Wall Street slid on Thursday as the recent AI stock party continues to slow down and a wave of layoff data unnerved investors.
The Dow Jones fell almost 400 points, or 0.8%, closing at 46,912. The S&P 500 dropped 1.1%, while the Nasdaq tumbled 1.9%, its steepest fall in weeks. Heavyweights Nvidia, Microsoft, AMD, Palantir and Broadcom all pulled markets lower as enthusiasm around artificial intelligence continued to cool.
The sell-off followed another choppy week for the sector. Qualcomm slid nearly 4% despite strong results, after warning it may lose Apple as a customer. AMD, which had rallied earlier in the week, sank 7%. Palantir and Oracle also extended declines, while Nvidia and Meta retreated further, erasing much of Monday’s brief rebound.
Investors appear to be reassessing -high valuations in companies tied to AI, with the market increasingly punishing even mild disappointments in guidance or margins. After months of relentless optimism, the tech trade is showing cracks as expectations catch up with reality.
Concerns about the broader economy added to the gloom. Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that US employers announced more than 153,000 job cuts in October, nearly triple the previous month’s figure and the worst October reading in 22 years. The backdrop is being complicated further by the month-long US government shutdown, which has delayed key economic reports.
Some analysts still believe a year-end recovery could follow once the shutdown ends and consumer spending data returns, but for now, sentiment remains fragile across Wall Street.
