Good morning. It’s a bloodbath out there, at least from a global markets standpoint, with especially deep losses for tech stocks. (With one notable exception: quantum computing.)
At the time of writing, the Nasdaq composite had fallen more than 1.5%. Ditto the S&P 500. The Dow took a one percentage point dive, then recovered. With them went the biggest tech firms, including Alphabet, Micron, Nvidia, Oracle, and Tesla. (Employees, resist looking at your 401ks today.)The pain wasn’t limited to the U.S., either. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down almost 4%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was down 2%. South Korea’s Kospi dropped a breathtaking 10%, pulled down by double-digit losses for chip makers Samsung and SK Hynix.
Why the dip? Continued AI worries, mostly, stoked by recent economic developments. Investors already weren’t loving record spending by Big Tech with a less-than-clear path to ROI. That’s doubly true in light of news that the Federal Reserve plans to increase rates to combat inflation, making borrowing more expensive.
Batten down the hatches, chipmakers. More tech news below. —Andrew Nusca
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