Stocks struggle to bounce back from AI angst-fuelled rout AFP Fri, October 16, 2026 at 12:01 PM EDT 3 min read NVDA +0.19% CRWV -10.19% SKHY -4.62% Explore stocks on Coinbase Trading disclosure Trading disclosure The above button links to Coinbase. Yahoo Finance is not a broker-dealer or investment adviser and does not offer securities or cryptocurrencies for sale or facilitate trading. Coinbase pays us for certain activity generated through this link. Prices displayed are informational.
A rebound in tech stocks spluttered on Friday despite efforts by AI chip giant Nvidia and Federal Reserve chairman Kevin Warsh to reassure investors.
Recent days have seen heavy selling of AI-related stocks, with investors shifting money to shares in other sectors and into bonds.
Reassuring comments from Jensen Huang, head of the chip giant Nvidia, on the financial health of US AI data center firm CoreWeave sought to draw investors back into tech stocks ahead of the weekend.
That helped boost sentiment in Asia, where the Seoul and Tokyo indices led gains thanks to strong bounces by the chipmakers SK hynix and Kioxia.
The positive sentiment continued on European stock markets, but fizzled as Wall Street opened.
"There's little love for tech stocks right now, investors are dumping them at a rather undignified pace," said IG analyst Chris Beauchamp.
"A recovery last night provided only brief respite, as the selling resumed in the US session," he added.
Nvidia shares edged lower in morning trading in New York and shares in CoreWeave -- a major customer of Nvidia that counts the AI chipmaker as a shareholder, fell another nine percent.
The Philadelphia Semiconductor Sector index that includes the major players in the chip manufacturing industry was down more than two percent.
Both the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite and the broader S&P 500 indices were trading lower.
"After being supported by growth prospects for so long, the AI sector is now entering a new phase: one of proving its profitability," said Gregoire Kounowski, an adviser at the investment group Norman K.
Markets had been spooked by concerns about CoreWeave's huge debt pile, which saw its shares tank 15.5 percent Wednesday as yields on some of its bonds soared, reflecting heightened angst over its future.
Warsh's speech at the IMF and World Bank meetings in Bangkok, where the Fed chief said AI was the "most consequential change" to the global economy in his lifetime, also helped boost sentiment in Asian trading.
He said the investment boom would drive prices up in the short term, but "there really is, I think, a huge benefit to the global economy, to the US economy over the horizon."
Nonetheless, "the path from where we are to there is likely to be a very bumpy one, bumpy in our understanding of the technology, bumpy because we really don't know what the market structure is going to be of these new technologies," he said.
Elsewhere, the Jakarta stock market tanked more than 11 percent, its heaviest loss since 1998, after index compiler MSCI said transparency concerns meant it was "no longer appropriate" to maintain Indonesia's emerging-market status.
A downgrade to "standalone" status could see an exodus of foreign investment in the Indonesian market.
New York - Dow: UP 0.2 percent at 52,303.45 points
Tokyo - Nikkei 225: UP 1.4 percent to 65,324.29 (close)
Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: UP 0.5 percent to 24,186.83 (close)
Shanghai - Composite: UP 0.2 percent to 3,716.28 (close)
Brent North Sea crude: DOWN 0.2 percent at $105.71 per barrel
West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 0.2 percent at $97.81 per barrel
Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1249 from $1.1213 on Thursday
