News

US stock indices slumped on Friday as AI worries dragged on tech stocks, while hotter-than-expected inflation data also dampened investor sentiments.

At the opening bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 245.6 points, or 0.50%, to 49253.57. The S&P 500 fell 52.3 points, or 0.76%, to 6856.54​, while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 263.0 points, or 1.15%, to 22615.429.

In recent weeks, the US stock market has experienced intermittent sell-offs as investors focus on the downside of Artificial Intelligence investment, including negative impacts on software companies and job cuts.

The Producer Price Index (PPI) rose 0.5% after a revised 0.4% increase in December. An underlying gauge that excludes food and energy grew the most since July.

The latest inflation data reinforced bets that the Federal Reserve won’t cut rates any time soon.

“This morning’s inflation readings could give the Fed another reason to be more patient with rate cuts and wait until the second half of the year before making any changes,” said Chris Zaccarelli at Northlight Asset Management, according to Bloomberg.

Following the inflation data, the yield on 10-year Treasuries slid 3 basis points to 3.98%.

Stocks of Nvidia and Amazon fell 1.76% and 0.05%, respectively, after OpenAI announced a $110 billion funding round that includes both companies, as well as SoftBank.

Block shares jumped more than 15% after the tech company said it is cutting 40% of its workforce due to AI advances.

Netflix soared more than 9% after the firm announcing its withdrawal from the bidding war for Warner Bros. after Paramount Skydance raised its bid.Rajendra Kumar Saxena is a seasoned journalist and Content Editor at Livemint.com, where he manages the end-to-end editorial process — from story sele...

Catch all the Business News , Market News , Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.

Download the Mint app and read premium stories