--- title: "Dow drops 1.2% as Brent hits six-month high" url: "https://etf.net/news/tech-holds-as-dow-falls-2026-10-23" published_at: "2026-10-23T20:54:46.980Z" updated_at: "2026-10-23T22:01:01.349Z" byline: "ETF.net Research" --- # Dow drops 1.2% as Brent hits six-month high Eight of 11 sector funds fall, as selling spreads to non-tech names. By ETF.net Research. Published Oct 23, 2026. Selling spread beyond technology on Friday, Oct. 23, as oil prices rose to their highest levels since April. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell **1.2%**, taking most other sectors with it: State Street SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust DIA fell 1.2%, in line with the index. Invesco QQQ Trust, Series 1 QQQ was unchanged. State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF SPY lost 0.5%. The Nasdaq-100, represented by Invesco Series Trust Series 1 ('QQQ) finished flat for the day, while The broader Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.2%. Of 5,637 U.S.-listed ETFs with a closing price, 3,753 finished the day lower. ## Second weekly loss for the S&P 500 The S&P 500 fell 0.5% for the week and the Nasdaq Composite 0.7%, the second straight weekly loss for both benchmarks. QQQ fell 0.8% and SPY fell 0.4%, though the DIA bucked the trend and gained 0.4% compared to last Friday's close. Thursday did most of the damage, after earnings reports revived anxieties over spending on artificial intelligence. Meta fell 7% after it disclosed more spending on AI, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 6.7%, its worst single day since June 23. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.6% to 26,008.86, its steepest fall since early June. Investors rotated into Treasuries, pushing yields lower. The 10-year yield fell 0.17 percentage point to 4.96%, its largest one-day drop in more than two years. Fed funds futures now put the chance of a rate increase at next week’s meeting near 5% and the chance of one in December near 80%. Brent rose 6.2% for the week, its third straight weekly gain. Chart: QQQ sold off Thursday; **DIA** sold off Friday ## The selling was outside technology Eight of the 11 State Street sector funds fell. State Street Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF XLK rose 0.5%. State Street Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF XLE rose 2.6%. Real estate, the only other sector fund higher, rose 0.1%. VanEck Semiconductor ETF SMH rose 0.7%. State Street Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR ETF XLP fell 1.9%, the worst of the 11. State Street Communication Services Select Sector SPDR ETF XLC fell 1.8%, a third straight decline. Consumer discretionary fell 1.7%. The financials and industrials funds each fell 1.3%, and health care fell 1.1%. Chart: **Energy** gained 2.6% as eight of 11 sectors fell DIA weights stocks by share price, not by company size, so a stock with a high share price moves it more than one with a low share price. Goldman Sachs, the largest holding, closed at $876 and fell 1.8%, taking 0.18 percentage point off the fund. Caterpillar, the second largest, closed at $687 and fell 2.4%, taking 0.20 percentage point off. American Express closed at $313, fell 3.7%, and took 0.14 percentage point off. Together that is about half a percentage point of the 1.2% decline. The rest of the decline came from the other stocks in the fund. American Express fell 3.7% after it reported third-quarter results Friday. Revenue rose 9% to $20.1 billion, just below analysts’ estimates, though adjusted earnings of $4.68 a share beat them. Reported earnings of $5.42 a share included a gain from selling its stake in Global Business Travel Group. The company raised its full-year forecast to $18.30 to $18.60 a share. ## A SpaceX report split the phone stocks The flat close in QQQ was a split inside the index. Micron gained 2.5%. Nvidia, the largest holding, slipped 0.6%. Space Exploration Technologies, a Nasdaq-100 company and one of the ten largest holdings, rose 1.9%. Cybersecurity stocks were among Friday’s biggest gainers. CrowdStrike rose 8.2%, Palo Alto Networks 7.2% and Cloudflare 6.9% after an Evercore ISI survey of resellers found security budgets firming up.. Evercore also cited two critical flaws in the PHP programming language, disclosed Oct. 21, as a reason companies will spend more on security. Micron gained 2.5%. Space Exploration Technologies, a Nasdaq-100 company and one of the ten largest holdings, rose 1.9%. Telecom carriers, in contrast, took it on the chin: AT&T fell 8%. T-Mobile, fell 7.7% and was one of the largest drags on QQQ. Verizon fell 1.2%. Bloomberg reported late Thursday that SpaceX is in talks to access at least 80,000 U.S. cell sites to build a wireless network, and [Reuters reported](https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/us-telecom-operators-wobble-after-report-spacex-talks-cell-sites-2026-10-23/) the stock reaction Friday. The report described talks, not a signed agreement. Barron's reported that Citi does not see SpaceX launching a national wireless service before 2029. Tower companies rose on the same report. Crown Castle gained 9.1% and American Tower gained 4.1%. Chart: **Towers** gained as AT&T and T-Mobile sold off XLC is down 4.4% from last Friday's close. AT&T and T-Mobile are about 9% of that fund and about 39% of Friday's drop. Meta, the largest holding, fell 1%. ## Oil settled at an April high Reuters reported that Brent crude settled at **$116.72** a barrel, up $3.55, or 3.1%, the highest settlement since April 29. West Texas Intermediate settled at $103.27, up 3.8%. Reuters tied the gain to Houthi attacks in Saudi Arabia and an oil spill off the United Arab Emirates coast, and to concern about further disruption to Middle East supply. XLE rose 2.6%, a smaller gain than the crude prices. Exxon Mobil gained 2.8% and Chevron gained 2.9%, and both traded at 52-week highs. SLB, the oil-services company, rose 7.1%. ## Selling prices rose at the fastest pace since 2022 [S&P Global's flash survey](https://www.pmi.spglobal.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/07d16568e63346999890940d47639cd9) of purchasing managers, an early reading of October, put the rise in selling prices at the largest since August 2022. The composite output index, a separate gauge of activity, was 57.6, down from 58.4 in September and a two-month low. A reading above 50 means activity expanded from the month before. S&P Global called 57.6 firmly in strong growth territory. “The output readings from the survey are consistent with GDP growing at a 5% annualized rate,” said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence. He said the pace of those selling prices indicates consumer price inflation is likely to rise further above the Federal Reserve's target in the coming months. The 10-year Treasury yield closed at 5%, up 4 basis points from 4.96% on Thursday. A day earlier it had fallen 17 basis points, from 5.13% on Wednesday. The [University of Michigan's](https://news.umich.edu/as-concerns-over-purchasing-power-dominate-consumer-sentiment-moves-sideways) Consumer Sentiment Index finished October at 48.0, a tenth of a point below September's 48.1 and above the 46.3 consensus in Econoday's survey of forecasters. It was 53.6 last October. The current-conditions index fell to 46.7 from 50.9. Year-ahead inflation expectations rose to 4.7% from 4.6%. “This month’s decline in the Current Conditions sub-index was driven entirely by buying conditions for durables, which plunged 18% on the basis of higher interest rates and rising concerns about the affordability of such purchases,” the university’s survey said. Thursday's loss was in artificial intelligence and chips. On Friday those shares steadied, and most other sectors fell. Brent's highest settlement since April, and the fastest rise in selling prices since August 2022, came the same day. ## Coming up next week The Fed announces its rate decision at 2 p.m. ET Wednesday, Oct. 28. Microsoft and Alphabet report after Wednesday’s close, and Amazon reports Thursday. T-Mobile, which fell 7.7% Friday, also reports Wednesday. Caterpillar, DIA’s second-largest holding, reports Thursday, when the government also releases its first estimate of third-quarter GDP and September’s personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge. Source: etf.net, https://etf.net/news/tech-holds-as-dow-falls-2026-10-23. Please cite the page URL.