Smiths Group (LSE:SMIN) shares fell 1.57% on Friday as cyclical stocks weakened in the wake of a US technology sell-off. The decline is attributed to a broader loss of risk appetite that hit cyclical shares, with the Nasdaq down about 2.7% at the London close.

Smiths Group is a British engineering company supplying technology and equipment to a range of industrial and commercial customers, including in areas such as detection, flow control and thermal products. Businesses of this kind are generally seen as cyclical, meaning their fortunes are linked to the strength of industrial activity and customer investment. When investors become more cautious, such shares can be sold alongside the rest of the market even without any news of their own. No results release, trading update, broker note or corporate action was identified at Smiths, and the move is put down to market conditions.

Those conditions were dominated by Wall Street. The S&P 500 fell 140.32 points, or 1.82%, to 7,580.07, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 572.25 points to 51,770.31, and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 747.73 points, or 2.86%, to 25,437.00. It was Wall Street's worst day since June, and the Nasdaq ended October with its worst month since March 2025.

The cause was weak Earnings from Intel and Amazon, released after Thursday's close, which revived doubts that heavy spending on artificial intelligence will pay off. Intel fell about 30% after guiding fourth-quarter Revenue to $15.0B-$16.0B, below estimates. Amazon trimmed early losses to finish down 1.4%, and a chip index fell 7.2%. Alphabet had already fallen 12% on Thursday amid worries over the returns on AI spending. In London, Computacenter (LSE:CCC), Polar Capital Technology (LSE:PCT) and Scottish Mortgage (LSE:SMT) fell as the selling spread.

The wider UK market held up better than the cyclicals did. The FTSE 100 closed up 7.71 points, or 0.07%, at 10,729.78, after drifting in and out of positive territory and ending well off its intraday highs. Large-cap defensives held the Blue-Chip index up while the US tech sell-off pushed it down. Consumer staples such as Diageo (LSE:DGE), CCEP (LSE:CCEP), Unilever (LSE:ULVR), BAT (LSE:BATS), Reckitt (LSE:RKT), Sainsbury (LSE:SBRY) and Tesco (LSE:TSCO) gained, which is the opposite of what happened among industrial names. Smiths was one of several cyclical and engineering stocks that fell, along with Rolls-Royce (LSE:RR.), Weir (LSE:WEIR), IMI (LSE:IMI), Diploma (LSE:DPLM) and Halma (LSE:HLMA).

Elsewhere in the index, AstraZeneca (LSE:AZN) jumped 7%, its best day in a year, on third-quarter results and a savings plan of about $1.5bn. BT (LSE:BT.A) rose 6.7% on a press report that Virgin Media O2 is nearing a deal to use Openreach. NatWest (LSE:NWG) fell about 8.8% after disappointing net interest Margin guidance, dragging on Lloyds (LSE:LLOY) and Barclays (LSE:BARC). Miners were weaker as gold dropped about 2.8% to around $3,898 an ounce and copper declined.

Commodity and currency markets added to the picture. Brent Crude rose to about $117.61 a barrel, and sterling briefly topped EUR1.20 for the first time since April 2025. UK house price data showed the slowest October growth since 2024. Below the blue-chip level, the FTSE 250 fell 0.9%, or 220.80 points, to 24,453.36, and the AIM All-Share fell 1.4%.

For Smiths (LSE:SMIN), the facts of the day are limited to the market backdrop. The shares slipped with other industrial cyclicals as risk appetite faded, and no company news was identified. The reporting does not suggest any change in the company's own position and does not say how long the cautious mood might last.

October still ended with a gain for the FTSE 100 of just over 1%, its first monthly gain in three months.