AI stocks are taking a beating amid inflation, interest rate worries

A sell-off for artificial-intelligence stocks is hitting Wall Street again after whipping around the world on worries about how much longer the AI frenzy will last.

The S&P 500 fell 0.5 per cent early Thursday, and the Nasdaq composite 1.2 per cent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 269 points. Among tech stocks, Nvidia fell 3.2 per cent and Advanced Micro Devices lost 5.4 per cent. South Korea’s Kospi index sank 7.6 per cent.

The losses came as another report signaled inflation has worsened by even more in the United States than economists expected. Wholesale inflation jumped last month, driven by a big increase in energy costs.

Tech stocks appeared to be headed for another sell-off before the bell with inflation anxiety hammering that high-growth sector ahead of the U.S. earnings season.

Artificial intelligence stocks were down again after taking a beating a day earlier.

CoreWeave, which offers AI computing power to customers over the cloud, fell another 3.8 per cent early after tumbling 15.5 per cent a day earlier, its worst day since February. GE Vernova, which is hoping to electrify power-hungry data centres, dropped 3.2 per cent after a 6.2 per cent decline on Wednesday and Oracle sank 1.6 per cent, adding to its nearly nine per cent loss in the previous session.

Chipmaker and AI darling Nvidia fell 1.6 per cent in early trading, as did Broadcom, while Advanced Micro Devices retreated 3.1 per cent.

The yield on 10-year bonds eased to 5.09 per cent from 5.32 per cent, but remains elevated. Higher bond yields that have made borrowing more expensive could make it more difficult for companies to raise cash to build data centres and fill them with AI chips.

The latest inflation figures showed Wednesday that prices remain well above the Federal Reserve’s two per cent target, putting in play another potential interest rate hike before the end of the year, which also puts pressure on the equities market.

The government’s latest report on wholesale prices, the producer price index, arrives Thursday along with another trove of corporate earnings reports.

Canada’s main stock index, the Toronto Stock Exchange, fell 0.2 per cent early Thursday, with shares in Canadian tech giant Celestica falling close to seven per cent.

In Asia, South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index lost 7.6 per cent to 5,554.22. It plummeted more than 16 per cent over the past month and was well below the 9,000 mark that it crossed in June at its all-time high driven by optimism over the global artificial intelligence frenzy.

Samsung Electronics slid 9.5 per cent and South Korean memory chipmaker SK Hynix plunged 11.1 per cent.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 tumbled 4.9 per cent to 64,425.95. OpenAI investor SoftBank Group lost 9.3 per cent. Chip equipment maker Tokyo Electron dropped 7.8 per cent, and memory chipmaker Kioxia Holdings lost 12.3 per cent.

Taiwan’s Taiex, which also benefited from the AI boom, fell 3.4 per cent. Its leading chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., or TSMC, dropped two per cent ahead of its earnings report. TSMC reported on Thursday another record profit for the latest quarter, which was better than what analysts had expected, and the company said AI demand remains very strong.

“The problem for heavily technology-weighted markets such as Korea and Taiwan, to a lesser extent Japan, is that any risk to perceived AI spending growth may lead to slower demand growth for chips and equipment,” said Lorraine Tan, director of equity research for Asia at Morningstar.

“The key issue is a possible mismatch between the market’s growth expectations for the tech sector and what may eventuate,” she said.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped one per cent to 24,062.72. The Shanghai Composite index slipped 1.6 per cent to 3,707.48.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 edged down 0.1 per cent to 8,719.70.

At midday in Europe, Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.7 per cent, France’s CAC 40 gave back 0.3 per cent and Germany’s DAX was down 0.4 per cent.

Oil prices fell as tensions and uncertainties surrounding global oil supply and the situation in the Middle East dragged on. Brent crude, the international standard, declined more than one per cent to US$104.91 per barrel. That’s still elevated compared with the approximately $72 per barrel level before the start of the Iran war in late February.

U.S. crude was up 23 cents a barrel to $95.32.

– with a file from Global News’ Ariel Rabinovitch