Nov 13 (Reuters) – Futures tracking the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 index inched lower early on Friday, after a volatile week that stoked fears about the AI trade following the turmoil at chip heavyweight Nvidia.
Shares of the company rose 1.8% in premarket trading after losing around 11% this week through Thursday, when CEO Jensen Huang quit after reports of alleged extramarital affairs, including one involving a suspected Chinese spy.
They are still on course for their longest streak of weekly losses since October 2012.
The controversy has risked spilling over into the broader AI industry, since Nvidia is at the heart of the boom. The company’s financing arrangements with several other AI players could now face greater scrutiny because of the shift in leadership, investors said.
“I’m a bear for AI-related stocks. You’ve got to exit these waves before they crash. And in AI, we’ve got a big wave going on,” said Sean Peche, founder and portfolio manager at Ranmore Fund Management.
Investors are also awaiting October’s producer price inflation reading, which could be crucial in determining how much the Federal Reserve raises rates next month.
Traders are fully pricing in a hike. Some central bank policymakers in recent days have raised the prospect of a 50 basis point (bps) increase, compared to a widely expected modest 25 bps hike. Odds of a 50 bps hike sit around 12%, according to the CME FedWatch tool.
At 5:03 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were up 98 points, or 0.19%, S&P 500 E-minis rose 9.75 points, or 0.13%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis fell 31 points, or 0.11%.
The weak AI sentiment threatens the recovery in equities after last week’s selloff following Democrats’ victory in the midterms.
MICROSOFT OUTAGE HITS SHARES
Microsoft’s Outlook, Teams and Copilot were down on Friday, marking one of the company’s worst outages that stretched beyond 12 hours, disrupting communications for businesses and governments worldwide.
Shares of the company fell 2.6% in premarket trading and were the only loser in the Magnificent Seven group of stocks.
Cerebras jumped more than 16% after the chip and cloud company raised its 2026 revenue forecast and signed Microsoft as a customer.
Strong earnings have at times kept the negative market mood in check this week. Of the 450 companies in the S&P 500 that reported earnings as of Thursday, 83.6% surpassed expectations, according to Tajinder Dhillon, head of earnings and equity research at LSEG Data and Analytics.
Still, investors remain wary of a bunch of risks, including on the geopolitical front. Oil prices were in positive territory for the third consecutive session, a day after President Donald Trump said the US does not need a deal with Iran.
Several chip shares were lower, with AMD and Broadcom down more than 2.5% each.
Crypto stocks fell, with Coinbase, Strategy and MARA Holdings down between 2% and 2.6% after bitcoin hit its lowest in about three months.
(Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)
