SYDNEY — Australia's benchmark stock index closed lower Friday, pulling back from a three-session winning streak as disappointing earnings reactions from Alphabet and Tesla rattled global markets and offset a boost from surging oil and gold prices at home.

The S&P/ASX 200 finished the session at 8,811.8, down 27.2 points, or 0.31%, from Thursday's close. The decline came despite a milder outcome than futures markets had initially signaled, with SPI futures earlier in the day pointing to a drop of roughly 65 points, or 0.75%, based on a sharply negative overnight session on Wall Street.

A rough night on Wall Street

Friday's pullback traces directly to a steep selloff in U.S. markets Thursday, where investor enthusiasm around artificial intelligence spending took a significant hit following quarterly results from two of the world's most closely watched technology companies. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 506.93 points, or 0.97%, to close at 51,711.65, while the S&P 500 fell 1.21% to 7,408.30 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.15% to 25,137.69, weighed down heavily by steep declines in both Alphabet and Tesla shares.

Alphabet shares fell roughly 7% despite the company posting stronger-than-expected second-quarter revenue of $119.8 billion, as investors focused instead on the company's decision to raise its full-year 2026 capital expenditure guidance to a range of $195 billion to $205 billion, up from its previous forecast of $180 billion to $190 billion. Tesla shares fell even further,........

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