Oil hits five-month high as global stocks wobble on AI fears; retail sales in Great Britain fall as shoppers cut back - business live
Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news While less red tape will be welcome news for small businesses, the chancellor is still facing pressure from bigger companies in the UK for more support. Earlier this month some of the UK’s biggest retailers and hospitality businesses, including Tesco , Costa Coffee and the Co-op, met John Healey to urge him to cut the cost of employing…
On Thursday, global markets fell as stocks in the artificial-intelligence industry dropped, while oil prices hit their highest level since May due to concerns over the Iran war. The S&P 500 declined 1.3%, the Nasdaq composite dropped 2.4%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.1%. AI-related stocks struggled due to worries about the high cost of borrowing money for data centers and AI chips, as well as the potential for overvalued stock prices.
Despite strong summer earnings, Lam Research, a semiconductor equipment company, saw its stock fall 11.1% after slightly beating analyst expectations. Other tech giants, such as Meta Platforms, also reported mixed results, with its stock falling 7.4% after a stronger-than-expected revenue but a profit short of expectations. Tesla slipped 2.1% after mixed morning results, with revenue below forecasts but higher-than-expected profit.
Nvidia, the largest tech stock by market value, fell 4.3% as part of the global AI stock decline. CoreWeave, a company renting out Nvidia's AI chips over the cloud, saw a 9.6% drop due to debt concerns. The global downturn in AI stocks was felt across Asia, where South Korea's Kospi fell 3.5%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped 3%, and Japan's Nikkei 225 sank 2.7%.
Additionally, oil prices surged 2.9% to $111.99 per barrel, reaching a five-month high amid uncertainty about the Iran war's impact on global energy. In Europe, France's CAC 40 suffered its sharpest loss in weeks, falling 1.4%, hurt by rising government bond yields. Persistent concerns about high government debt and inflation weigh on economies worldwide, but U.S. bond yields have fallen sharply as investors seek safety amid market turbulence.
Despite the overall market slide, some U.S. companies, including Procter & Gamble, reported better-than-expected summer earnings, helping to cushion some of the losses.
Written by urgent.news from Fast Company's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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