Wall Street is climbing a wall of worry on the last day of the week.
The Nasdaq 100 is on track to log its eighth consecutive session of gains — the longest winning streak since September 2025 — even as the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index crashed to an all-time record low in April and the March monthly inflation rate printed at 0.9%, the highest monthly increase since June 2022.
Iran’s compliance with the terms of the two-week ceasefire remains tenuous. President Donald Trump posted Thursday evening that Iran was doing “a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing Oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz — that is not the agreement we have!”
The New York Post reported that the president is actively preparing military options if weekend negotiations in Islamabad fail.
Trump threw an unexpected lifeline to Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:PLTR), praising the firm’s “great war fighting capabilities and equipment” — adding, “Just ask our enemies!!!” — precisely as the stock was wrapping up its worst weekly performance since February 2021.
The remark sparked a swift reversal: shares jumped 3.6%, adding roughly $10.5 billion in market value and pulling the company back from the brink of a deeper sell-off.
Crude prices bounced after a brutal week.
WTI crude rose 1.6% to trade near $99.44 per barrel, while Brent added 1.5% to around $97.33, though both benchmarks remained down more than 11% on the week after Trump’s two-week ceasefire announcement unwound much of the Hormuz risk premium.
The S&P 500 inched up 0.1% to 6,829, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 0.4% to 48,016. Tech stocks showed relative strength with the Nasdaq 100 up 0.3%.
Within Magnificent Seven stocks, NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) added 2.5%, powered by a record revenue beat from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (NYSE:TSM), whose first-quarter 2026 revenue reached NT$1.134 trillion ($35.7 billion), up 35% year over year. TSM ADR shares rose over 2%.
The small-cap Russell 2000 fell 0.4% to 2,626, unable to extend its hot week, which saw the index jump more than 3%.
On the macro front, headline CPI jumped to 3.3% year-over-year in March, just shy of the 3.4% consensus but the highest reading in nearly two years, with a 0.9% monthly gain — the hottest since 2022 — driven almost entirely by surging energy costs.
Core CPI came in slightly cooler at 2.6% year-over-year, providing a modest offset, but the bigger surprise came from the University of Michigan’s preliminary consumer sentiment index, which cratered to 47.6 from 53.3, well below the 51.5 consensus and marking a record low.
The one-year inflation expectations gauge also jumped to 4.8%, the highest since April 2025.
Treasury yields edged higher across the curve, with the 10-year note rising four basis points to 4.32% as investors digested the inflation print and weighed the risk that the Federal Reserve keeps rates on hold through the summer.
The two-year yield climbed four basis points to 3.81%, while the long-bond 30-year yield pushed to 4.92%.
Friday’s Performance In Major U.S. Indices
| Index | Last | % Change |
|---|---|---|
| S&P 500 | 6,828.91 | +0.1% |
| Dow Jones | 48,004 | -0.4% |
| Nasdaq 100 | 25,164 | +0.3% |
| Russell 2000 | 2,626.25 | -0.4% |
According to the Benzinga Pro platform:
- The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSE:VOO) inched down 0.16%.
- The SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (NYSE:DIA) slipped 0.4%.
- The Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ:QQQ) was down 0.043%.
- The iShares Russell 2000 ETF (NYSE:IWM) fell 0.3%.
AI Chips Surge On TSMC Beat As Software Stocks Sink To November 2023 Lows
Sector leadership on Friday was unusually narrow, with the Materials Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE:XLB) topping the S&P 500 league table with a 0.6% gain, followed closely by the Utilities Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE:XLU) at 0.5% and the Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE:XLK) at 0.4%.
On the downside, the Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE:XLF) tumbled 1.2% as banks wobbled ahead of next week’s earnings reports, while the Health Care Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE:XLV) slid 1% and the Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE:XLP) dropped 1.29%.
The Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE:XLE) fell 0.6%, lagging the rebound in crude as traders continued to unwind long positions built up during the Iran standoff.
Within the tech industry, the hardware-software divide widened further.
The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ:SMH) rallied 1.7% after TSMC delivered upbeat quarterly results, with Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO) jumping 4.9%, Marvell Technology Inc. (NASDAQ:MRVL) climbing 6.6%, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) rising 3.5% and Super Micro Computer Inc. (NASDAQ:SMCI) adding 7%.
The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (BATS:IGV) fell for a third consecutive session, sliding to its lowest level since November 2023, as investors rotated out of traditional software and cloud infrastructure names amid mounting competition from AI-native platforms.
Fair Isaac Corp. (NYSE:FICO) tumbled 12.4% and Akamai Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:AKAM) cratered 13.8%, while Cloudflare Inc. (NYSE:NET) fell 11.4%, ServiceNow Inc. (NYSE:NOW) slid 7.7%, Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW) dropped 8%, Palo Alto Networks Inc. (NASDAQ:PANW) fell 7.3% and HubSpot Inc. (NYSE:HUBS) slid 7.4%.
Friday’s Russell 1000 Top Gainers
| Name | % change | Catalyst |
|---|---|---|
| Organon & Co (NYSE:OGN) | +20.12% | Reports that Sun Pharmaceutical is weighing a roughly $12 billion takeover for the women’s health drugmaker, with BNP Paribas reiterating Outperform and a $12 price target. |
| Astera Labs (NASDAQ:ALAB) | +13.76% | TSMC-driven semi rebound combined with early-April ratification of updated UALink specifications, a tailwind for its Aries, Taurus and Scorpio AI-connectivity products. |
| Texas Pacific Land Corporation (NYSE:TPL) | +7.84% | Rebound from Thursday’s 15.6% slide tied to the death of Horizon Kinetics founder Murray Stahl, after KeyBanc’s Tim Rezvan called forced-seller concerns “overblown.” |
| Super Micro Computer, Inc. | +7% | Riding the TSMC-driven semi rebound as investors lean back into AI server exposure and the company’s rack-scale “DCBBS” pivot ahead of its fiscal third quarter report. |
| Coherent Corp. (NYSE:COHR) | +6.90% | AI data center optical-component demand drives buying alongside the broader semi rebound, with analysts continuing to lift price targets on the Nvidia partnership story. |
Friday’s Russell 1000 Top Losers
| Name | % change | Catalyst |
|---|---|---|
| Akamai Technologies, Inc. | -13.8% | Downgrade to Neutral early this week and renewed caution on the multi-year pivot to security and cloud, with elevated 2026 capex guidance pressuring near-term margins. |
| Fair Isaac Corporation | -12.4% | Competition fears ramp after the FHFA’s push toward VantageScore acceptance for Fannie/Freddie mortgages, compounded by Sen. Josh Hawley’s investigation of FICO’s pricing practices. |
| Avis Budget Group, Inc. | -12.29% | Sharp unwind of this week’s ~150% short-squeeze rally as short sellers stopped covering and fundamentals — a $995 million 2025 net loss and negative equity — reasserted themselves. |
| Cloudflare, Inc. | -11.4% | Anthropic’s rollout of Managed Agents is viewed as an edge/SaaS threat to Workers AI, layered on top of CEO Matthew Prince’s trust selling roughly $33 million of stock this week. |
| RingCentral, Inc. | -8.21% | Soft FY2026 revenue growth guide of just 4%–5% overshadows the company’s first-ever dividend, a $500 million buyback expansion and improving AI-ARR traction. |
Photo: Shutterstock
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