Wall Street drifts in mixed trading as Intel tumbles

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market is drifting in mixed trading on Friday, as a zigzag week punctuated by loud threats and pullbacks heads toward a quieter close.

The S&P 500 was virtually unchanged in morning trading and on track to finish a second straight week with a modest loss. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 263 points, or 0.5%, as of 10:05 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2% higher.

Intel tugged on the market after tumbling 15.6%. The chip company reported better results for the end of 2025 than analysts expected. But more attention was on its forecast for the first three months of this year, which fell short of Wall Street’s expectations.

Chief Financial Officer David Zinsner said shortages of supplies are affecting the entire industry, and Intel expects available supply to hit a bottom early this year before improving in the spring and beyond. CEO Lip-Bu Tan highlighted the company’s opportunities created by the artificial-intelligence era.

Moves in the U.S. bond and foreign-currency markets, meanwhile, were more modest following sharp swings earlier in the week. Global investors showed some inclination to dump U.S. investments after President Donald Trump initially threatened 10% tariffs for European countries for opposing his having Greenland. Not only did prices for U.S. Treasury bonds tumble, sending their yields higher, the value of the U.S. dollar also slid against other currencies.

Markets found some relief after Trump said Wednesday he had reached “the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland” and called off the tariffs, though few details are available about it.

Gold’s price nevertheless rose again Friday and got closer to $5,000 per ounce in a signal that investors are still looking for something safer to own amid all the uncertainty.

On Wall Street, Capital One Financial sank 4.3% after reporting a weaker profit for the end of 2025 than analysts expected. It also said it was buying Brex, which helps businesses issue corporate cards, for $5.15 billion in cash and stock.

On the winning side of the market was SLB, which added 1.7% after reporting a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The oil field services provider also raised its dividend 3.5%, while CEO Olivier Le Peuch said revenue improved from the prior quarter across all its four geographies for the first time since the spring of 2024.

CSX climbed 3.9% even though the railroad reported a weaker profit than analysts expected. Some analysts highlighted the company’s forecast for how much more operating profit it expects to retain from each $1 of revenue during 2026.

In the bond market, Treasury yields eased a bit and offered some support for stocks.

Helping to contain yields was a survey that said U.S. consumers' expectations for inflation in the upcoming year improved to 4%. While that's well above the 2% inflation that the Federal Reserve targets, it's still the lowest such reading in a year for the survey by the University of Michigan.

That kind of improvement can help avoid a worst-case scenario the Fed has been desperate to avoid, one where expectations for high inflation trigger a vicious cycle of behavior that only worsens inflation.

Overall sentiment among U.S. consumers, meanwhile, was also a touch stronger than economists expected. That could help keep them spending and the main engine of the U.S. economy humming. A separate preliminary report from S&P Global suggested growth is continuing for U.S. business activity.

The yield of the 10-year Treasury edged down to 4.24% from 4.26% late Thursday

In stock markets abroad, indexes slipped in Europe after rising across much of Asia.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 added 0.3% after the Bank of Japan kept its key interest rate unchanged, as many investors expected. The central bank just raised the policy rate to 0.75% in December and has been slowly pulling it higher from below zero.