A selloff in artificial-intelligence stocks accelerated after a fresh batch of quarterly results rocked market confidence, as investors seeking a safe place to park their cash pushed Treasury yields to multiweek lows.
Nasdaq futures fell more than 2% after earnings from Intel and Amazon compounded investor fears caused by Alphabet's results earlier in the week. Intel is on track for its worst stock market day on record, with shares falling over 27% premarket after markets reacted violently to disruption to the company's supply chain and forecast a slowdown in personal-computer demand. Meanwhile, Amazon shares dropped 6.5% premarket despite booming growth in its cloud business as it ramped up its spending on AI while advertising revenue growth slowed.
The prints were enough to spook an already nervous market. South Korea's semiconductor-heavy Kospi closed 3.5% lower, while Japan's Nikkei 225 dropped 2.1%. Shanghai-listed stocks also fell. AI-linked stocks dropped across Europe, with ASML--an Intel supplier--down 4.6%. Elsewhere, futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.2%, while S&P 500 futures fell 0.9%.
Digital coins slid after cryptocurrency exchange Binance said it had suffered the largest heist in crypto history, with hackers making off with assets worth $6.3 billion. Bitcoin fell 1.5% to trade below $78,000, while ether fell by a similar amount to trade around $2,200.
Treasurys strengthened as investors ditched risk. Ten-year Treasury yields fell sharply to trade just above 4.920%, while 30-year yields hovered around 5.290%. Two-year yields fell back to levels last seen in early September, trading below 4.600% as investors trimmed their expectations for a December Federal Reserve rate hike.
Oil prices jumped, adding to the risk-off mood. Brent crude contracts for December--which expire today--rose 1.6% to trade around $117.70 a barrel, while contracts for January delivery traded around $112.50 a barrel. Investors are seizing on fears the U.S. could resume military strikes against Iran, after the top American commander in the Middle East briefed President Trump on military options, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The dollar slipped and gold briefly fell below $4,000 a troy ounce, before paring some losses.
For the day ahead, investors will react to eurozone inflation data and U.S. third-quarter employment cost index. Earnings prints come from ExxonMobil and Chevron, among others.
Comments