Closing Summary

U.S. equities closed lower on Friday, September 4, as a rotation out of rate-sensitive consumer and healthcare names outweighed resilience in technology and semiconductors. The S&P 500 gave back part of Thursday's advance, which had been the best session in roughly a month, while the Dow posted the largest percentage decline among the three major indexes. With the VIX still below 15, the pullback looked more like position trimming ahead of next week's inflation data than a risk-off reset.

The market's internal split was the key story: communication services, consumer discretionary and healthcare led the decline, while technology and industrials held in positive territory. Apple's 2.5% slip came in the first full week under new CEO John Ternus, who officially succeeded Tim Cook earlier in the week.

Indexes

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.51% to 53,414.25 at Friday's close.

The S&P 500 Index fell 0.39% to 7,717.81 at Friday's close.

The Nasdaq Composite declined 0.30% to 26,505.44 at Friday's close.

The CBOE Volatility Index rose 1.2% to 14.49, remaining near the low end of its 2026 range (year-to-date low 13.38), signaling that the pullback did not trigger a broad fear response. Turnover was moderate: SPY printed 28.9 million shares and QQQ 31.3 million shares.

Stock & Sector Performance

Of the 11 S&P 500 sectors tracked by sector ETFs, technology led on the day, with the Technology Select Sector SPDR (XLK) rising 0.72%, followed by the Industrial Select Sector SPDR (XLI) at +0.39% and the Utilities Select Sector SPDR (XLU) roughly flat at +0.06%. The laggards were Consumer Discretionary (XLY, -1.35%), Communication Services (XLC, -1.17%), Health Care (XLV, -1.04%) and Energy (XLE, -0.85%). The net advance/decline tally and NYSE volume were not available at publication time.

The Magnificent Seven finished mixed. NVIDIA (NVDA) gained 0.84% and Meta Platforms (META) added 1.00%, while Amazon (AMZN) was nearly flat at -0.15%. On the downside, Alphabet (GOOGL) fell 1.17%, Microsoft (MSFT) dropped 2.04%, Apple (AAPL) slipped 2.51% to $319.97, and Tesla (TSLA) was the weakest name, down 5.92% to $354.08 on heavy volume of 63.6 million shares. No single dominant catalyst for Tesla's move was identified in Friday's session; the decline appears idiosyncratic rather than tied to a specific company release.

From a technical standpoint, the S&P 500 tested intraday support near 7,690 (session low 7,690.0 on the index proxy) before closing at 7,717.81, still within roughly 1% of its all-time closing high near 7,790. The index remains above its 50-day average, so the uptrend is intact; a sustained break below 7,650 would be the first sign of a deeper correction. The Nasdaq held above 26,400, while the Dow's support sits near 53,000.

Major Company News

The most market-moving single company story after the close was lululemon athletica (LULU). The retailer reported second-quarter fiscal 2026 earnings per share of $2.92, ahead of the $2.42 consensus, but shares tumbled more than 18% in after-hours trading after the company cut its full-year outlook. For fiscal 2026, management now expects net revenue of $10.350 billion to $10.500 billion, a 5% to 7% decline, and third-quarter revenue of $2.290 billion to $2.320 billion, down 10% to 11% year over year. The guidance cut overshadowed the quarterly beat and tariff-refund benefit, and the selloff spilled into apparel and consumer-discretionary sentiment heading into the weekend.

Elsewhere, NVIDIA's roughly $13 billion acquisition of AI platform Hugging Face, announced Thursday, continued to underpin semiconductor strength, with the Philadelphia-style chip exposure (ProShares Ultra Semiconductors, USD) up 4.25% on the day. Apple's first full week under CEO John Ternus ended with the shares down for the session, though the stock remains up more than 16% year to date.