Wall Street closed mixed after a week in which it set new records.

 

The main indexes, including the S&P 500, the Nasdaq Composite and the Dow Jones, ended the week with losses, reflecting investor caution amid several economic and political factors.

Wall Street closed virtually unchanged on Friday, following a volatile session and on the eve of a long weekend. The main indexes, including the S&P 500, the Nasdaq Composite, and the Dow Jones, ended the week with losses, reflecting investor caution amid several economic and political factors.

During the session, chipmaker stocks stood out, with the SOX semiconductor index extending the gains it had already registered on Thursday, making this sector one of the few to perform positively that day.

In the financial sector, major banks posted mostly solid results throughout the week. However, the sector's stocks came under pressure after US President Donald Trump's proposal to cap credit card interest rates at 10% for one year. This proposal raised concerns about the potential impact on bank margins. Investors also closely followed Trump's comments regarding Kevin Hassett's continued tenure as economic advisor. According to the president, there is a possibility that Hassett will remain in his current position, leading markets to lower expectations that he will be appointed as the successor to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

According to preliminary closing data, the S&P 500 fell 5.01 points, or 0.07%, to 6,939.46. The Nasdaq Composite lost 15.60 points, also 0.07%, to close at 23,514.42. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 87.13 points, or 0.18%, to finish at 49,355.31. All of the aforementioned indexes ended the week in negative territory.

Investors' attention is now focused on next week, when earnings season intensifies with the release of key reports from companies such as Netflix, Johnson & Johnson, and Intel. Meanwhile, caution prevailed in the market, as many preferred to avoid large moves before the long weekend, due to the market's closure on Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. European stocks closed the week under pressure, weighed down by weakness in luxury and mining shares, in a session marked by the start of a busy earnings season and nervousness amid recent geopolitical tensions. The pan-European STOXX 600 index finished flat at 614.38 points, with the luxury goods index falling 3.2%, its biggest daily decline since early October. Among the hardest-hit stocks was Richemont, which fell 5.4% after BofA Global Research downgraded its recommendation from "buy" to "neutral," suggesting investors wait due to the high valuations seen after the Swiss jewelry company's recent rally.

According to Michael Field, chief European equity strategist at Morningstar, quoted by Reuters, "European equities are no longer cheap, but they're not expensive either. That said, the margin of safety investors previously had has disappeared."

Despite Friday's decline, the STOXX 600 posted its fifth consecutive weekly gain, its longest winning streak since May 2015. The index reached several all-time highs during the week, driven primarily by the strong performance of commodity-related companies after precious metals and crude oil prices rose significantly at the start of the week in response to the geopolitical tensions surrounding Iran and Venezuela. On Friday, the easing of those tensions was reflected in a 1.9% drop in mining stock values.