Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange on Feb. 29, 2024.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
The S&P 500 fell for a sixth straight session on Friday, on track for its longest losing streak in more than a year. The downtrend comes as a post-earnings slide in Netflix added to recent market woes tied to geopolitical conflicts and sticky inflation.
The broad index slipped 0.8% to below the 5,000 level. The Nasdaq Composite pulled back 1.8%, dragged down by Netflix’s decline. Both were poised for their sixth straight negative days, streaks not seen for either since October 2022. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 83 points, or 0.2%, lifted by American Express.
Netflix fell almost 7% even after quarterly earnings beat on the top and bottom lines. The streamer’s subscribers jumped 16% from the previous year, but it said it would no longer report paid memberships starting in 2025.
Concerns over escalation in the Middle East conflict following Israel’s limited retaliatory strike on Iran appeared largely shaken off by Friday’s open.
Oil prices briefly spiked more than 3%, but swung between more modest gains and losses in the hours since. Dow futures at one point fell more than 500 points overnight amid fears that the attack was enough to spark a broader war.
“There was a relief sigh” as investors realized Israel’s response was “muted” and designed to minimize escalation, said George Ball, chairman of Sanders Morris.
Still, “investors are very much on edge,” Ball said. “Macro market investors are much more aware of geopolitical risks today in their decision-making than they have been for a long time.”
Those moves come as the S&P 500 is heading for its worst weekly performance since September amid growing fears around the path of inflation and monetary policy. With a loss of nearly 3%, it would also be the large-cap benchmark’s third straight negative week.
The S&P 500 is now more than 5% off its 52-week high, part of a market pullback that has been largely driven by tempered expectations for rate cuts. Economists and strategists now see the Fed waiting until at least September to lower rates and are increasingly entertaining the possibility of no reductions in 2024.
The Nasdaq Composite has fallen 4.9% so far this week after sliding over the past five days. The tech-heavy index is on pace for its fourth straight down week, its longest negative streak since December 2022. It would also mark the Nasdaq’s worst weekly performance since November 2022.
The Dow has seen muted moves this week, trading marginally below flat. This would be the blue-chip average’s third losing week in a row.
