Wall Street's three major stock indexes all closed lower on Friday, October 23, Eastern Time. Brent crude posted its highest weekly close since April as an attack on Saudi Arabia intensified supply concerns. Inflation worries mounted ahead of the Federal Reserve meeting, pushing gold to its lowest level since July. Most semiconductor shares gained, while SK Hynix announced it is abandoning the U.S. IPO plan for its American subsidiary Solidigm.
The Dow plunged more than 650 points, a drop of 1.23%. The S&P 500 fell 0.52%, and the Nasdaq slipped 0.21%. For the week, the Dow rose 0.41%, the S&P 500 lost 0.47%, and the Nasdaq declined 0.71%. The preliminary U.S. S&P Global Composite PMI for October came in at 57.6, down from 58.4 in September but still near a five-year high. The preliminary services PMI fell to 57.9 from 58.8, while the preliminary manufacturing PMI rose to 56.0 from 55.9, hitting its highest level since May 2022.
Most semiconductor stocks closed higher. Qualcomm gained 1.78%, Advanced Micro Devices rose 1.74%, Intel added 1.72%, TSMC climbed 1.42%, ASML advanced 0.72%, and ARM edged up 0.11%, while Broadcom fell 0.48%. SK Hynix announced that, given financial market volatility and recent share price moves, it will abandon the U.S. IPO plan for its American subsidiary Solidigm. The listing, which had a potential valuation of up to $150 billion and was originally slated for the Nasdaq as early as 2027 and billed as the largest U.S. chip IPO, will no longer proceed. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said during the GTC conference in Berlin that a memory supply glut is unlikely by 2029 and that HBM (high-bandwidth memory) will continue to be used for years to come. Nvidia is the first company globally to bring LPDDR memory into data centers, and the related solution delivers twice the energy efficiency of any current global alternative; the company will continue to use such memory in large volumes.
Oil prices surged while gold declined. Concerns over crude supply intensified, with global benchmark Brent crude jumping 3.72% on Friday and gaining more than 6% for the week, while WTI crude rose nearly 4%. International gold prices fell to their lowest since July. On October 23, spot gold in London broke below the $4,000 mark, dropping 0.69%, while COMEX gold futures tumbled 1.24%. Ahead of the Fed's rate meeting next week, energy prices strengthened again, rising Middle East tensions threatened global supply, and falling U.S. consumer confidence reinforced market inflation worries. Ryan McKay, senior commodity strategist at TD Securities, noted that gold is currently under multiple pressures from oil price swings, interest rate levels and uncertainty over the Fed's policy outlook.
Middle East tensions continued to run high. Maleki, a member of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said Iran has sent an ultimatum to Middle Eastern countries, demanding that they halt all support for the United States if war reignites between Iran and America, otherwise they will be labeled "hostile states" by Iran. Houthi forces backed by Iran recently attacked facilities including Saudi Arabia's Red Sea port of Yanbu, Riyadh International Airport and a refinery belonging to Aramco. Separately, according to CCTV News, the UK Maritime Trade Operations office reported on October 23 that an oil tanker was struck by an unidentified projectile while leaving the Strait of Hormuz and then continued to its next port of call. A weekly report released by the office the same day showed that ship traffic through the strait from October 15 to 21 fell from the previous week. The weekly report published by UK Maritime Trade Operations on October 23 showed that it counted 241 ship transits through the Strait of Hormuz from October 15 to 21, down about 5.1% from 254 the prior week and roughly 70% below pre-conflict levels.
Trump said the U.S. may launch a small-scale "Epic Fury" operation against Iran. On October 23 local time, U.S. President Trump said the United States might carry out another small-scale "Epic Fury" operation, or Iran might choose to compromise. Trump said that if Iran is smart enough, it will simply say: "Let's talk business." According to U.S. sources on October 21, the U.S. and Israeli militaries have drawn up specific plans to strike Iran again after the U.S. congressional midterm elections in November, though it remains uncertain whether Trump will approve the plan. On February 28, the United States and Israel launched military strikes on Iran. The U.S. Department of Defense said the name of the military operation against Iran was "Epic Fury." Trump initially said the military action against Iran would last "four to five weeks." But the conflict is still not over, fuel prices remain high, fertilizer and commodity supplies are short, and energy facilities and export routes in the Gulf region have been severely damaged.
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