Technology firms retreated further Friday after more poorly received earnings from US titans fanned deepening concerns about the AI investment boom.
Amazon became the latest tech giant to face pressure on Wall Street after it missed earnings expectations and signaled more aggressive AI spending ahead. Chip giant Intel sank nearly 30 percent after its outlook disappointed.
Declines by those two companies and others translated to a bruising finale to an ugly week for the Nasdaq, which ended the day down nearly three percent.
The Dow and S&P 500 also finished firmly lower in a session also marred by a jump in oil prices and a fall in bitcoin prices after cryptocurrency exchange Binance acknowledged what could be the biggest hack of its kind in the world.
“The end of the week is dominated by a continuation of the recent AI sell-off on disappointing earnings, and concerns about the safety of crypto,” said Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB trading group.
“The past couple of days, some of the big tech names related to AI have been dragging the market down,” said Peter Cardillo of Spartan Capital Securities. “All the money that was spent is basically being questioned, whether or not it will pay off.”
Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon all reported quarterly results this week, and each signaled it would keep pouring money into data centers and chips even as investors grow impatient for returns.
Along with Meta, which reported last week, together the four companies are on track to spend more than $700 billion on capital investment this year — roughly the size of Argentina’s or Belgium’s entire economy — much of it on AI infrastructure, according to analyst estimates.
Friday’s session on Wall Street also proved difficult for other AI-linked companies, with Nvidia shedding 4.2 percent, Micron 5.3 percent and data center company CoreWeave losing nearly 10 percent.
The steep losses for tech firms Friday reversed optimism earlier in the week prompted by AI giant Anthropic’s IPO filing.
“Given the importance of tech stocks to global markets, it is not surprising to see stock markets around the world ending the week with heavy losses,” said market analyst Chris Beauchamp at online trading and investing platform IG.
South Korea’s tech-heavy Kospi index closed out its week down 3.5 percent and Tokyo finished with a 2.0-percent loss.
Hong Kong, however, closed up 1.5 percent.
Focus is turning also to Tuesday’s US midterm elections and the impact they could have on the final two years of Donald Trump’s presidency.
