Nasdaq 100 drops as much as 1.8 percent after AI chiefs urge a slower build
NBC News says the Nasdaq 100 fell as much as 1.8 percent on Monday morning; Business Insider puts the same index's drop as much as 1.6 percent. Both tie the selling to weekend calls by Dario Amodei, Sam Altman and Elon Musk to slow AI model development. NBC adds Nvidia, Arm and SK Hynix losses and a later bounce in CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks.
Economics & Markets··Evening
NBC's open: 1.8 percent, then a bounce
The Nasdaq 100 fell as much as 1.8 percent on Monday morning. Nvidia dropped more than 3 percent, Arm Holdings 10 percent and SK Hynix more than 7.3 percent in South Korea. By noon ET the major indexes were off their lows, while CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks surged more than 12 percent. The session followed a Saturday essay by Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei saying companies must slow the pace at which they improve AI model capabilities. OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman told Fortune that going public this year would be ill-advised given safety concerns. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index plunged 6 percent. SoftBank fell 10.7 percent in Tokyo.[1]
Business Insider's 1.6 percent and 5.7 percent chip drop
William Edwards writes that stocks tied to the AI boom tumbled on Monday after Dario Amodei, Sam Altman and Elon Musk called for a slower build. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell as much as 5.7 percent; the Nasdaq 100 dropped as much as 1.6 percent. The 14 September report says investors were pricing the risk that frontier labs might hit the brakes on a capex boom that has lifted markets for years. It also notes Wall Street remains dubious that companies will actually slow development while the competitive race continues, and that the selling later tapered.[2]
Two prints, one session
The two reports describe the same Monday session and the same three executives. They do not agree on a single Nasdaq 100 print: 1.8 percent versus 1.6 percent. NBC's Philadelphia Semiconductor drop is 6 percent; Business Insider's is as much as 5.7 percent. Neither treats a voluntary slowdown as a done deal. Deutsche Bank's Jim Reid, quoted by NBC, asked whether this is a first sign the AI investment cycle might moderate, adding that a voluntary step-back looks unlikely while the competitive race continues.[1], [2]
