U.S. stocks recovered on Friday after a sharp sell-off earlier in the week, but the rebound did little to erase investor concerns about rising Treasury yields, elevated oil prices and persistent geopolitical risks.

The S&P 500 gained 0.43% to close at 7,674.37, while the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.43% to 26,180.45. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was the strongest of the three major indexes, rising 517.80 points, or 0.98%, to 53,277.01, helped by gains in healthcare companies including Merck and Johnson & Johnson.

The recovery came as investors looked for stability after Thursday’s steep decline, when renewed selling in the Treasury market pushed long-term borrowing costs higher and weighed on equities.

The rebound, however, was not enough to prevent the S&P 500 from ending the week 1.4% lower. The Nasdaq fell 2% for the week, while the Dow lost 0.9%. The weekly declines ended three consecutive weeks of gains for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq and left the Dow with a second straight weekly loss.

The weakness was not confined to U.S. markets. The MSCI All Country World Index fell almost 1% over the week, showing that the pressure from higher yields and tighter financial conditions extended across global equities.

The bond market remains the most immediate source of concern for investors.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose more than three basis points on Friday to 4.734%, while the 30-year Treasury yield also gained more than three basis points to 5.273%. The increase came even after government efforts to stabilize the Treasury market following a sharp sell-off.

Higher long-term yields raise the discount rate applied to future corporate earnings, putting particular pressure on stocks whose valuations depend heavily on profits expected many years in the future. That makes high-growth technology companies especially sensitive to movements in bond yields.

Leo Kelly, founder and CEO of Verdence Capital Advisors, said the equity market could face another period of weakness in the autumn if Treasury yields continue to rise while tensions in the Middle East remain elevated.

“The market has adjusted to 4% to 5%” on the 10-year yield, Kelly said. “If we had some sort of event and the market broke out and went to the 6% to 7% range on the 10-year, that’s a problem, and the market will react poorly to that.”

That assessment highlights the importance of the level and direction of yields rather than simply their current position. Investors have increasingly adapted to a 10-year yield in the mid-4% range, but a rapid move substantially higher could force another repricing across equities.

The inflation outlook is complicating the bond market picture. Higher oil prices linked to geopolitical tensions are raising concerns that energy costs could feed into broader inflation, limiting the ability of central banks to ease monetary policy aggressively. That creates a difficult environment for stocks. Rising yields increase financing costs, reduce the present value of future earnings and make bonds more competitive with equities, while higher energy prices can simultaneously squeeze corporate margins and consumer purchasing power.

Some sectors nevertheless provided support on Friday.

Financial stocks helped lift the broader market, while materials gained 2% as investors rotated toward economically sensitive companies. Healthcare stocks also supported the Dow, with Merck and Johnson & Johnson among the notable contributors.

Cryptocurrency-linked equities were particularly strong as bitcoin extended its weekly advance to about 22%. Robinhood surged almost 14%, while Coinbase gained 8%, highlighting how closely some listed financial and technology companies are now trading with movements in digital assets.

Bitcoin’s strength provided an unusual counterweight to the broader risk-off environment. The cryptocurrency’s rally has been supported by improving financial conditions, institutional demand and expectations for a more favorable U.S. regulatory environment, although its high volatility means crypto-related equities can amplify moves in either direction.

The market’s attention now turns to the Federal Reserve and next week’s Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium.

Investors will be watching a speech by Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh for clues about the outlook for monetary policy, particularly as policymakers balance inflation risks against concerns about economic growth and financial conditions.

The speech could become especially important if Treasury yields continue to rise. Markets need clarity on whether the Federal Reserve views the increase in long-term yields as a reflection of stronger economic growth, persistent inflation, fiscal concerns, or a combination of factors.

Investors will also be watching for discussion of central bank independence, an issue that has become significant for financial markets. Any perception that monetary policy could be influenced by political considerations could affect inflation expectations, Treasury yields and the dollar.

The bond market is therefore likely to remain the central transmission mechanism for the next phase of the equity-market correction. The S&P 500’s decline this week does not yet amount to a correction, but the combination of higher long-term yields, elevated energy prices and geopolitical uncertainty creates a more difficult backdrop for stocks that have enjoyed a prolonged rally.

Apple is cutting more than 200 jobs across teams working on its Siri digital assistant, artificial intelligence software and Vision Pro headset, as the company reallocates resources toward next-generation AI capabilities and new devices.

The restructuring affects roughly 100 positions in the Vision Pro organization and another 100 across Siri and software teams, according to people familiar with the changes cited by Bloomberg. The cuts offer a clearer indication of where Apple sees the strongest opportunities as it attempts to accelerate its AI strategy while reassessing demand for its first major new hardware platform in years.

Apple confirmed that it is reorganizing some teams, although it did not disclose the number of affected employees.

“We are realigning some teams to evolve our business to deliver the best experiences for our users,” Apple said in a statement. “While we will create new roles as part of this change, it will also impact a limited number of existing roles.”

The company said it would support affected employees during the transition, including allowing them to apply for other positions within Apple.

The Siri-related restructuring is tied to Apple’s effort to build a substantially more capable, AI-powered version of its voice assistant using a new underlying architecture. The shift requires different technical expertise and has prompted Apple to eliminate some existing roles, move employees into other positions, and create new jobs focused on the updated Siri.

The changes are part of a broader transformation underway inside Apple’s software organization. As AI becomes increasingly embedded in operating systems, applications and services, Apple is reorganizing teams around AI capabilities rather than maintaining separate development structures for individual features.

Apple’s Intelligent Systems Experience team, part of its software engineering organization, is also being restructured. The group works on AI-powered capabilities across Apple’s devices, and the company is eliminating some existing positions while creating new roles intended to accelerate AI development.

The restructuring comes at a critical point for Apple.

The company has been under growing pressure to demonstrate that it can close the gap with rivals in generative AI after competitors such as OpenAI, Google and Anthropic rapidly expanded the capabilities of their AI systems.

Apple has historically differentiated itself through tightly integrated hardware and software, but its AI strategy has developed more slowly than those of companies whose businesses are built around large language models.

The new Siri architecture is therefore more than a routine software upgrade. It marks Apple’s attempt to rebuild its assistant around modern AI capabilities that can understand context, perform actions across applications and respond more effectively to complex requests.

At the same time, Apple is scaling back parts of its Vision Pro operation. The company is largely shutting down a Vision Pro team focused on gaming and reducing the size of the group responsible for producing immersive video content for the headset.

The changes indicate that Apple is reassessing how it allocates resources around a product that generated considerable excitement when it was unveiled but has struggled to achieve broad consumer adoption.

Vision Pro launched in February 2024 as Apple’s first major new hardware platform in years. The headset introduced high-resolution displays, eye and hand tracking, and a computing interface built around spatial experiences. But its $3,699 price in the United States, weight, and physical limitations have made the device difficult to position as a mass-market consumer product.

The size of the installed user base has also created a problem for Apple’s content strategy.

Immersive video has been one of Vision Pro’s major selling points, but producing high-quality three-dimensional content requires large production crews and specialized equipment. An episode of an immersive video series can cost several million dollars to produce, according to people familiar with the operations.

Those costs are difficult to justify when relatively few consumers are actively using the headset.

Apple is not abandoning immersive content altogether. Instead, it plans to produce fewer videos internally while encouraging third-party developers and production companies to create more content for the platform. The company is also reducing its investment in Vision Pro gaming, reflecting limited adoption of the headset among gamers.

That does not mean Apple is abandoning spatial computing.

Apple has told employees that the Vision Pro and its visionOS operating system will continue to be developed. The more immediate priority, however, is shifting toward smaller and potentially more accessible devices. The company is working on smart glasses that would not initially support the immersive video and advanced gaming experiences associated with Vision Pro.

The move could represent an important change in Apple’s hardware strategy. Rather than attempting to push consumers directly into a $3,699 mixed-reality headset, Apple appears increasingly interested in lighter devices that can bring AI-powered experiences into everyday use without requiring users to wear a large computer over their face.

Smart glasses could also provide Apple with a more natural hardware platform for its AI ambitions. Cameras, microphones, and sensors embedded in glasses can continuously capture information from a user’s surroundings, while an AI assistant can process requests and provide information without requiring the user to reach for a phone.

That could make AI a more central part of Apple’s hardware ecosystem.

Apple is still considering a new Vision Pro model, potentially as early as the end of 2028, according to Bloomberg News. The continued development suggests the company has not abandoned the longer-term potential of spatial computing even as it reduces investment in parts of the current product.

The restructuring therefore appears less like an exit from Vision Pro than a shift in priorities. Apple is reducing spending in areas where adoption has been weaker while redirecting talent toward technologies it considers more strategically important.

That distinction is relevant for Siri.

Apple’s AI challenge is not simply that its existing assistant lacks the capabilities of the latest generative AI systems. The company also needs to integrate AI deeply into an ecosystem used by hundreds of millions of people.

A more capable Siri could potentially control applications, retrieve information across a user’s devices, understand personal context, and execute multi-step tasks. Achieving that requires a different architecture and a different mix of engineering expertise from the systems that powered Apple’s earlier voice assistant.

The job cuts therefore mark a shift in Apple’s technology priorities: fewer resources devoted to maintaining or expanding products and features with limited adoption, and more resources directed toward AI and future hardware.

The timing also matters for Apple’s competitive position.

AI is increasingly becoming the primary battleground among major technology companies, while hardware companies are racing to determine which devices will become the main interface between consumers and AI assistants.

Apple has an enormous installed base of iPhones, Macs, iPads and other devices, giving it a potential distribution advantage. But that advantage will matter only if the company can turn its AI capabilities into products that consumers find substantially more useful.

The restructuring thus indicates that Apple is willing to make difficult internal changes to pursue that objective.

The Vision Pro cuts acknowledge that a premium mixed-reality headset has not yet developed the scale needed to support Apple’s original content ambitions. The Siri and AI restructuring, meanwhile, signals that the company is increasing its focus on the software infrastructure needed for the next generation of AI-powered devices.