US equities reversed early gains on Friday, with the Nasdaq sinking 2.3% and the S&P 500 down 1.2%, while WTI crude oil jumped $3.40 to $101.37.

Economic Data

A run of data landed Friday, with two key US releases topping expectations and the Bank of Japan signaling its tightening cycle is not finished:

• Bank of Japan: Governor Ueda said the central bank "will continue to raise rates as underlying inflation approaches 2%. — full story
• US September import price index: +1.1% versus +0.8% expected — full story
• US September industrial production: +0.7% versus +0.4% expected — full story
• US fiscal 2026 budget deficit: the largest in five years — full story

Markets at a Glance

• Gold: down $2 to $4,168
• US 10-year Treasury yields: down 2 basis points to 5.09%
• S&P 500: down 1.2%
• Nasdaq: down 2.3%
• WTI crude oil: up $3.40 to $101.37
• FX: NZD leads, USD lags

AI Funding Concerns Hit Neoclouds

S&P 500 futures were higher heading into the North American session but did not stay that way. Rumors from the prior day that an AI fund had blown up persisted and spread through the session. Neoclouds — the specialized cloud providers that rent out GPU capacity for AI workloads — were hit hard again amid widespread talk that CoreWeave could use equity to meet debt obligations, and the financing problems are underscoring how difficult it will be to find all the capital for the promised AI buildout. That question reaches well beyond one corner of the market, given how central AI spending has been to equity-market leadership and how much external financing the promised expansion of computing capacity requires. The SOX chip index, a benchmark for semiconductor stocks and a key gauge of AI hardware demand, fell for an eighth day, and the Nasdaq 100's weekly decline was the largest since April 2025.

Oil Jumps; Bonds Take Cues From Equities

The oil market was more of a mystery, as prices jumped higher in the US afternoon. Traders pointed to the usual culprits, including the risk of a US escalation in Iran over the weekend — a window when markets are closed and geopolitical headlines can land with no immediate opportunity to reprice. Even so, the bond market took more of its cues from equities, and yields ended the day lower. Earlier, Warsh did not offer much on how he was leaning ahead of the upcoming meeting, but that was generally seen as an endorsement of current market pricing.

Dollar Slumps as NZD Leads

In foreign exchange, the US dollar slumped again, another sign of the correlation between AI investment and the dollar. It was remarkable to see NZD as the top performer on a day when US major indexes were down 1–2%, an inversion of the old paradigm in which the New Zealand dollar — typically traded as a lever on global growth and risk appetite — weakens alongside Wall Street.

Week Ahead

The coming week features a pickup in earnings releases, including Meta and Tesla. With AI-financing worries still fresh, the results and outlooks from heavyweight names will be parsed for what they add to the picture on corporate spending plans.

Source: investingLive — Americas market news wrap: Nasdaq sinks and oil jumps