Wall Street Today: Nasdaq Composite Sinks Yet Again on Weakness for Tesla, AMD and Other Big Techs

The tech-heavy $Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC.US)$ ended the session off just 49.46 points (0.3%) at 23,004.54 after earlier losing as much as 2.1% intraday.

Meanwhile, the $Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI.US)$ added 74.8 points (0.2%) to a 46,987.10 close, while the $S&P 500 Index (.SPX.US)$ gained 8.48 ticks (0.1%) at 6,728.8. Both had been in the red for most of the day before turning positive in the session's final minutes.

The downturn began in earnest on Tuesday, when tech darlings $Palantir (PLTR.US)$ and $Uber Technologies (UBER.US)$ fell even though they beat analyst estimates for their quarterly earnings and issued seemingly decent forward guidance.

That sent other tech stocks down over much of the week. Big Tech names to see continued declines Friday included $Tesla (TSLA.US)$ (off another 3.7%), $Oracle (ORCL.US)$ (which gave up an additional 1.9%) and $Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.US)$ (down another 1.8%).

Still, major cryptocurrencies rebounded Friday following a roughly 3% sell-off on Thursday. $Ethereum (ETH.CC)$ added 4.9% to $3,464.40 as of shortly before 4 p.m. ET Friday, while $Bitcoin (BTC.CC)$ bounced back 2.8% to $103,735.46.

$Tesla (TSLA.US)$ shed its aforementioned 3.7% after shareholders late Thursday approved CEO Elon Musk's controversial 10-year pay package, which could be worth up to $1 trillion. $Alphabet-A (GOOGL.US)$ followed with a 2.1% drop, while $Apple (AAPL.US)$ shed 0.5% and $Microsoft (MSFT.US)$ gave up 0.1%.

However, $Amazon (AMZN.US)$ managed to end the session 0.6% higher, while $Meta Platforms (META.US)$ added 0.5% and $NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$ inched up 0.04% after earlier trailing by as much as 4.9% intraday.

-- $Beyond Meat (BYND.US)$, better by 16.8%. The meat-alternatives firm, which recently became a meme stock and has been fluctuating wildly, rallied ahead of its planned release quarterly earnings next Tuesday after the bell.

-- $SanDisk (SNDK.US)$, 15.3% stronger. The data-storage firm gained ground after reporting a fiscal Q1 revenue beat. That prompted several analysts to raise their price targets for the stock.

-- $MP Materials (MP.US)$, up 12.8%. The rare-earth-minerals firm rose on well-received Q3 results and forward guidance.

-- $Affirm Holdings (AFRM.US)$, 11.6% higher. The buy-now/pay-later company soared after its fiscal Q1 earnings and revenue exceeded analyst estimates.

-- $Navitas Semiconductor (NVTS.US)$, down 11.3% to $7.84. The semiconductor firm fell after announcing a deal to sell 14.8 million additional shares at $6.75 apiece via a private placement. The sale will presumably dilute existing shareholders.

-- $Archer Aviation (ACHR.US)$, off 7.9%. The air-taxi maker lost ground on plans to issue new stock, as well as to purchase Los Angeles' Hawthorne Airport for $126 million for use as an air-taxi hub. That overshadowed word that mega-investor Cathie Wood's Ark Invest funds bought 3 million Archer shares for some $26 million in recent days.