The three leading U.S. indexes finished in positive territory on Friday.

The S&P 500 ended up 0.42% at 7,575.39, while the Nasdaq Composite closed 0.29% higher, reaching 26,281.61. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 149.60 points, or 0.29%, to settle at 52,637.01.

— Sean Conlon

It has been a good year so far for Bank of America's diversified portfolio called the 25/25/25/25, strategist Michael Hartnett said in a note Thursday.

The portfolio, made up of equal parts U.S. stocks, bonds, commodities and cash, has an annualized 16% return year to date — the best since 2021, he wrote.

"[A]sset allocation diversification winning despite equity concentration; we invest via long secular inflection points in commodities, EM, small cap, and (upcoming) consumer stocks," Hartnett said.

— Michelle Fox

BTIG initiated coverage of two data center real estate investment trusts on Friday, noting the potential for a "data center supercycle that lasts for decades."

Analyst Thomas Catherwood gave Digital Realty Trust a buy rating and $215 price target, which implies 20% upside from Thursday's close.

"We believe DLR offers investors a compelling growth opportunity through its existing portfolio and external development pipeline while providing direct exposure to the secular surge in global data center demand." he said in a note to clients.

Catherwood also rated Equinix a buy and gave it a $1,210 price target, suggesting 17% upside ahead.

"We expect the company's portfolio, primarily located in Tier 1 markets, to deliver meaningful internal growth driven by increased utilization, tighter supply, and higher rents," he wrote.

Shares of Equinix are up 36% year to date, while Digital Realty Trust has gained 16%.

— Michelle Fox

UBS has reiterated its buy rating on Bloom Energy despite the stock's recent slid amid concerns that raw materials could constrain the company's growth.

"We view the recent pullback in Bloom Energy shares as an attractive buy opportunity, as we believe concerns surrounding raw material sourcing—and scandium in particular—are overstated," analyst Manav Gupta told clients in a Thursday note.

Bloom's stock has fallen more than 20% since late June. Gupta said the company has developed a propietary process to secure the scandium that it needs.

UBS has a 12-month stock price target of $350, which implies 36% upside from Thursday's close.

— Spencer Kimball

Stocks could come under pressure in the run-up to a blockbuster initial public offering as investors sell existing holdings to raise cash for the deal, according to KBW.

Historically, the S&P 500 has fallen a median 1.3% in the two weeks before U.S. IPOs larger than $10 billion, excluding American depositary receipts, as investors rotate out of large-cap stocks to fund participation in the offering, KBW said in a note.

The weakness has typically proved temporary. The benchmark index has rebounded a median 1.4% in the month after the listing as liquidity normalizes and the effects of the fundraising ebb, the firm said.

The historical pattern suggests that any near-term softness tied to a large IPO may reflect technical positioning rather than a deterioration in underlying market fundamentals.

— Yun Li

Procure Space ETF is on track for its fifth negative week in six as investors continue to digest the potential effects of SpaceX's initial public offering on the aerospace sector.

The exchange-traded fund has pulled back more than 7% week to date. It holds several stocks, including Rocket Lab, York Space, ViaSat, Intuitive Machines and Honeywell Aerospace, that have shed 10% or more this week.

Since last month, space stocks have largely traded down due to uncertainties surrounding the public listing of SpaceX's shares. Earlier this week, the company joined the Nasdaq-100 through a fast-track process, pushing several space names even deeper into the red.

— Liz Napolitano

The pan-European Stoxx 600 closed the final trading session of the week marginally higher, up 0.04%.

Most major bourses also advanced. The Italian FTSE MIB rose 0.44% in Milan, while in London, the U.K.'s FTSE 100 closed 0.24% higher. France's CAC 40 ended the day 0.15% higher in Paris.

The German DAX fell 0.2% in Frankfurt.

— Hugh Leask

SK Hynix opened at $170 on the Nasdaq on Friday, rising about 14%, as U.S. investors jumped at the opportunity to get a stake in South Korea's second most valuable company.

The company's American depositary receipts, or ADRs, were priced at $149, raising $26.5 billion for its aggressive expansion plans, which includes investing in new factories and equipment.

The stock is trading under the ticker symbol SKHYV, and will switch to SKHY as of Tuesday.

— Yun Li

PepsiCo could continue to suffer a sales slump in North America as inflation persists, weighing on its shares, according to Citi. 

The bank downgraded the beverage name to neutral from buy. It also lowered its price target on shares to $145 from $170, implying just 5% upside from Thursday's close. 

"We move to Neutral on PEP on continued weakness in N.America at [PepsiCo Foods North America]  & [PepsiCo Beverages North America], which have remained soft despite PEP's strategic actions (price reductions, innovation, shelf space gains)," analyst Filippo Falorni said Friday in a note to clients.

He added, "this dynamic also creates carryover risk to numbers in 2027, when PEP will be cycling 2026's highly active innovation period, with still elevated cost inflation pressuring margins."

Shares of Pepsi have declined 12% over the past three months as consumers have tightened their purse strings due to a rise in food and gas prices tied to the ongoing Iran war. 

— Liz Napolitano

Delta Air Lines stock fell in morning trading on Friday despite beating top- and bottom-line consensus estimates for the second quarter.

The stock slid as much as 3.3% in the morning session before paring back some of its losses. The stock was down 1.7%, as of 10:27AM eastern time.

"Unit revenue was solid and guidance calls for an acceleration into the third quarter," Christian Wetherbee at Wells Fargo wrote in a Friday note to clients. "26 guide was affirmed placing our [and] consensus estimates below the range. Estimates will move up and shares should react well."

Wetherbee has an overweight rating on the stock and a price target of $105. The stock is trading around the $87 level on Friday.

— Tobias Burns

Meta Platforms is ahead almost 6% Friday, extending its weekly gain to more than 14%, the largest weekly advance since Feb. 2024. Meta has climbed 22% in the past 10 trading days, soaring 22% just since June 25.

"According to an internal memo reviewed by Reuters, Meta is building a custom silicon chip as part of a broader effort to add 14GW of total compute capacity in 2026 & 2027," according to a Bank of America report out Friday by analyst Justin Post. If the report is correct, it suggests "a 2026 cost per GW on ($145bn on capex) of closer to $22bn, vs our $45bn/GW estimate for 2026," Bank of America said.

"Meta may have engineered significant cost savings to get capacity cost per MW well below our and Street expectations. Not all capacity is built the same, but we think building MW of AI capacity at below $30bn per GW could have significant positive economics relative to our estimates for Amazon and Google annual Cloud revenues per GW at $10-16bn," Post wrote.

Additionally,  Meta received a positive reception to its recent artificial intelligence frontier model efforts, including the debut of Muse Spark 1.1 Thursday, StreetAccount said.

— Scott Schnipper and Nick Wells

The S&P 500 began Friday's session little changed.

The broad market index was higher by 0.1% shortly after the opening bell, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 126 points, or 0.2%.

— Sean Conlon

Stablecoin issuer Circle surged after the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, or OCC, granted it approval Friday to operate as a trust bank, the company said.

Shares of the company gained more than 12% in early trading. Read more.

— Tanaya Macheel

Bernstein upgraded J.B. Hunt Transport Services to outperform, raising the price target to $329 from $192. 

"The stock has rallied on better end market conditions, and with earnings geared to follow through an eventual peak in truck rates, we would rather be late than on the sidelines," analyst David Vernon wrote in a note.

Vernon added that the entire J.B. Hunt business model is levered to contract truck rates and that the rate environment is structurally changing. Capital investments to fund growth have largely been made, he said, which has set the stage for outstanding cash return. 

"Times are good for JBHT now; they will get better as box turns improve in the broader intermodal market, catalyzing rates to move higher, " Vernon wrote. 

—  Deena Zaidi

The recent pullback in memory stocks makes sense after a big run higher, according to Jefferies. But don't expect the recent losses to signal a new direction for these stocks that have surged in the last few months. 

Analyst Christopher Wood in a Thursday note said that while the market is experiencing some artificial intelligence-related fatigue, memory companies are set to continue to go higher as there's no outlook where demand for compute starts to decline. 

"So long as the AI capex arms race continues the beneficiaries will remain the picks and shovels trade (i.e. the people being paid for the capex not the companies spending the money)," Wood wrote in the note. "The four hyperscalers have risen by 180% since the start of 2023, compared with a 760% gain for the three dominant memory makers, namely Micron, Hynix and Samsung

Electronics… long-term GREED & fear would still rather own the DRAM makers. This is because the demand for compute can keep growing even as the cost of tokens collapse."

Shares of SK Hynix are set to debut on the Nasdaq on Friday. 

— Davis Giangiulio

Check out the companies making the biggest moves premarket:

• WD-40 Company — Shares of the maker of household and industrial lubricants rallied more than 15% after it posted third-quarter earnings of $2.33 per share, on an adjusted basis, which topped the $1.56 earnings per share expected by analysts polled by FactSet. The company also hiked its full-year guidance.
• Delta Air Lines — The stock slipped more than 3% despite the company beating top- and bottom-line estimates in its second-quarter earnings report. CEO Ed Bastin told CNBC in an interview that he expects pricing power from the surge in jet fuel prices for the company to last, even as oil prices fall.
• Circle Internet Group — Shares rose more than 13% after the fintech company received approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to launch its crypto-focused bank. CEO Jeremy Allaire said in a news release that the approval marked a key moment in bringing blockchain technology into the core of the financial system.

Read the full list here.

— Davis Giangiulio

Global oil demand is set to decline for the first time since 2020 as the Iran war wreaked havoc with production and exports in the Middle East, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Friday.

World oil demand is set to decline by 1 million b/d year-on-year in 2026, which would mark its first annual decrease since the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the IEA said in its latest oil market report.

This year's contraction is "highly skewed in both product and regional terms," as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz — the vital shipping route for oil and gas — disrupted exports through the Persian gulf, the agency noted.

A recovery is underway, the researchers added, though they warned renewed escalation in the conflict could complicate matters and further cloud the outlook.

Read the full story here.

— Joseph Wilkins

Shares in Vodafone surged 11.2% in morning trade Friday after E& said it would offload its entire stake in the multinational telecommunications mainstay for $5.95 billion.

The Abu Dhabi-based telecoms group said it has agreed to sell the position — sized at 16.2% of Vodafone's shares — to Vega, an acquisition vehicle wholly-owned by the family group of billionaire Xavier Niel, founder of French telecoms group Iliad.

The sale values Vodafone shares at 112.5 pence ($1.50) each, a 15% premium to the previous close of 97.76 pence, and will result in a net cash return of $1.3 billion, E& said in a statement.

— Hugh Leask

EasyJet stock soared Friday after the budget carrier said it is considering a $7.7 billion takeover bid from Apollo Global Management.

Under the terms of the cash offer, easyJet shareholders would be entitled to £7.15 ($9.61) per share of the company, valuing the firm at £5.7 billion, around $7.66 billion.

Apollo has ignited a bidding war, as EasyJet had previously accepted a $7.3 billion takeover offer from private equity firm Castlelake.

Shares were last trading 13.6% higher.

Read the full story here.

— Joseph Wilkins

European stocks edged higher on Friday, though tech stocks led losses in the region.

Shortly after the opening bell, the pan-European Stoxx 600 index was up 0.15%, with most regional bourses and sectors trading in the green.

London's FTSE 100 rose 0.1% in early trade, while France's CAC 40 added 0.17% and Germany's DAX was broadly flat. Tech stocks lagged the broader index, opening down 0.8% after a strong Thursday session. 

— Joseph Wilkins

Japan's Nikkei 225 closed 1.2% higher at 68,557.53, while South Korea's Kospi added 2.5% to 7,475.94.

Earlier in the session, the Korea Exchange activated a buy-side sidecar on the Kospi after Kospi 200 futures surged more than 5%, temporarily halting program trading for five minutes. 

Australia's benchmark S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.5% to 8,806.

— Lee Ying Shan

S&P's ratings agency downgraded U.S. tech giant Oracle to the lowest investment grade rating on Thursday, citing concerns around its business model and spending plans. 

Oracle's credit rating was lowered to BBB- from BBB, one notch above junk status, as S&P sees the firm facing "rising capex requirements, an uncertain path to profitability, rapidly evolving industry and competitive landscape, and high customer concentration."

S&P said Sam Altman's OpenAI represents a "key credit risk" to Oracle.

"If OpenAI were unable to pay Oracle, we believe Oracle could be left with massive data center leases that it might be unable to exit or have to re-lease to new tenants under less-favorable terms," they wrote in a research note.

The stock closed 2.7% higher on Thursday, but is down over 38% over the past year.

— Joseph Wilkins

Treasury market volatility is likely to increase as the Federal Reserve becomes more reactive to incoming economic data, Adam Marden, co-portfolio manager of the Dynamic Global Bond Strategy at T. Rowe Price, said in a note published late Thursday.

"We expect higher volatility at the front end, although the process is likely to be gradual. Recent funding-market episodes suggest the Fed remains sensitive to market functioning and may respond if pressures become more pronounced."

Marden also said that stronger nominal growth and reduced forward guidance from the Fed should keep rate swings elevated, rather than any single inflation report driving the market.

The 10-year Treasury yield was little changed at 4.541% on Friday.

— Lee Ying Shan

Oil was little changed Friday, as investors assessed the latest developments in the Middle East.

Futures for international benchmark brent crude for September delivery and U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures for August both rose 0.1% to $76.40 and $72.22 per barrel, respectively, in choppy trading.

Signals that diplomatic efforts to address the U.S.-Iran conflict were ongoing have kept a lid on prices after they shot up following U.S. strikes on Iran in retaliation for Tehran targeting commercial tankers in the Hormuz Strait.

Traffic via the critical waterway slowed to 13 tankers on Wednesday compared with an average of 33 per day over the previous week, according to Matt Smith, director of commodity research at the energy intelligence firm Kpler.

"We think that the Iran is determined to control traffic," Eric Nuttal, partner and senior portfolio manager at Ninepoint said on CNBC's "Squawk Box Asia," adding that this will have a long-term impact on flows through the strait.

"I think, people's attention will soon look to, well, you know, global oil inventories are at the lowest levels in recorded history," Nuttal added.

— Justina Lee

Japanese and South Korean tech stocks surged on Friday, tracking a rally in U.S. chipmakers.

Japan's SoftBank Group advanced over 11%, while chip equipment makers Advantest and Renesas Electronics gained 3.9% and 3%, respectively. Tokyo Electron was up 4%.

Among other South Korean technology names, Samsung SDI up 8.3% and Seoul Semiconductor advancing 5.9%. Samsung Electronics was 4.3% higher. Display panel producer LG Display rose 4.4%.

Memory chip major SK Hynix added 1.3%, ahead of the trillion-dollar South Korean chipmaker's U.S market debut. The company has seen its stock soar more than sevenfold over the past year due to the global memory crunch.

— Justina Lee

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose 0.45%, while mainland China's CSI 300 gained 0.33% Friday.

Morgan Stanley said in a note Thursday that Hong Kong and Chinese equities had outperformed regional and global peers over the past week.

"Hong Kong and China have outperformed regional and global peers over the past week, while most other markets saw a sharp rise in volatility," Morgan Stanley said.

The brokerage added that while near-term volatility could persist, "near-term downside risk is diminishing," and investors underweight on China could use the pullback to accumulate quality stocks.

It reiterated that late July and August would be a "critical" period for a more sustainable recovery, citing improving e-commerce earnings, progress in AI commercialization and the expected absorption of July's IPO share-unlocking pressure.

— Lee Ying Shan

Shares of SK Hynix rose 5% at the open, before paring gains to 0.5% as the chip giant looks to make its Nasdaq debut Friday.

Tim Garratt, investment manager at Baillie Gifford, said SK Hynix remains well-positioned to benefit from a persistent imbalance between AI computing needs and memory capacity.

"Clearly there's been a huge backlog to catch up on and as a result SK Hynix has been sitting in the middle of that short-term pinch point, and it's just got tremendous momentum around the needs," he told CNBC's "Squawk Box Asia."

Shares of domestic rival Samsung Electronics were up 2.16%.

— Lee Ying Shan

Asia-Pacific markets opened mostly higher Friday, with South Korean equities leading gains in the region.

South Korea's Kospi jumped over 3%, while the small-cap Kosdaq advanced 2.4%.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 1.37%, while the Topix added 0.74%.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was flat at the open.

— Lee Ying Shan

Asia-Pacific markets were set to open mostly higher Friday as investors weighed renewed hopes for diplomacy between the U.S. and Iran.

President Donald Trump said Iran called to make a deal. Mediators from Qatar and Pakistan are also working to bring the two sides to the negotiating table, according to MS NOW, which cited officials from the countries.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 was set to open higher with the index futures contract in Chicago at 69,005 and in Osaka at 69,060 against the index's last close of 67,743.85.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 futures last traded at 8,736, while the index closed at 8,762.50.

Futures for Hong Kong's Hang Seng index were last at 24,052, slightly higher than its close of 24,030.18.

— Lee Ying Shan

Here are where the major averages stand week to date. As of Thursday's close:

• The Nasdaq Composite up by 1.5%
• The S&P 500 up by 0.8%
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average down by 0.8%

— Sarah Min

South Korean memory chipmaker SK Hynix priced its U.S. listing of American depository receipts at $149 a share, according to Bloomberg, which cited a person familiar.

— Sarah Min

Shares of the maker of household and industrial lubricants rallied 15% Thursday night. WD-40 Company posted third quarter results that beat expectations on the top and bottom lines, and hiked its full year guidance.

WD-40 Company posted third quarter earnings of $2.33 per share, on an adjusted basis, which topped the $1.56 earnings per share expected by analysts polled by FactSet. Revenue of $195.1 million also exceeded the anticipated $172.8 million.

It also raised earnings guidance to the range of $6.05 to $6.35 per share, higher than prior guidance of $5.75 to $6.15. Revenue expectations were also raised to the range of $675 million to $690 million, compared to previous guidance in the range of $630 million to $655 million.

— Sarah Min

U.S. stock futures opened little changed on Thursday night.

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell by 36 points, or 0.07%. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures dipped 0.04% and 0.02%, respectively.

— Sarah Min