Stock indices closed lower on Friday, with technology names tied to artificial intelligence — CoreWeave and Broadcom among them — absorbing heavier declines, while a climb in oil prices contributed to a cautious mood among traders heading into the weekend.

Heading into the weekly close, the Nasdaq faced a projected decline of more than 4%, weighed down by investor unease over whether heavily indebted AI infrastructure firms can generate sufficient returns to meet their debt obligations before borrowing costs climb further.

Shares of CoreWeave, in which Nvidia holds a stake, fell 12% on the day, extending a five-session retreat that has now erased roughly a quarter of the stock's value. Yields on the data centre operator's bonds climbed past 15% as a sell-off took hold across its debt market during the week.

Shares in Broadcom retreated 3.6% while the PHLX semiconductor index gave up 2.5%, leaving the gauge pointed toward an eighth consecutive losing session.

Equity markets on Friday tracked a climb of more than 3% in oil prices tied to supply concerns across the Middle East. A senior investment strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management noted that elevated energy costs tend to compress stock valuation multiples, leaving many investors inclined toward caution ahead of the weekend rather than adding exposure. Separately, sources with knowledge of the matter told a news outlet that certain existing and prospective backers of Anthropic are reconsidering the company's valuation ahead of its anticipated public offering, a development that added to broader unease around artificial intelligence funding.

Trading in the S&P 500 left the index sitting at 7,649.71, a drop of 1.22% on the session. Trading on the technology-heavy Nasdaq index ended with a loss of 2.19%, bringing its level to 26,128.13, while the broader Dow Jones Industrial Average shed a more modest 0.55% to close at 51,891.77.

Among the 11 S&P 500 sector indexes, five managed to hold their ground while the remaining six posted losses — with communication services bearing the steepest drop at 2.52% and information technology not far behind at 2.38%.

Heading into the week's final session, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were each tracking toward their steepest weekly percentage drops in some time — a stretch dating back to January for the S&P 500, and to June for the Nasdaq.

Results from Tesla, Meta Platforms, and Procter & Gamble are among the corporate disclosures scheduled to arrive in the coming week, marking a busy stretch for the third-quarter reporting period. LSEG data puts the consensus forecast for quarterly profit growth at more than 30 percent, with large-cap technology companies tied to artificial intelligence doing much of the lifting.

Through the year so far, the S&P 500 has posted a roughly 12% advance, yet that headline figure obscures an uneven distribution of gains — AI-driven technology names have powered the bulk of the move, while the typical constituent in the index has added closer to 6%. Roughly 185 of the index's 500 constituent stocks have posted negative returns through the year so far.

Both the consumer and producer inflation readings released during the week came in above forecasts, pointing to price pressures that had spread well past the energy sector.

Speaking with reporters on Friday, Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh described a degree of optimism about the condition of the US economy, adding that the resilience shown by economies elsewhere in the world — in the face of a prolonged energy shock and the tighter borrowing conditions put in place to curb inflation — had come as a surprise to him. Pricing in financial markets now points toward the Fed holding borrowing costs steady at its upcoming meeting.

Forecasters at Barclays have pencilled in a pair of 25-basis-point rate increases, one landing in December and another following in January.

Tesla's stock dipped 2.5% on the trading day the automaker lifted the wraps off a redesigned Roadster, one whose propulsion system draws on thruster technology developed in partnership with SpaceX. Peter Rice, who previously held a senior content role at Disney, was brought on board at Netflix as its chief content officer on Thursday. A 2.9% decline hit the company's stock price.

For every stock that gained ground within the S&P 500, roughly 1.3 were posting losses. On the S&P 500, 19 benchmark-topping closes stood against a single session low, while across Nasdaq-listed issues, 49 stocks touched fresh peaks versus 263 that fell to new troughs.