Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
NYSE
Stock futures fell again on Tuesday after tech shares continued to slide on concern about valuations of AI-related stocks and as bitcoin dropped briefly below $90,000, a sign of reduced risk-taking by investors.
S&P 500 futures shed 0.4%, putting the major benchmark on track for its fourth-straight day of losses, its longest losing streak since August. Nasdaq-100 futures dropped 0.5%. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 304 points, or 0.7%.
Nvidia fell about 1% in the premarket, while Palantir Technologies dipped 2%. Amazon and Microsoft were also down more than 1%. Nvidia is down 8% this month ahead of the chipmaker’s third-quarter results due after Wednesday’s close. The company, which is reporting toward the end of a strong earnings season, has been at the center of a debate about the strength of the artificial intelligence-powered market rally this year. Concerns have grown about pricey tech valuations and the soundness of AI fundamentals due to a boom in Big Tech debt offerings.
Blue Owl, a private credit leader that’s made big loans for AI data centers, continued to fall in the premarket after dropping 6% in the prior session. Earlier this month, Blue Owl said it was merging two private credit funds, a private and publicly-traded one. Investors in the private fund face big losses and will be blocked from redeeming their money until next year.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai told the BBC that part of today’s AI boom did have some “irrationality” and that no company “is going to be immune” if the bubble burst.
Bitcoin dropped below $90,000 on Tuesday, continuing its slide from a record $126,000 reached in early October. Many tech investors also have large cryptocurrency holdings so the decline raised worries that a bigger stock market drop may follow. Bitcoin was last trading just above $91,000.
Outside of tech, Home Depot shares declined after the home improvement reported an earnings miss and cutting its full-year outlook.
The three major U.S. indexes closed in the red in the previous trading session. The 30-stock Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 550 points, or 1.2%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite each lost around 0.9%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq is on pace to snap its seven-month win streak, while the S&P 500 is down 2.5% in November after rallying for six months in a row.
“The market narrative has certainly shifted dramatically over the past few weeks, as the market’s reaction function with respect to AI has taken a sharp left turn from rewarding ever-growing capex spend to rapidly growing skepticism of further investment and future returns,” said Garrett Melson, portfolio strategist at Natixis Investment Managers Solutions. “Pair that with crowded positioning across real money and systematic accounts and you’ve got all the ingredients for a sharp de-risking and an accompanying narrative reset.”
Adding to the angst this month is growing concern that the Federal Reserve won’t cut rates for a third time in December. Fed funds futures traders are pricing in roughly 40% chance of a cut, significantly lower than the more than 90% chance priced in a month ago, according to the CME FedWatch tool. Investors are counting on the Fed to revive the economy and keep rates low to justify higher equity valuations. The Fed’s October meeting minutes and September nonfarm payrolls release are on deck for Wednesday and Thursday releases, respectively.

