The US markets ended lower on Friday as investors continued to exit technology stocks and move into value areas of the market. Negative sentiment has been generated in reaction to comments by Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee explaining his decision to vote against cutting interest rates at last week's Fed meeting. Goolsbee said he is uneasy about too heavily front-loading rate cuts and just assuming that inflation will be transitory. Goolsbee said ‘While I voted to lower rates at the September and October meetings, I believe we should have waited to get more data, especially about inflation, before lowering rates further’. 

On the sectoral front, Computer hardware stocks turned in some of the market's worst performances on the day, resulting in a 5.2 percent nosedive by the NYSE Arca Computer Hardware Index. Semiconductor and networking stocks also saw substantial weakness, contributing to the steep drop by the Nasdaq. Outside the tech sector, oil service, brokerage and steel stocks also saw notable weakness, while some strength was visible among pharmaceutical stocks.

Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 245.96 points or 0.51 percent to 48,458.05, Nasdaq declined 398.686 points or 1.69 percent to 23,195.16 and S&P 500 dropped 73.59 points or 1.07 percent to 6,827.41.