Nvidia selloff deepens, adding to AI jitters

Technology shares continued their decline on Tuesday, with Nvidia experiencing a significant selloff. The decline was driven by a hot US inflation report that increased expectations of further Federal Reserve rate hikes, coupled with Nvidia's internal investigation into its CEO and complications surrounding the development of an Ohio data center.

The Nasdaq Composite fell by 1 percent on Tuesday afternoon, marking the eighth consecutive day of a 1 percent or more decrease. Over the past month, the index has dropped by 1 percent or more eight times and risen by 1 percent or more six times.

Many investors remained optimistic about the prospects of AI investments but acknowledged the increased volatility this fall. Tim Ghriskey, a senior portfolio strategist at Ingalls & Snyder, believed that selling in Nvidia and other major AI firms could present buying opportunities. He noted that while Nvidia's problems were not of its own making, the company was still on track to lose more than $470 billion in market value over two sessions due to concerns about the fallout from CEO Jensen Huang's affair with a Chinese businesswoman.

Other major decliners included Dell Technologies, down 4.8 percent, and Sandisk, down 4.5 percent, both of which have seen significant gains over the year. Among neoclouds, Iren, Nebius, and CoreWeave all saw declines of at least 40 percent since the Nasdaq's recent high on October 6. CoreWeave is set to report earnings after the close on Tuesday.

General market anxiety was attributed to much of the selling, despite a day filled with AI-related news. Nscale, a British cloud services provider, may delay its $35 billion stock market listing. Shares of power equipment maker GE Vernova also fell over 6 percent after SoftBank revised its equipment procurement plans for its US data center projects. The development of SoftBank's gas-fired power plant and data center in Pike County, Ohio, involving GE Vernova, is the focus of these revisions.

Investors' focus remained on Nvidia's upcoming earnings report and Anthropic's IPO, regardless of short-term market fluctuations. Jason Ware, chief investment officer at Albion Financial Group, highlighted earnings as the key factor in the trajectory of stocks over the coming weeks and months.