S&P 500 Slips Friday as Tech Selloff and Weak Retail Data Offset Monthly Gains, Index Still Posts Third Straight Weekly Rise

Wall Street ended Friday in the red after tech stocks retreated following the S&P 500's record high a day earlier. The S&P 500 fell 15.54 points, or 0.20 percent, to close at 7,783.45, the Nasdaq dropped 91.69 points, or 0.34 percent, to 26,711.34, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 137.18 points, or 0.25 percent, to finish at 53,702.81. The S&P 500 information technology index declined 0.5 percent, with Broadcom tumbling 5.5 percent and Applied Materials dropping 5.2 percent despite the chipmaker forecasting fourth-quarter revenue above estimates.

The broader Philadelphia Semiconductor index fell 1 percent. Weaker-than-expected retail sales data and ongoing uncertainty around Middle East tensions weighed on sentiment, while the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index dropped to 51.0 in August from 55.2 in July. Against the downdraft, data storage names stood out: SanDisk surged 5.7 percent and Western Digital gained 1.4 percent, with JPMorgan upgrading SanDisk to overweight citing sky-high memory demand tied to artificial intelligence.

Energy stocks on the S&P 500 rose 1.5 percent alongside higher oil prices. Synopsys bucked the tech weakness, closing up 2.37 percent at 421.50. Despite the session's losses, the S&P 500 posted its third consecutive weekly gain.

August has been a strong month for mega-cap stocks, with Nvidia adding roughly 591 billion dollars in market capitalization, followed by gains at Microsoft, Micron, and Tesla. Investors are now looking ahead to earnings reports from Walmart and Target next week.