The Dow Jones ends lower after a turbulent week as Intel’s prospects weigh on market sentiment

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended lower on Friday, while the S&P 500 ended largely unchanged as investor risk appetite waned at the end of a turbulent week as Intel fell on a gloomy outlook. All three Wall Street benchmarks recovered in the past two sessions after Tuesday’s sharp sell-off triggered by US President Donald Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on European allies, an effort to pressure them to accept his claims to Greenland.

On Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 285.30 points, or 0.58%, to 49,098.71. The S&P 500 rose 2.26 points, or 0.03%, to 6,915.61, and the Nasdaq Composite gained 65.23 points, or 0.28%, to 23,501.24.Even the Nasdaq’s gain on Friday wasn’t enough to save the benchmarks from a down week, with the S&P 500 down 0.36%, the Dow Jones down 0.53% and the Nasdaq down 0.06%.

Despite the week’s limited decline, investors appeared to remain confident that while geopolitically induced volatility is a present danger, the overall state of the US economy remains robust.

“When we think about what it means from an investor’s perspective, we feel pretty good about where we are right now,” said Jason Blackwell, chief investment strategist at Focus Partners Wealth.

He noted that volatility is expected this year, given interim figures later in 2026. However, corporate earnings are expected to remain strong, and the economy is expected to do well. “We’re feeling pretty good, but we have to be aware that we could see some significant twists and turns over the rest of the year,” Blackwell added.

THE ‘SHOW-ME’ SEASON
One twist on Friday that weighed on market sentiment was chipmaker Intel. Shares fell 17% after the company forecast quarterly revenue and profit below market estimates and said it was struggling to meet demand for its server chips used in AI data centers.

With many technology and semiconductor companies still trading at sky-high valuations, 2026 is seen by many as the year when the enormous excitement surrounding the artificial intelligence trend, and the enormous amounts of capital expenditure to make it a reality, should start to manifest itself in corporate earnings.

Julian McManus, portfolio manager of the Global Alpha Equity team at Janus Henderson, noted that last week’s earnings from TSMC, the world’s leading maker of advanced AI chips, could bode well for the space’s latest earnings.

“Going into the results, we’re entering a ‘show-me’ period, where you have to actually show revenue growth to justify the increase in share prices,” he said. “It’s going to be a period of the haves versus the have-nots, and personally I don’t see Intel among the haves.”

MAG⁠7 MERIT TEST
This ‘show-me’ point will be particularly relevant for investors next week, with gains coming from many of the so-called Magnificent Seven stocks, including Apple, Tesla and Microsoft.

On Friday, most megacaps rose, with Microsoft, Meta and Amazon rising between 1.7% and 3.3%. Nvidia gained 1.5% after Bloomberg News reported that Chinese officials have told Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance that they can prepare orders for Nvidia’s H200 AI chips.

Of the S&P subsectors, seven ended in positive territory, led by the 0.9% gain in the resources sector.

The energy index rose 0.6% on Friday, to a third consecutive record high. It was also the best performing sub-index of the week, while its 10.1% gain so far in 2026 is unprecedented.

The number of shares that changed hands on US stock exchanges on Friday was 17.34 billion shares, compared to the average of 17.07 billion over the past 20 trading days.