Dow tumbles 600 points as Middle East tensions rise, selling broadens beyond tech: Live updates

Signage outside the ServiceNow headquarters in Santa Clara, California, US, on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Bank of America raised its price target on ServiceNow to $180, implying roughly 15% upside from Thursday’s close.

BofA analyst Tal Liani reiterated his buy rating ahead of the company’s third-quarter earnings on October 28, citing growing demand for its artificial intelligence offerings. 

“We believe ServiceNow’s AI could see broader adoption and incremental spend, which should support durable revenue growth,” Liani wrote in a Friday note.

The bank’s October CIO survey showed that nearly 36% of respondents expect to allocate more than 10% of their software budgets to AI, while nearly 55% said they were likely or very likely to use ServiceNow for back-office AI applications.

The analyst expects third-quarter subscription revenue to grow nearly 21% year over year as IT, customer service, and security adopt new AI products and automation tools. 

— Deena Zaidi

Uranium, nuclear and clean energy exchange-traded funds all fell to 52-week lows on Friday, while the largest fossil fuel producers in the nation touched all-time highs.

Global X Uranium ETF and Sprott Uranium Miners ETF both dropped to their lowest levels since June 2025, while the VanEck Uranium and Nuclear ETF was at lowest since May 2025. Of the stocks inside those ETFs, Centrus Energy, Oklo, NuScale Power, Energy Fuels and BWX Technologies were also at 52-week lows Friday.

Clean energy ETFs saw losses, too. Invesco Solar ETF and Invesco WilderHill Clean Energy ETF were at their lowest since September and August last year, respectively, while individual stocks in the group, such as NextPower, Solv Energy, Rivian Automotive and Fluence Energy, also dropped to 52-week lows.

Meanwhile, ExxonMobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips all traded at all-time highs on Friday.

ExxonMobil in past 12 months

The Oracle logo is displayed on a building at an Oracle campus on Sept. 10, 2025 in Redwood Shores, California.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

In a Friday note to clients, Goldman Sachs posed some key questions about hyperscaler Oracle’s AI strategy as pressures mount on the AI trade and investors grow increasingly wary to part with capital.

Analyst Gabriela Borges at Goldman said the conversation around Oracle is centering on monetization in proportion to capital expenditures; the sustainability of demand amid customer concentration; and the company’s ability to execute despite political pressures facing the data center buildout.

Borges has a buy rating on the stock and a price target of $206, implying upside of 64.1% compared to a closing price recorded as $125.54.

Among the key risks to the company listed by Goldman are “intense capex investment cycle and financing needs.”

“Oracle has outlined a FY27 financing framework supported by roughly $20bn of equity issuance (ATM program, already executed), $20 – 25 bn of customer prepayments ($11 bn as of 1Q), ~$20bn of debt issuance (expected in 2HFY27), with the remainder funded through operating cash flow,” Borges wrote.

– Tobias Burns

Stocks outside the AI trade are taking the lead.

The S&P 500 Excluding AI index closed Thursday up 12.4% this year, edging out the S&P 500’s roughly 12% gain. The gap has converged largely in October.

The ex-AI index is up about 6.6% in October, while the S&P 500, weighed down by concerns around AI financing, is down roughly 0.4%.

The move suggests some leadership broadening beyond AI-linked mega cap names that have dominated in recent periods. By sector, Energy and Consumer Staples are each up double digits in October while Information Technology and Communication Services lead lower, each down more than 5%.

Morgan Stanley reduced its price target on CoreWeave to $70 from $99 Friday, citing mounting financial pressures the so-called neocloud company is facing. The new target still implies 26% upside from Thursday’s close.

Shares of CoreWeave, down 2% on Friday, have sold off over the past week amid investor fears over its massive artificial intelligence-rated debt. Its bond yields have also jumped, while the spread on its credit default swaps — which are insurance against default — has widened to levels generally considered distressed.

Morgan Stanley believes CoreWeave’s execution has been solid and said it “remains the speed and scale leader in a crowded neocloud ecosystem.”

“However, growing financing uncertainty reduces visibility into the path to deploying existing contracted capacity and achieving 8 GW [gigawatts] (active) longer-term,” said analyst Adam Wood, who maintained his equal-weight rating on the stock.

He sees a multitude of outcomes for CoreWeave’s future financing, “though the most reasonable path forward would likely be through securing a portion of the financing via a hyperscaler agreement to obtain a more attractive rate.”

— Michelle Fox

Shoppers carry UNIQLO and Target bags in San Francisco, California, US, on Monday, Oct. 12, 2026.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Consumer sentiment changed little in October from historically low levels as inflation weighed on the economic outlook, according to a University of Michigan survey released Friday.

The survey showed the headline consumer sentiment index at 48 for the end of the month, off just 0.1 point from September and better than the Dow Jones consensus for 46.3. Compared with a year ago, the gauge tumbled 10.4%.

Current conditions sentiment declined 8.3% monthly but the expectations measure rose 5.4% and was off just 3% from the same period in 2025.

On inflation, the one-year outlook rose to 4.7%, while the five-year expectation accelerated to 3.5%, both 0.1 percentage point higher than September.

—Jeff Cox

Participants visit the NVIDIA pavilion at the NVIDIA Berlin GPU Technology Conference (GTC) on October 21, 2026 in Berlin, Germany.

Sean Gallup | Getty Images

Wall Street firm Seaport reiterated its bearish call on Nvidia with a sell rating and its price target on the stock of $180 per share, below Nvidia’s Thursday closing price of $212.

While analyst Jay Goldberg thinks the AI leader is heading into 2027 “in a good position,” he’s concerned about the bottleneck of the power and the overall construction of data center buildout given the lack of electricians, gas turbines and gigawatt capacity, he wrote in a Thursday research note.

The firm is also worried about the risk of Nvidia over taxing its balance sheet as the company added $250 billion in commitments last quarter to secure supply chain capacity and facilitate data center construction.

At the same time, Seaport acknowledges their take “could be wrong” as Nvidia can leverage is “supply chain heft.” Shares of Nvidia were flat in pre-market trading on Friday.

— Paulina Likos

Traders work in the S&P options pit at the Cboe Global Markets exchange on Sept. 16, 2026 in Chicago, Illinois.

Scott Olson | Getty Images

The Cboe Market Volatility Index climbed another 6% Friday, rising to 20.24, after jumping 14% Thursday to 19.03.

For the week, the VIX — widely called Wall Street’s “fear gauge” — is on track to close above 20 for the first time since early June. Last week, the VIX, which measures the market’s expectation of 30-day forward implied volatility based on S&P 500 index options, soared 34.7% to close at 19.99, the largest one-week gain also since early June.

CBOE Market Volatility Index over the past six months

Here are the stocks making the biggest moves before the bell.

Moderna – Shares are down 5.7% Friday morning after falling 25% on Thursday following a leak of partial data on its closely watched cancer vaccine developed with Merck. Both stocks faltered even though the full data which was released Thursday appeared meaningful for patients and positive relative to Wall Street expectations.

Deckers – Shares of the shoemaker are down 6.7% after it reported fiscal second quarter earnings late Thursday that missed analyst expectations. Revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 was $1.43 billion compared to the $1.51 Wall Street was expecting. Revenue from top brands including HOKA and UGG missing FactSet expectations.

SpaceX — Shares of the Elon Musk space and AI company were also getting a boost from an upgrade on Wall Street. PhillipCapital double upgraded the shares to buy from sell, raising its price target all the way to $250 from $75, citing surprising gains for its AI business. The new price target represents a 70% gain from here.

Bloom Energy – Shares are down 2.5% after the energy technology solutions provider for data centers reported third quarter earnings late Thursday. Despite beating on the top and bottom line and raising its full-year 2026 earnings per share guidance, what stirred fear among investors was the reported negative free cash flow for the quarter.

Read the full list.

— Paulina Likos, Liz Napolitano

Telecommunications stocks slid on Friday following a report that SpaceX is taking another step toward becoming a wireless carrier.

The Elon Musk-led company is in talks to obtain access to at least ​80,000 cell sites across the U.S., Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. SpaceX has discussed its plans with Crown Castle, among other cell infrastructure firms.

AT&T and T-Mobile US fell nearly 5% in pre-market trading, while Verizon Communications pulled back about 4%.

— Liz Napolitano

Samuel Boivin | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Stronger-than-expected revenue from SpaceX’s AI business is making PhillipCapital — once a bear on the company — bullish about the Elon Musk giant’s stock. 

The firm upgraded shares of the space and AI company to buy from sell, and hiked its price target to $250 from $75. That level implies an almost 73% gain from Thursday’s close. Analyst Glenn Thum wrote in a Friday note that the company had key catalysts driving SpaceX into a profit for the first time as a publicly-traded stock, one of them being its AI business.

“SI, as new cloud services agreements came online at higher rental prices and Cursor added US$608mn from mid-August,” Thum said in the note, referring to the company’s AI business as its branded “super intelligence” name. “Operating leverage, as higher-margin cloud services turned SI profitable.”

Shares of SpaceX were higher by 1% in premarket trading Friday. CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

SpaceX 5-day chart.

Treasury yields edged higher early Friday, following a sharp drop in the previous session.

Yields on 10-year U.S. Treasurys — the main benchmark for mortgages, auto loans and credit card debt — rose by 2 basis points to 4.9759%.

The yield on the 2-year Treasury note, which more closely follows short-term Federal Reserve rate decisions, also increased by 2 basis points to 4.6625%.  The yield on longer-dated 30-year U.S. Treasurys — which tends to move on geopolitical developments — was up more than 1 basis point to 5.2985%.

A guest wears red knitted Gucci x Adidas sweater, outside Bluemarble, during the Menswear Spring/Summer 2026 show as part of Paris Fashion Week on June 26, 2025 in Paris, France.

Claudio Lavenia | Getty Images

Shares of Gucci-owner Kering fell 12% in early trading after the luxury company posted disappointing third-quarter earnings.

The move puts the stock firmly at the bottom of the pan-European blue-chip Stoxx 600 index, and brings 12-month losses to 43%.

Same-store sales declined by 1% overall, driven by a 6% decline for Gucci, its biggest brand and main moneymaker.

Kering, whose brands also include Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, and Balenciaga, has struggled more than peers amid a luxury slump.

Reigniting brand momentum at Gucci has proven particularly challenging against a difficult macroeconomic backdrop where consumers grapple with higher costs of living, Bernstein analyst Luca Solca said.

“A high dependency on newness to drive traffic and sales points to an underlying lack of interest in Gucci’s core product,” Solca added. “Unsurprisingly, management has stepped back from its initial outlook of a return to growth by the end of the year.”

European luxury peers were also in the red on Friday morning, with conglomerate LVMH down 1.5%, Cartier-owner Richemont down 2.4% and Hermes falling 1.2%.

Hermes shares fell nearly 5% Thursday after reporting quarterly earnings, weighed down by soft demand in China.Kering

Asia-Pacific markets closed mixed on Friday.

South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index added 0.3% to 5,550.3, while the tech-heavy Kosdaq index declined 1.62% to 751.69.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 lost 0.34% to 62,693.16 and the broader Topix declined 0.79% to 3,965.81.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was flat at 8,795.2.

The CSI 300 rose 1.71% to end at 4,105.33, but closed lower for the week for an 11th straight time.

—Lee Ying Shan

The logo of French cosmetics Groupe L’Oreal is seen on the L’Oreal group’s headquarters building in Clichy, near Paris, France, April 14, 2025. 

Stephanie Lecocq | Reuters

Third-quarter sales at L’Oreal topped forecasts amid stronger demand for premium hair and beauty products.

Total sales were 35.33 billion euros ($39.6 billion) for the three-month period, an adjusted like-for-like growth of 7.7% overall.

The French cosmetics group saw a particularly strong performance in Europe, where sales rose 9%, while revenue in South Asia and the Middle East rose 19.5% in the quarter. The company also saw a slight expansion in the beauty market in China.

L’Oreal.

“The global beauty market, once again, proved its resilience in a challenging context – and we continued to significantly outpace it,” said CEO Nicolas Hieronimus, highlighting strong performances across all developed regions as well as e-commerce growth in emerging markets.

Shares were more than 3.7% higher in morning trade.

— Domi Suskova

The pan-European Stoxx 600 was down 0.19% lower shortly after 8:10 a.m. in London (3:10 a.m. E.T.) with the continent’s main sectors mixed, and regional bourses moving lower.

Oil and gas led morning gains, rising 1.24%, with household goods adding 0.56%, and bank stocks up 0.36%.

In Frankfurt, Germany’s DAX led losses, falling 0.35%.In Paris, the French CAC 40 dropped 0.18% in early dealmaking, as the U.K. FTSE 100 slipped almost 0.1% in London.

Italy’s FTSE MIB added 0.21% in Milan.

Street scene in Old Bond Street, Mayfair, London, United Kingdom.

Pawel Libera | The Image Bank | Getty Images

U.K. retail sales fell 0.4% in September from the previous month, a steeper drop than the 0.1% decline forecast in a Reuters poll. The fall partly reversed August’s 0.7% rise and puts consumer spending in focus ahead of the government’s budget on Oct. 28.

Despite September’s decline, retail sales volumes rose 0.7% in the third quarter from the previous three months, the Office for National Statistics said Friday.

Phil Monkhouse, U.K. country manager at Ebury, said September’s retail sales slide indicates a still-fragile consumer backdrop as households continue to grapple with rising prices and the prospect of higher borrowing costs.

 “With the Autumn Budget less than a week away, uncertainty over potential tax changes adds another layer of caution for households and businesses alike,” Monkhouse said in a note.

September’s retail slide comes after U.K. GDP rose by 0.1% in August, which was driven mainly by services output.

— Hugh Leask

Swedish defense giant Saab reported better-than-expected third-quarter earnings and revenue on Friday, as new orders more than tripled from a year earlier, boosted by a deal to supply Gripen fighter jets to Ukraine.

New orders came in at 65.8 billion Swedish kronor ($6.6 billion), up from 20.9 billion kronor a year earlier, beating FactSet expectations of 56.4 billion kronor.

The results come as European governments race to turn defense spending pledges into military capability.

Third-quarter sales reached 20.6 billion kronor, ahead of FactSet expectations of 20 billion kronor. Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) came in at 1.95 billion kronor, also beating forecasts of 1.9 billion kronor.

Saab’s order intake included a 24.6 billion kronor contract for 16 Gripen E fighter jets for Ukraine, signed in June and booked in the third quarter. Deliveries are scheduled for 2029-2030.

Read more here.

– Elsa Ohlen

Stoxx 50 futures were up almost 0.1% ahead of the market open, with European stock markets set to start the final trading session of the week in mostly positive territory.

The French CAC 40 was up 0.42%, following by Italy’s FTSE MIB, which added 0.09%, while FTSE 100 futures were up 0.07%.

In contrast, Germany’s DAX is seen moving 0.17% lower at the start of trade.

—Hugh Leask

Singapore Exchange CEO Loh Boon Chye has signaled he will be stepping down as CEO, although no fixed date for a handover has been decided.

Speaking to shareholders at SGX’s AGM, Loh said that he had told chairman Koh Boon Hwee that “we should begin planning ahead for an eventual transition in the CEO role.”

Although Loh said that there was no fixed date for a handover, he noted that his contract runs till the middle of 2027, which would be an “ample time for us to plan thoughtfully and work through the arrangements together. We are not setting a specific date for the transition today.”

Loh has been SGX’s chief since 2015, and Koh had said that under the CEO, the share price of the SGX has grown 216% since the time that he took the helm.

“Our net profit after tax is up 112%, and the market capitalization of the SGX Group is up 252%. That is a significant track record.”

— Lim Hui Jie

China’s benchmark CSI 300 deepened its slide into bear market territory on Friday, falling 0.5%.

The index, which tracks 300 of the largest stocks listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen, is set to clock its 11th consecutive weeks of decline, down 3.5%, underscoring sustained pressure on Chinese equities, data from LSEG showed.

Some market watchers see opportunities emerging from the sell-off, saying that much of the bad news surrounding China’s economy has already been priced into stocks.

The trade deal between India and the European Union is expected to be signed before the end of 2026 and become operational by March next year, India’s Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Thursday.

The minister said it was the “fastest trade deal” the EU has entered into, “with zero dissent,” adding that none of the bloc’s 27 member states have opposed any part of the agreement.

India’s free trade deal with the EU, which represents about 25% of global GDP and about a third of global trade, was announced in January. It had been in the works for over two decades.

Just days after India finalized the agreement with the EU, U.S. President Donald Trump also announced a trade deal with India.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday said Washington would execute a deal with India “shortly,” and there were just a “small number of items left to wrap up.”

Shares of South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix pared early losses to trade slightly lower on Friday after the company halted a review of a potential U.S. initial public offering for its subsidiary Solidigm.

Shares in Seoul had dropped over 3% early morning, while they had declined 8% in the U.S. overnight.

“Solidigm will halt its review of potential pre-IPO and IPO options,” the company said in the statement after assessing recent capital market conditions and share price trends, while also exploring various funding options to finance a new U.S. semiconductor fabrication plant amid growing demand for AI memory.

The chip manufacturer said an IPO could have helped fund Solidigm’s expansion while providing greater financial flexibility for shareholder returns, including dividends and share buybacks.

However, financial market volatility has increased, contributing to a broader correction in semiconductor stocks, prompting SK Hynix to reassess whether an IPO would benefit existing shareholders.

— Ying Shan Lee and Jenny Lee

Correction: This post has been revised to reflect that shares in the U.S. fell 8%.

Japan’s core inflation in September hit its highest this year at 2.1%, overshooting analysts’ expectations, pressured by steeper import costs due to a weak yen and the indirect impact of higher energy costs.

Core inflation, which strips out prices of fresh food, was in line with the 2.1% forecast by economists polled by Reuters, and accelerated from the 1.7% in the prior month.

Headline inflation came in at 2.1%, while the so-called “core-core” inflation, which excludes prices of fresh food and energy and is the Bank of Japan’s preferred gauge, was at 2.4%.

“That acceleration was noteworthy, not least because it occurred despite a sharp slowdown in fresh food inflation and continued energy deflation,” said Abhijit Surya, senior APAC economist at Capital Economics.

Rice prices notably declined 20.6% year on year, however, Surya said that this sharp drop could not prevent overall goods inflation from picking up to 2.8%, up from August’s 2.6%.

—Lim Hui Jie

Asia-Pacific markets fell on Friday, with South Korean equities leading declines in the region.

The benchmark Kospi index fell 2.42%, while the tech-heavy Kosdaq index declined 2.6%.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 lost 0.49% and the broader Topix declined 0.86%.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was 0.21% lower.

—Lee Ying Shan

Asia-Pacific markets were set to mostly fall on Friday, tracking losses on Wall Street as concerns over soaring artificial intelligence spending and surging oil prices weighed on investor sentiment.

Futures for Japan’s Nikkei 225 in Chicago were at 62,360 while in Osaka they were last at 62,310 compared with the index’s previous close of 62,907.84.

Futures for Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index last traded at 23,133, compared with the index’s last close of 22,934.68.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was down 0.34% in early trading.

— Lee Ying Shan

Several stocks saw dramatic swings in extended trading following another raft of quarterly reports.

Read more about Thursday’s big movers in extended trading here.

—Darla Mercado

U.S. stock futures were little changed as trading began at 6 p.m. in New York.

Dow futures advanced 38 points, or 0.07%, while S&P 500 futures gained 0.05%. Nasdaq-100 futures slipped 0.07%.

—Darla Mercado