Tech slump sends wall street tumbling

As of 14:15 GMT (15:15 in Paris), the Nasdaq index, which tracks technology stocks, plummeted by 2.38%, reaching its lowest point since early August. The broader S&P 500 lost 1.39%, and the Dow Jones fell by 0.61%.

“The sharp decline in technology stocks is weighing heavily” on the American market on Friday, according to Briefing.com analysts.

Christopher Low of FHN Financial told AFP, “It is primarily due to the reactions to the results of industry giants.”

Intel’s stock price plunged nearly 29% after the company warned on Thursday of sluggish growth in the fourth quarter due to weak demand in the PC market.

A global shortage of memory processors has caused a sharp rise in the average price of personal computers.

Amazon’s stock slid by 3.06% to $236.33, after falling as much as 5.92% in early trading.

While AI boosted the company’s cloud computing services, with sales jumping 39% in the third quarter, the associated costs exceed revenue and are forcing the company to borrow.

This follows a 12.64% drop in Alphabet (Google)’s stock the previous day, which closed at $283.82 after also disappointing investors.

“We are observing company-specific issues,” noted Mr. Low, “but all seem to be facing significant growth challenges as they accelerate their investments in artificial intelligence.”

Investors have been worried for several months about the profitability of the massive spending required to develop this technology, against a backdrop of high debt and the rise of Chinese competitors.

In this context, chipmakers and other electronics component giants, at the forefront of the AI boom, were once again under pressure on Friday.

Nvidia, the world’s largest company by market capitalization, lost 3.51%. AMD fell by 9.73%, Broadcom by 5.15%, and Micron by 5.19%.

The turbulence shaking the sector “fuels concerns about the ability of the market as a whole to maintain its recent resilience,” Briefing.com analysts emphasized.

Stocks exposed to cryptoassets suffered due to the record hacking of Binance, the world’s leading exchange platform. Robinhood and Coinbase plummeted by 8.07% and 11.33% respectively. Strategy, known for accumulating the largest private reserve of bitcoins, lost 9.30%.

Oil giants bucked the trend after well-received quarterly publications, amid high hydrocarbon prices fueled by conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.

The American oil group Chevron rose by 2.12% to $236.37, benefiting from a third-quarter revenue increase of more than 36% compared to the same period a year earlier, at $67.8 billion.

ExxonMobil was also in demand (+2.72% to $188.28). Although it did not fully meet market expectations, the group saw its net profit more than double in the third quarter.