Wall Street headed for a weaker open on Monday as AI safety concerns, rising oil prices, and expectations of a Federal Reserve rate hike weighed on global markets.
Nvidia fell more than 2% in premarket trading, while Meta and Amazon dropped more than 1%. Chipmakers were hit particularly hard, with Intel and Marvell Technology down almost 6% and AMD falling around 5%.
The technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 was down 1.8%, while S&P 500 futures fell 0.8% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.3%.
Sentiment weakened after Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei called for the AI industry to slow the pace of frontier model development, warning that advances in capabilities were outpacing safety measures. Senior figures including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Elon Musk and Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis have backed calls for a more measured approach.
Markets are also facing renewed inflation concerns as Brent crude climbed above $108 a barrel amid escalating Middle East tensions. Traders are now pricing roughly a 90% probability of a Federal Reserve interest-rate increase this week.
The sell-off spread internationally, with South Korea’s Kospi falling 3.3% and Japan’s Nikkei dropping 0.8%, while major European markets also traded lower.
The combination of renewed AI-sector uncertainty, higher energy prices and the prospect of tighter US monetary policy has put some of Wall Street’s largest technology stocks back under pressure.
