the Continent headed home for the weekend, although most benchmarks still ended the week with gains. The German DAX led the declines with a 1.92% drop that erased its advance for the week, while Spain's IBEX 35, despite slipping on the day, retained the strongest weekly gain among the region's major indices. The UK's FTSE 100 was the only one of the five benchmarks to finish the week in negative territory. As the final session of the week, Friday's close set the weekly tallies, giving the day's moves added weight in those results.

European stocks at the close

The five benchmarks—the DAX in Frankfurt, the CAC 40 in Paris, the FTSE 100 in London, the IBEX 35 in Madrid and the FTSE MIB in Milan—track the largest companies listed in their home markets.

• Germany's DAX closed at 25,820.37, down 1.92% on the day and unchanged for the week.
• France's CAC 40 finished at 8,139.01, down 0.81% on the day and up 2.13% for the week.
• The UK's FTSE 100 ended at 10,673.93, down 1.01% on the day and down 0.52% for the week.
• Spain's IBEX 35 closed at 19,369.49, down 0.60% on the day and up 3.84% for the week.
• Italy's FTSE MIB finished at 50,052.95, down 0.90% on the day and up 1.12% for the week.

European yields end the week lower

The 10-year yield picture was mixed on Friday, but yields fell across all five markets over the week. France led the move, with its 10-year yield down 21.6 basis points against a 7.3-basis-point decline in Germany. That narrowed the French-German 10-year spread by 14.3 basis points to roughly 151 basis points, putting it back below its 100- and 200-hour moving averages. There is still work to be done to call a high, but the move offers some relief. Yields move inversely to bond prices, so the week's broad declines corresponded to higher prices on the region's benchmark debt, and the French-German spread—the gap between the two countries' 10-year borrowing costs—is a standard yardstick for relative credit conditions inside the euro area.

At Friday's close:

• Germany: 3.252%, up 1.3 basis points on the day and down 7.3 basis points for the week.
• France: 4.761%, down 1.4 basis points on the day and down 21.6 basis points for the week.
• UK: 5.155%, up 0.8 basis points on the day and down 13.8 basis points for the week.
• Spain: 3.836%, up 0.5 basis points on the day and down 11.0 basis points for the week.
• Italy: 4.341%, down 1.7 basis points on the day and down 14.4 basis points for the week.

Wall Street rebounds, led by the Nasdaq

At the European close, the Nasdaq 100 was up 1.82% and the Nasdaq Composite was up 1.57% as buyers chipped away at Thursday's losses. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100, weighted toward the largest companies listed on the Nasdaq exchange, is the segment of the US market most closely tied to big-tech performance. The S&P 500 was up 0.86% and the Russell 2000 gained 0.81%, while the Dow was little changed, up 22 points, or 0.04%. Tesla (+4.82%) and Nvidia (+3.86%) led the gains among the Magnificent 7, the shorthand for Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla. After Thursday's 6.36% drop in the Nasdaq 100, Friday's bounce had recovered only part of the decline by the European close.

US yields were higher at the front end, with the 2-year up 3.3 basis points to 4.510% and the 10-year up 1.2 basis points to 4.849%. The 30-year was little changed at 5.250%.

Dollar firms as gold slips

The dollar was higher against the major currencies in Friday's snapshot. EURUSD and GBPUSD were both down 0.62%, trading at 1.1149 and 1.3365, respectively. USDJPY rose 0.36% to 158.22, while AUDUSD fell 0.85% and NZDUSD declined 0.82%. A firmer dollar makes dollar-priced commodities more expensive in other currencies, one of the standard relationships traders watch between the greenback and gold.

Gold was down 0.66% at $4,060.26, while silver was up 0.27% at $51.91 and copper rose 0.26% to $6.2860. Bitcoin was little changed near $75,901, down 0.09%. With European trading finished for the week, the next readings for the region's benchmarks, yields and currencies will come at Monday's open.