Market Rout Intensifies, Sweeping Up Everything From Tech to Crypto to Gold — WSJ
By David UbertiAn intensifying selloff across financial markets Monday ensnared everything from gold to crypto to highflying tech stocks, dragging the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its worst three-day stretch since President Trump's tariff turmoil in April.Investors in recent days have dumped assets in the lead-up to key tests for whether the artificial-intelligence boom and economic growth that powered stocks to successive records in 2025 will continue into the new year.Nvidia on Wednesday is set to report earnings in the latest snapshot for chip demand. September jobs data delayed during the government shutdown is due out Thursday.Markets have been choppy this month after big tech companies projected massive capital expenditures that are increasingly reliant on issuing huge piles of debt. Traders' trepidation has sent Wall Street's so-called fear guage — the Cboe Volatility Index — to some of its highest levels since April's tariff announcements.Monday's retreat, which came as Amazon is set to issue $15 billion in bonds, provided fresh evidence that Wall Street is peeking closer under the hood of the expensive and sometimes circular deals underpinning one of the largest infrastructure build-outs in U.S. history."There should be more winners than not," said Osman Ali, global co-head of Goldman Sachs Asset Management's quantitative investment strategies. "But at the same time, it's very clear there are going to be companies that cannot compete in this new world."The tech-heavy Nasdaq on Monday dropped 0.8%, while the S&P 500 slid 0.9%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average retreated 1.2%, or 557 points.Warren Buffett's latest bet on a big tech firm wasn't enough to juice investors' optimism for other AI names. Berkshire Hathaway's multibillion-dollar purchase of Alphabet stock, disclosed Friday, sent the Google parent 3.1% higher Monday. Apple shares sank 1.8% after the Omaha, Neb., firm trimmed its stake.At the same time, Nvidia, Meta and Amazon all retreated. So did Advanced Micro Devices, Super Micro Computer and Dell Technologies, a big supplier of AI servers. Oracle and CoreWeave extended their weekslong tumble.The declines helped the S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite on Monday to step past a line they hadn't crossed in 138 straight trading days — and not in the direction many investors hoped.For the first time since tariff confusion began to subside in May, the indexes dipped below their 50-day moving averages. Technical stock analysts often consider the benchmarks' moves above or below those averages as signals for the market's path forward.The broad index's turn lower ended its longest streak above that trend line since just before stocks topped out in 2007, the year before the global financial crisis triggered a brutal recession.While investors pared back some of their AI trades, crypto markets have been thrashed. The price of bitcoin slid to $91,859.13 by 4 p.m. Monday, according to CoinDesk. Coinbase shares skidded 7.1%.Gold, which some analysts say has been trading more like a speculative stock than a safe asset, also pulled back. Front-month futures slipped to $4,068.30 a troy ounce.Wall Street grew more weary of unprofitable tech while flying blind on the state of the economy during the recently ended government shutdown. On Monday, investors began to analyze backdated federal data for broader snapshots of business conditions.Nonresidential construction spending declined in August from a month earlier, the Commerce Department reported Monday, with builders pulling back from most types of projects. Data-center development was among the few bright spots.Bank stocks and smaller companies more sensitive to borrowing costs on Monday also extended declines in the face of uncertainty around Federal Reserve interest-rate policy. Traders have pared back their bets on a cut in December, but futures markets suggest a nearly two-thirds chance of at least one cut by January.The yield on 10-year Treasurys Monday settled at 4.132%, down from 4.147% Friday.In a talk at the Kansas City Fed Monday, Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson said the risk of stubborn inflation and weaker employment conditions "underscores the need to proceed slowly" with rate cuts. His comments did little beyond that to build the case for either a cut or pause at the central bank's December meeting."The current policy stance is still somewhat restrictive," Jefferson said, "but we have moved it closer to its neutral level that neither restricts nor stimulates the economy."Write to David Uberti at [email protected]