Wall Street was moving without much direction on Friday, hesitating on the path to follow at the end of a trying week, marked both by a return of geopolitical risk and by an increasingly less accommodating tone from the Fed on its forthcoming rate cuts.

Just over an hour after opening, the Dow Jones advanced 0.4% to 37,918.2 points, while the Nasdaq dropped more than 1% to 15,435.7 points.

For the week as a whole, the Dow has so far limited its decline to 0.2%, but the technology-weighted index is heading for a weekly loss of more than 4%, its fourth in a row.

This would be a first since December 2022, and would mark a real turnaround after the bullish rally that drove US equity markets between last November and the end of March", stresses one trader.

Technology stocks are particularly affected by profit-taking in the face of rising bond yields, following the Fed's increasingly cautious stance on its forthcoming monetary easing cycle.

The serenity that had returned to the bond market resulted in a further deterioration this morning, with the yield on 10-year US Treasuries rising to 4.63%, its highest level since November.

On the other hand, there was little or no reaction to the announcement of Israeli air strikes against Iran, a retaliation which Teheran sought to play down on Friday.

In a sign of the markets' moderate reaction, oil prices are stabilizing after hitting six-month highs overnight, with US light crude (WTI) currently up 0.5% at over 83 dollars.

The VIX volatility index is nonetheless up 3%, above 18 points, while the dollar, a traditional safe-haven in the event of geopolitical tensions, is down 0.2% against the euro at 1.0670.

Gold is benefiting fully from its status as a safe-haven asset, continuing to trade not far from its all-time highs at over 2,400 dollars an ounce.

In the stock market, Netflix lost nearly 8% after last night's disappointing forecasts and its decision to stop reporting new subscriber figures, raising fears of a slowdown in business growth.

On the Dow, American Express's results were greeted by a 4.5% gain, but P&G's were punished by a 1% drop, proof of the mixed nature of the start of this earnings season.

Tesla is down 0.2% following the recall of nearly 4,000 Cybertrucks due to a pedal locking problem that could cause the vehicle to accelerate unintentionally.

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