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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

US tech stocks slipped on Friday as investors pivoted away from companies that had led markets higher for much of this year.

The S&P 500, Wall Street’s main equity benchmark, fell 1.1 per cent on Friday, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.5 per cent. Elon Musk’s electric-car maker Tesla was among the biggest laggards, falling 5 per cent, while chipmaker Nvidia dropped 2.1 per cent.

“I watch probably 30 different [market indicators] and they’re all down today,” said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Cresset Capital. “This was just widespread selling without much enthusiasm.”

Tech stocks have rallied strongly this year, as investors bet artificial intelligence would drive demand for everything from servers to microchips. The gains accelerated after Donald Trump’s election victory in November on bets that the president-elect would usher in more business-friendly policies when his term begins next month.

However, the sector has been choppier in recent weeks as investors reassess their best-performing holdings at the end of the year. The Federal Reserve also sparked ructions last week when it forecast only two quarter-point rate cuts next year, compared with its September forecast of four, as officials fretted about growing risks that inflation becomes lodged well above the central bank’s 2 per cent target.

The hawkish projections have pushed up US long-term borrowing costs, with the 10-year Treasury yield rising to 4.63 per cent on Friday, compared with lows in September of about 3.6 per cent. Higher yields typically tarnish the appeal of holding shares in fast-growing companies.

Citigroup analysts on Friday said that while they still forecast the S&P 500 will rise about 10 per cent from current levels by the end of next year, they expect a “more volatile leg of the bull market ahead”.

The US bank noted this year’s gains in stock prices compared with corporate profits were “setting a high bar for fundamentals in the year ahead, and even the year after”. The S&P 500 trades at about 22.2 times expected earnings over the next year, compared with the average over the past decade of 18.1, according to FactSet data.

Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate.com, said that, “even with that volatile Friday, the market’s still higher than it was on Monday”.

He said: “Markets don’t go straight up, and a pullback often serves as a foundation for the next market advance.”

The S&P 500 is still up 25 per cent year-to-date even after Friday’s pullback, roughly on a par with the previous year’s gains.

The so-called Magnificent 7 Big Tech stocks — Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, Nvidia and Tesla — have been responsible for roughly half of the S&P 500’s total returns, including dividends, this year, said Howard Silverblatt at S&P Dow Jones Indices.

All of the Magnificent 7 shares declined modestly on Friday, however.

Trading activity is typically lighter than usual during the holiday period, something that can exacerbate volatility.

The Food and Drug Administration has classified its recall of eggs sold under Costco’s Kirkland brand as a Class I recall, a designation reserved for instances of the highest potential health risk — including death.

A Class I recall signals that “there is a reasonable probability that the use of or exposure to a violative product will cause serious adverse health consequences or death,” according to the FDA. 

The agency announced the voluntary recall on Nov. 27 and posted news of the Class I designation on Dec. 20; it has not provided updates about whether any possible illnesses or medical cases related to the recall. Neither the agency nor Costco responded to NPR’s messages for comment on Friday.

The eggs were voluntarily recalled by Handsome Brook Farms, which is headquartered in New York. The recall covers 10,800 packages of 24-count eggs, sold under the Kirkland Signature brand name and described as organic and pasture-raised.

The products were sent to 25 Costco stores in five states: Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. The recall applies to products with a UPC code of 9661910680 that also have the Julian code 327 and a use-by date of Jan 5, 2025.

“Eggs from a positive Salmonella environment were shipped into distribution to retail facilities,” according to the FDA. Handsome Brook Farms said the eggs hadn’t been intended for retail sales — but were mistakenly packaged and distributed.

“Additional supply chain controls and retraining are being put in place to prevent recurrence,” the recall notice states.

The FDA also placed the Class I designation on a recall of cucumbers due to possible salmonella contamination that, as with the eggs, was also announced in late November.

It’s not unusual for salmonella to trigger a Class 1 recall: The bacteria is “the biggest cause of hospitalization and death in our food system,” Sarah Sorscher, director of regulatory affairs at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, told NPR’s 1A program in September.

Every year, salmonella causes “about 1.35 million illnesses, 26,500 hospitalizations, and 420 deaths” in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates.

Symptoms such as diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps can take time to manifest, appearing days or even weeks after the initial infection. Most people usually feel better after four to seven days, but in rare circumstances, salmonella can reach the bloodstream and affect other parts of the body, the CDC says.

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

The national airlines of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have suspended some flights to Russia after evidence suggested an Azerbaijani plane had been downed by Russian air defence systems.

The Kazakh airline, Qazaq Air, said on Friday it suspended its Astana to Ekaterinburg route, according to the Kazinform news agency, while Azerbaijan Airlines suspended flights to seven cities in the south of Russia.

The measures were taken after an Azerbaijan Airlines flight from Baku to Russia’s regional capital, Grozny, was diverted across the Caspian Sea and crash-landed near Aktau in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, killing 38 of the 67 people on board.

Video of the fuselage of the crashed aircraft has shown multiple puncture marks consistent with fire from an anti-aircraft system. There is also evidence that Russia was jamming the GPS navigation system near Grozny at the time, apparently to defend against an attack by Ukrainian drones.

Qazaq Air said it was suspending flights to Ekaterinburg until January 27 pending an “ongoing risk assessment” of flights to Russia. Azerbaijan Airlines said it halted flights to Grozny and other southern Russian cities until completion of an investigation into the crash.

Israel’s flag-carrier, El Al, on Thursday also announced it was suspending flights from Tel Aviv to Moscow pending a safety assessment.

Russia had insisted the aircraft was unable to land in Grozny because of heavy fog and that the aircraft had hit a flock of birds. Local authorities in Russia’s nearby North Ossetia region announced an attack by Ukrainian drones, one of which was shot down, killing a woman on the ground. But the Kommersant newspaper reported there was no “heavy fog” forecast for Grozny at the time.

The head of Russia’s Rosaviatsia aviation agency, Dmitry Yadrov, on Thursday said the conditions around Grozny had been “very difficult” amid attacks from Ukrainian combat drones.

Asked on Friday about reports of a missile strike, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had nothing to add.

The incident has invoked comparisons with Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 being shot down over Ukraine in 2014. An investigation concluded that crash, which killed all 298 people on board, was the result of the firing of an air defence missile by Russia-controlled fighters in eastern Ukraine.

It is not clear how long Kazakhstan’s investigation into the crash will take, or how free it will be to reach conclusions about the cause. The probe includes investigators from Russia and Azerbaijan, according to Kazakh officials.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said it was too early to comment on what had caused the crash.

The aircraft type involved — an Embraer-190 regional jet — was previously regarded as one of the world’s safest civil aircraft.

A senior US official has said there are early indications a Russian anti-aircraft system might have struck the flight.

Senior Ukrainian officials told the Financial Times they also believed the aircraft was probably hit by an air defence missile. Andriy Kovalenko, a Ukrainian national security and defence council official, posted on Telegram on Thursday that Russia should have closed the airspace over Grozny, given the operations it was undertaking, but did not do so.

“The plane was damaged by the Russians and sent to Kazakhstan, instead of making an emergency landing in Grozny and saving people’s lives,” he wrote.

Rasim Musabekov, a member of Azerbaijan’s parliament, has called for Russia to apologise.

“The plane was shot down in Russian territory, in the skies over Grozny, and this cannot be denied,” Musabekov told the Turan news agency. “This is how civilised relations work. If air defence systems are active, the airport should be closed, and warnings should be issued to prevent flights to the area.”