19/07/24 Briefing

• US stocks were mixed on Friday amid a global tech outage sparked by Crowdstrike's cybersecurity platform.

• A Crowdstrike bug caused disruptions across industries that rely on Microsoft's Windows system.

• Investors are paying close attention to second-quarter earnings results, which could make or break the year-to-date rally in stocks.

US stocks saw mixed trades on Friday amid a global tech outage sparked by an update from cyber security firm Crowdstrike.

The Crowdstrike update contained a bug that led to widespread disruption for computers running Microsoft's Windows operating system.

The issue led to disruptions at airports, hospitals, hotels, banks, and other businesses around the world, with Windows computers displaying the dreaded Blue Screen of Death.

Crowdstrike said the outage was not caused by a hack, and that it had identified and deployed a fix that it is working to implement with its customers.

Shares of Crowdstrike plunged 13% in Friday's trading session, while Microsoft shares were down just over 1%.

Investors will keep a close eye on the Nasdaq 100, which has experienced a stinging sell-off over the past week while smaller-cap stocks surge.

The deluge of earnings results will help inform investors if rising profits can sustain the strong year-to-date rally in stock prices.

Netflix released results on Thursday, which beat analyst estimates on revenue, profits, and net subscriber additions. But weaker than expected third-quarter guidance sent the stock lower by about 1%.

With about 10% of S&P 500 companies having reported second-quarter earnings results so far, 81% are beating profit estimates by a median of 4%, while 65% are beating revenue estimates by a median of 3%, according to data from Fundstrat.

Here's where US indexes stood shortly after the 9:30 a.m. opening bell on Friday:

• S&P 500: 5,554.51, up 0.18%

• Dow Jones Industrial Average: 40,539.51, down 0.31% (-125.51 points)

• Nasdaq composite: 17,889.40, up 0.05%

Here's what else is going on today:

• Investors are preparing for the Trump trade. Here's how a red wave in November could impact stocks, bonds, and commodities.

• Nvidia is expected to reveal on its upcoming earnings call just how much profits its end-customers are making with its AI chips.

• A recession could strike the US economy in 2025, according to economist Steve Hanke, who warned about the troubling trend in money supply.

In commodities, bonds, and crypto:

• West Texas Intermediate crude oil was down 1.12% to $80.39 a barrel. Brent crude, the international benchmark, declined 0.86% to $84.33 a barrel.

• Gold fell 2.37% to $2,398.30 per ounce.

• The 10-year Treasury yield was flat at 4.21%.

• Bitcoin increased 0.60% to $64,364.