Wall Street Steadies as Oil Slips Below $100 Ahead of Big Fed Week

US equities looked set to steady on Friday after a bruising session, as a retreat in oil prices helped calm inflation nerves at the end of a jittery week. Brent crude slipped below $100 a barrel, clawing back some of the ground lost earlier when renewed inflation fears and anxiety over heavy artificial intelligence spending knocked shares lower. The tech-heavy Nasdaq had tumbled more than 2% on Thursday, its worst single day in over a month, as investors questioned whether the enormous capital outlays behind the AI boom will pay off. Attention now turns to a dense calendar in the week ahead. The Federal Reserve's policy meeting concludes on Wednesday, with second-quarter gross domestic product and the personal consumption expenditures price index, the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, due the following day. Earnings from heavyweights including Microsoft, Meta and Apple are also on deck. With the S&P 500 hovering near record territory, traders are weighing whether resilient growth and cooling energy costs can offset sticky inflation and stretched valuations across the largest technology names heading into the second half of the year.