MARKET WRAPS
STOCKS: Stocks were mostly higher as Intel surged on strong earnings and as a new round of U.S.-Iranian negotiations looked set to happen in Pakistan.
TREASURYS: Treasury yields fell after the Department of Justice dropped an investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, clearing the way for approval of President Trump's pick for Powell's successor, Kevin Warsh.
FOREX: The U.S. dollar fell as Warsh's prospects improved.
COMMODITIES: U.S. oil futures slipped Friday, but finished the week with substantial gains due to uncertainty about the outlook for the Strait of Hormuz. The globally traded Brent crude contract surged 16% for the week, closing above $105 a barrel.
HEADLINES
Justice Department Will End Probe of Jerome Powell, Opening Path for Kevin Warsh
WASHINGTON-The Justice Department said it would end its criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, an attempt to clear the obstacle that has stalled Kevin Warsh's confirmation as his successor.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro announced the move Friday, saying her office is closing an inquiry into Powell's testimony to Congress about cost overruns on the renovation of two historic Fed buildings. A federal judge had already ruled that the grand jury subpoenas served on the Fed in January were improper and found "essentially zero evidence" of criminal wrongdoing.
Pirro said in a post on X that she closed the probe after asking the Fed's inspector general to scrutinize the matter.
April's Consumer Sentiment Is the Lowest on Record
Anxiety about the war in Iran has left Americans in the grimmest economic mood on record, according to a long-running survey.
The University of Michigan's consumer-sentiment index dropped to 49.8, from 53.3 last month. That is below the previous low of 50 seen in June 2022, when shoppers faced searing inflation, and the worst reading in the more than 50-year history of the Michigan survey. A preliminary April reading of 47.6 published two weeks ago suggested the survey would deliver bad news this month.
People across different ages, income levels and political opinions reported lower sentiment in April, the survey's director, Joanne Hsu, said. Responses later in April turned more positive after the U.S. and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire.
Google Expands Anthropic Investment With $40 Billion Commitment
Alphabet's Google, already a close partner to Anthropic, plans to invest as much as $40 billion in additional capital in the company, a spokesperson for the artificial intelligence company said.
Google will invest $10 billion in Anthropic at its current $350 billion valuation, and could invest up to $30 billion more if the company meets certain performance milestones.
Anthropic this month has secured up to $65 billion in new funding commitments as it races to keep pace with OpenAI ahead of a potential initial public offering.
Intel Shares Jump 20% as AI Agents Drive Big Growth
The rise of artificial-intelligence agents and a host of new partnerships are helping breathe new life into chip maker Intel, which just a year ago had been left for dead.
On Thursday, Intel reported sales of $13.6 billion for the March quarter, up 7% from the year-earlier period and beating estimates from analysts polled by FactSet by 11%. Shares traded as much as 20% higher after markets closed.
Intel had largely sat out the AI revolution because it failed to develop a processor that could rival Nvidia's signature graphics processing units, or GPUs, and because its advanced chip- fabrication business couldn't keep pace with rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing.
Charter Stock Drops More Than 25% After Company Tempers Full-Year Expectations
Charter Communications' stock fell more than 25% Friday after it tempered a key, full-year revenue projection and reported subscriber declines in both its internet and video businesses in the first quarter.
Charter Finance Chief Jessica Fischer said in an earnings call Friday that average revenue per user could remain roughly flat for the rest of the year. "It'll be close either way in terms of whether we end up with net growth," she said. Fisher previously said she expected positive average-revenue-per-user growth for the full year.
For the first quarter, Charter reported average revenue per user rose about 1.1% compared with the prior quarter. It fell 1.4% year-over-year.
X-Energy's Shares Jump in IPO, Delivering Wins to Amazon and Ken Griffin
Nuclear-energy company X-Energy scrapped a public offering less than three years ago after investors showed little interest.
On Friday, X-Energy's shares soared over 30% in their stock-market debut, giving the company a market valuation close to $12 billion. X-Energy has benefited as artificial intelligence drives demand for new sources of electricity.
Its high-profile backers include Amazon.com and Ken Griffin, the founder of hedge-fund firm Citadel.
Ford, Geely Held Talks About Bringing Chinese Tech to America
Ford Motor and Chinese automaker Geely held talks as recently as this year exploring whether the European tie-up they are negotiating could extend into the U.S., a prospect Geely sees as a launchpad into the world's second-largest vehicle market.
Discussions, which involved Ford potentially licensing Geely's technology in the U.S., have stalled in recent months, according to people familiar with the talks. The two sides instead are focused on hammering out a deal to share technology and manufacturing capacity in Europe.
Geely, China's second-largest automaker behind BYD, is eager to expand in the profitable U.S. market, where Chinese automakers are effectively banned. But it faces major hurdles to doing so.
Meta Signs Multibillion-Dollar Deal With Amazon to Use Its CPU Chips for AI
Meta Platforms and Amazon.com agreed to a multibillion-dollar deal over several years in which the social-media company will use tens of millions of Amazon Web Services' Graviton chip cores to support its AI agents and other AI initiatives.
The companies declined to disclose the financial terms and exact duration of the deal. Nafea Bshara, an Amazon vice president and distinguished engineer, said the length of the deal is between three and five years.
Bshara, a co-founder of AWS's in-house chip unit Annapurna Labs, said most of the tens of millions of AWS Graviton cores will be located in the U.S.
Procter & Gamble Stock Rises on Earnings. It's Shaking Off 'Short-Term Pressure.'
Shares of Procter & Gamble rose Friday after the consumer packaged goods company reported better-than-expected quarterly results.
The company posted adjusted earnings of $1.59 a share for its fiscal third quarter, up from $1.54 a year ago and ahead of analysts' estimate for $1.56, according to FactSet. Net sales totaled $21.2 billion, above Wall Street's call for $20.5 billion. Organic sales grew 3% from last year.
Procter & Gamble stock jumped 3.4% to $149.59 in morning trading. Shares were up less than 1% in 2026 as of Thursday's close.
SLB Profit Falls as Iran War Disrupts Operations, Clouds Outlook
SLB's first-quarter profit fell in the face of what Chief Executive Olivier Le Peuch called a challenging start to the year, as widespread disruptions across the Middle East hurt business.
The oilfield-services company, formerly known as Schlumberger, had to demobilize operations in a number of countries in response to customer actions to safeguard personnel and facilities, Le Peuch said Friday.
The war in the Middle East is also disrupting energy markets, he added.
Norfolk Southern Profit Falls Amid Volatile Macro Environment
Norfolk Southern logged lower income and flat revenue in the first quarter, operating in a challenging environment marked by poor weather and heightened geopolitical tensions.
The railroad company on Friday said income from railway operations fell 23%, to $877 million. Quarterly earnings came in at $2.43 a share.
Stripping out certain one-time items, such as expenses related to its tie-up with Union Pacific and continued costs from its freight-train derailment in Ohio, earnings were $2.65 a share. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected adjusted earnings of $2.49 a share.
TALKING POINT Two Big Loan Defaults Add to Pain in Private-Credit Funds
Two big loans that were made during the postpandemic boom in private-equity buyouts are defaulting, whacking some private-credit funds and ratcheting up losses in the already troubled corner of Wall Street.
Software maker Medallia-a poster child for the intersection of investor concerns between technology and private capital-can no longer repay about $3 billion of loans from firms including Blackstone, KKR and Apollo Global Management. The lenders are negotiating to take control from private-equity owner Thoma Bravo, which will likely lose $5.1 billion it invested in the company in 2021, people familiar with the matter said.
At the same time, Blackstone, KKR and others are restructuring a $1.4 billion loan they made to help Harvest Partners and other private-equity backers pay for a 2021 buyout of dental-services company Affordable Care, the people said.
The losses are a small slice of the now $2 trillion in loans that private-credit funds have made to companies, but they are intensifying investor angst about the underlying health of these giant lenders on Wall Street.
"It's worthwhile to separate fact from fiction," Blackstone Chief Executive Stephen Schwarzman said about the perceived risk in private credit on a conference call Thursday with analysts. Defaults are rising, but the firm's funds have plenty of cash and other resources to offset losses, he said.
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April 24, 2026 16:39 ET (20:39 GMT)
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