Finance

The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield dropped back to roughly 5.15% after earlier touching 5.23%, its highest level since 2007. The cooling came despite a University of Michigan survey showing that consumer sentiment fell to a four-month low while short-term inflation expectations rose to 4.6%. Persistent worries over government debt loads and the ongoing geopolitical friction in the Middle East continue to act as key structural drivers for the bond sell-off.

Shares of Akamai Technologies surged after the cloud infrastructure provider announced an $11.6 billion, seven-year agreement with artificial intelligence startup Anthropic. As part of the substantial deal, Akamai will deliver cloud services to support the developer of the Claude chatbot and has granted a warrant for a stake of up to 5% in its business. The partnership provided a notable lift to tech-sector sentiment.

Cryptocurrency markets experienced heightened volatility as an estimated $18 billion worth of Bitcoin and Ethereum options contracts reached expiration. Although both major digital assets pulled back slightly from their respective eight-month highs established mid-week, they still tracked toward weekly gains of nearly 10%. Bitcoin continued to consolidate near the $84,000 to $85,000 threshold as market participants monitored structural shifts after the recent legislative standstill of the digital asset clarity bill.