New York markets suffered their worst session since June on Friday, October 31, as a deepening sell-off in technology stocks wiped out gains across Wall Street and closed a third straight losing week for American investors.
The S&P 500 dropped 1.8 percent, the Nasdaq composite sank 2.9 percent, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 572 points, or 1.1 percent, according to جريدة الأهرام, which reported the figures from New York. The slide was driven above all by doubts over the hundreds of billions of dollars that American giants have poured into artificial intelligence.
America's AI bubble meets reality
The numbers tell a story of a market waking from a long dream. The S&P 500 fell 140.32 points to 7,580.07, and the Nasdaq lost 747.73 points to 25,437.00. Even after Friday's rout, the index sits only 3.1 percent below its all-time high, a record set earlier this month on the back of towering profit expectations.
Intel bore the heaviest blow, plunging 28.6 percent in its worst drop since 1974. The chipmaker forecast profit for the final quarter of the year below analysts' expectations, and Chief Executive Lip-Bu Tan said the personal computer industry continues to feel pressure. The collapse came despite Intel reporting a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts had predicted.
Nvidia, the company that became the face of the AI frenzy, fell 4.2 percent and proved the single heaviest force dragging the S&P 500 downward, outweighing even Intel's historic slide.
Amazon and Alphabet burn through billions
Amazon dropped 1.4 percent after reporting weaker summer profit than expected. More troubling for investors, the company burned through 42.4 billion dollars of cash over the prior twelve months by the free cash flow measure, having spent 94.8 billion dollars on property and equipment, mostly on artificial intelligence infrastructure.
A day earlier, Alphabet had suffered its worst day on record, falling more than 12 percent after telling investors it too burned through more cash during the summer than in the spring. The company behind Google and YouTube cited the same enormous AI investments, as AP News reported from New York.