Stocks close: chips drop 3.4% and AMD 8.8%, yet the S&P 500 posts its best week since August

Wall Street ended a volatile week with a split decision. The S&P 500 fell 0.4% to 7,561.67 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.91% to 25,136.27, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 50.46 points, or 0.1%, to 52,347.55, according to CNBC. Chip stocks did the damage again, and bonds did not help. For the week, though, all three averages gained, and CNBC said each had its best week since early August.

The closing scoreboard

Sources: CNBC for the S&P 500, Nasdaq, Dow and weekly gains; Yahoo Finance closing data for the other lines, with percent changes our arithmetic against Thursday and last Friday (Nov. 6) closes; U.S. Treasury for yields. Oil and gold are futures quotes taken after the close.

Chips: the week up 8%, the day down 3.4%

The rotation into Nvidia's rivals reversed. On Yahoo Finance closes, AMD fell 8.75% to $534.06 and Broadcom 4.76% to $347.01, and Applied Materials lost 2.74% to $370.50 a day after its record quarter, which we covered in our earnings report. Nvidia fell 2.01% to $162.85. The reversal is the story of the afternoon: we reported at midday that AMD was down about 10% in our midday piece, and it recovered only a little by the bell.

Context matters here, because the week still looks strong in chips. Against last Friday's closes, AMD is up about 18.9% and Broadcom about 18.2%, and the semiconductor index is up 8.05%. Nvidia, the stock the rotation was away from, is down about 12.7% on the same baseline. CNBC put Nvidia's weekly loss at 13% and said it was the sixth straight weekly decline, the longest streak since 2012, with roughly $1.7 trillion of market value gone since early October. For why the stock keeps falling, see our Nvidia report: Jensen Huang resigned as CEO on Thursday, CFO Colette Kress is interim chief, and CNBC reports HSBC cut Nvidia to hold. Microsoft (+0.17% to $523.88) and Apple (+0.39% to $356.27) were steady, and Tesla fell 1.82% to $390.22.

Inflation data and a 5.15% yield

Stocks first rose on the October producer price index, which showed a 0.3% monthly gain against the 0.4% economists polled by Dow Jones expected, according to CNBC. The rise faded. The same report put producer prices 6.5% above a year ago, the biggest annual advance since November 2022, as we covered in our PPI story. The Treasury's par yield curve shows the 10-year at 5.15% on Friday against 5.10% on Thursday, the 30-year at 5.47% against 5.43%, and the 2-year at 4.88% against 4.86%. The 2-year was 4.56% the Monday before, per our Nov. 9 close report, so the front end of the curve has moved 32 basis points in a week. Traders were pricing about an 85% to 88% chance of a quarter-point Fed hike in December, per CME FedWatch figures CNBC reported earlier this week, which is why gold, at $3,881.20, is down 4.75% on the week.

Who feels it

• A contractor or shop owner with a floating-rate line. Each quarter-point hike adds about $1,000 a year in interest on a $400,000 balance ($400,000 times 0.0025), or roughly $83 a month. Two hikes would be about $167 a month. A 2-year yield up 32 basis points in a week says the market expects more than one.
• Anyone holding an S&P 500 or Nasdaq-100 index fund. The week was positive, but the daily swings were large: the VIX was 28.18 a week ago Thursday and closed Friday at 19.30. Because Nvidia is a heavy index weight, its slide pulls on the account even when most stocks are flat.
• Owners who buy diesel. WTI is about 1.9% lower on the week at about $89, so there is little fuel relief to offset higher borrowing costs. See our diesel piece.

What to watch next week

Nvidia reports on Tuesday, Nov. 17, and CNBC says LSEG analysts expect revenue of $108.9 billion, up 91% from a year earlier. October retail sales are also due Tuesday (forecast +0.2%, against +0.8% in September, per our economic calendar), building permits Wednesday and jobless claims Thursday. The next Fed decision is Dec. 9.

Sources: CNBC market coverage, CNBC on Nvidia's losing streak, U.S. Treasury daily yield curve, Yahoo Finance, BLS Producer Price Index. Some data may be delayed. This is market information, not investment advice.