Tokyo's Nikkei 225 shed 0.5% to 53,119.18 as stocks related to artificial intelligence declined. Testing equipment maker Advantest lost 5.4% and computer chip equipment maker Disco Corp. lost 2.4%.
Chinese markets retreated, with the Hang Seng in Hong Kong down 1.1% to 27,660.80. The Shanghai Composite index slipped 1.2% to 4,109.36.
South Korea's Kospi was an outlier, gaining 1% to 5,271.81, extending its run of record highs.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.3% to 8,904.10.
Taiwan's benchmark lost 1.2%.
U.S. stocks finished with relatively modest moves.
The S&P 500 slipped 0.1% after flirting with its record high in the morning and dropping by as much as 1.5% later in the day. It closed at 6,969.01.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.1% to 49,071.56, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.7% to 23,685.12.
Microsoft was the heaviest weight on the market by far, tumbling 10% even though it reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Investors honed in instead on how much Microsoft is spending on investments, whether growth in its Azure cloud business will slow and how long its push into artificial-intelligence technology will take to turn into big profits.
It was the stock’s worst day since the market’s COVID crash in 2020.
Tesla also weighed on the market after falling 3.5%. It delivered a bigger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected, but the results were sharply lower than from a year earlier. Tesla’s leader, Elon Musk, has been trying to get investors to focus less on its flagging car sales and more on the company’s robotaxis and robots.
Companies across the market are under pressure to deliver at least solid growth in profits following record-setting runs for their stock prices. Stock prices tend to follow the path of corporate profits over the long term, and earnings need to rise to quiet criticism that stocks have grown too expensive.
More stocks rose within the S&P 500 than fell. Leading them was Meta Platforms, which rallied 10.4% after the company behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp topped profit expectations, even though it also said it will continue its massive investments in AI.
IBM was another winner and climbed 5.1% after surpassing analysts’ expectations for profit and revenue. Southwest Airlines flew 18.7% higher even though its profit fell short of forecasts. It gave a forecast for earnings in 2026 that blew past analysts’ expectations, saying it’s seeing strong momentum after making changes like charging baggage fees and having assigned seating.
In other dealings early Friday, the price of gold slipped 0.2% to $5,342 per ounce after it rallied briefly to near $5,600 on Thursday. Gold’s price topped $5,000 for the first time just this week and it has nearly doubled over the last 12 months.
Silver, which has been zooming higher in its own feverish run, declined 3.5% to $110.41.
Prices for precious metals have been surging as investors look for safer investments while weighing a wide range of risks, including a U.S. stock market that critics say is expensive, political instability, threats of tariffs and heavy debt loads for governments worldwide.
The U.S. dollar has seen its value sink over the last year because of many of the same risks that drove gold’s price higher. Early Friday, the dollar was trading at 153.71 Japanese yen, up from 152.97 yen. The euro slipped to $1.1908 from $1.1967.
Oil prices slipped after jumping more than 3% on Thursday due to worries about tensions between the United States and Iran, which could ultimately constrict the flow of crude. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned the U.S. military “will be prepared to deliver whatever the president expects,” just a day after President Donald Trump told Iran to “make a deal” on its nuclear program.
U.S. benchmark crude oil lost $1.15 to $64.27 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, shed $1.15 to $68.44 per barrel.
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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Stan Choe contributed.