US stocks trade mixed as investors struggle to shake off Evergrande fears

• US stocks closed mixed Friday as investors struggled to shake off Evergrande fears after it failed to meet a payment deadline.
• The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 1.459%, while the yield on the 30-year Treasury reached 1.989%.
• Bitcoin, ether, and major altcoins tumbled on news that China will ban all crypto transactions.

US stocks closed mixed on the last trading day of the week as investors struggled to shake off Evergrande fears after the beleaguered Chinese property giant failed to meet its deadline on Thursday.

The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average managed to edge slightly higher after the Dow soared 506 points in the previous session. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite, however, slipped closing lower for the third straight week as Treasury yields rose.

Here's where US indexes stood at the 4:00 p.m. ET close on Friday:

• S&P 500: 4,455.48, up 0.15%
• Dow Jones Industrial Average: 34,798.00, up 0.1% (33.18 points)
• Nasdaq Composite: 15,047.70, down 0.03%

The Evergrande debt crisis has roiled global markets in the past week. US equities saw a huge sell-off Monday only to recover later in the week, with the Dow seeing its largest two-day jump since March.

Still, concerns continued to simmer around the Chinese property giant after investors who own its US dollar bonds did not receive interest payments, The Wall Street Journal reported. This leaves Evergrande with a 30-day grace period to meet its obligation. If it doesn't pay by then, it will be in default.

"The Evergrande crisis won't have a quick fix and that uncertainty will continue to weigh on Asia," Edward Moya, senior market analyst at foreign exchange firm Oanda, said in a Friday note. "What's also weighing on risk appetite is the growing stress in the Chinese property sector."

Meanwhile, Wharton finance professor Jeremy Siegel said he does not think the Federal Reserve's inflation outlook is "credible," and believes the central bank risks scaling back its monetary policy too soon. This, he told CNBC, will shock the stock market in early 2022.

US government bonds slipped Friday as investors after the Federal Open Market Committee's outlook revealed half of the officials expect the first rate hike to arrive next year.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 1.459%, while the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond reach 1.989%. Yields move inversely to prices.

Also affecting markets is China's central bank announcement Friday declaring all cryptocurrency-related transactions illegal - its strongest move yet against the digital asset sector. Here is a timeline of the Asian nation's previous attempts to rein in crypto.

Marathon Digital, Riot Blockchain, and Bit Digital all slumped around 7% each. Coinbase, Robinhood, and MicroStrategy all slipped as well.

Bitcoin fell below $42,000 while ether hovered around $2,800. Other altcoins such as ripple, solana, dogecoin, and polkadot also suffered.

Oil prices were higher. West Texas Intermediate crude rose 0.80%, to $73.89 per barrel. Brent crude, oil's international benchmark, climbed 0.89%, to $77.94 per barrel.

Gold was mostly flat, rising 0.02%, to $1,746.18 per ounce.