Good afternoon and welcome to Markets Desk.
Tech stocks are closing out one of their roughest weeks of the year, and the selloff has a clear cause: Wall Street finally started asking hard questions about AI spending. The euphoria that drove valuations higher for months ran into a wall of skepticism over what exactly billions in capital expenditure is actually returning, and the answer, for now, wasn't satisfying enough to hold the rally together.
Feeding that broader risk-off tone, SpaceX's freshly priced twenty-five billion dollar bond deal is drawing a cautious reception from credit markets. Investors who snapped up AI-adjacent paper without hesitation just months ago are now pumping the brakes, and the pricing on those bonds reflects it. When even Elon Musk's flagship private company faces pushback, it signals a real shift in appetite.
Meanwhile, crude oil dropped nearly four percent on Friday, settling at a fresh four-month low as tanker traffic accelerated out of the Persian Gulf, easing fears over supply disruption. War-risk premiums in shipping insurance had already been compressing, and the combination of improved passage and softer demand expectations gave oil bears everything they needed to press the trade hard into the close.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
