Wall Street’s main indexes closed lower on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq sinking to three-week lows as nagging worries about the artificial intelligence trade weighed on technology stocks. Oracle ORCL.N dropped after a report said the cloud company’s largest data center partner Blue Owl Capital OWL.N will not back a $10 billion deal for its next facility. Amazon.com AMZN.O fell slightly after reports said the company is in talks to invest about $10 billion in ChatGPT maker OpenAI. Worries about the broader technology sector taking on more debt to develop artificial intelligence have discouraged risk-taking lately.
AI bellwether Nvidia NVDA.O and chipmaker Broadcom AVGO.O both fell, sending a broader chips index .SOX down.
According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 78.52 points, or 1.15%, to end at 6,722.22 points, while the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC lost 415.97 points, or 1.80%, to 22,695.50. The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell 225.85 points, or 0.47%, to 47,888.41. Alphabet GOOGL.O shares fell after a Reuters report said its Google unit is taking on a new initiative to erode Nvidia’s software advantage, and working with Meta META.O to do so. Meanwhile, Google-owned YouTube announced that the Oscar awards will stream exclusively on the platform for free globally and on YouTube TV starting in 2029.
In other media news, Warner Bros Discovery’s WBD.O board rejected Paramount Skydance’s PSKY.O $108.4 billion hostile bid for the media company, favoring Netflix’s NFLX.O binding offer. Netflix shares rose, while Paramount and Warner Bros fell. Energy stocks rose along with crude prices as the U.S. ordered a “blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela. ConocoPhillips COP.N and Occidental Petroleum OXY.N both gained.
Offering some relief for investors was Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller, often viewed as a dove on monetary policy. He said the central bank still had room to cut interest rates against a softening jobs market. The next significant report will be Thursday’s consumer inflation data by the Commerce Department.
Reporting by Abigail Summerville in New York, and Johann M Cherian and Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru; Editing by David Gregorio.
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