Good afternoon and welcome to Markets Desk.
Wall Street closed out the week badly bruised. The Nasdaq plunged more than four percent Friday, its worst single-session loss since the April tariff shock, shedding over eleven hundred points in what Dow Jones data confirms as the biggest one-day point drop on record. The S&P five hundred lost two and a half percent, erasing roughly one point eight trillion dollars in market value. The catalyst was a toxic combination: renewed fears that the artificial intelligence chip boom is losing steam, and fresh anxiety that the Federal Reserve may not be done raising rates. Chipmakers led the carnage, with the Nasdaq one hundred falling nearly five percent.
Compounding the technology sector's rough week, Anthropic — one of the leading artificial intelligence labs — has sparked serious debate after two of its senior officials publicly suggested that major AI companies should consider a global pause in development. Former White House AI czar David Sacks and former European Parliament member Luis Garicano are among those who have weighed in, reflecting how rapidly the conversation around AI risk is moving from academic circles into policy and market relevance.
Meanwhile, commodity markets felt the pressure too. Sugar futures settled lower Friday as crude oil dropped more than three percent and the Brazilian real weakened, removing two of the market's key price supports for the sweetener simultaneously.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
