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CNN
a minute ago
- CNN
AI and tech stocks slide as summer rally peters out
Tech news Investing Stocks AIFacebookTweetLink Follow Tech stocks were under pressure this week as Wall Street's AI enthusiasm slowed and investors adjusted portfolios after a strong summer rally. The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.67% on Wednesday after sliding 1.46% on Tuesday. The tech-heavy index was on track to snap back-to-back weeks of gains. Meanwhile, the broader S&P 500 fell 0.24% and posted its fourth day of losses in a row. The Dow hovered around the flatline. Tech stocks had steadily rallied in recent months, lifting the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to a streak of record highs. Now Wall Street is taking a breather while optimism about the AI boom is facing some friction. Palantir (PLTR), a star of the AI trade, fell 1.1% on Wednesday after falling 9.35% on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Nvidia (NVDA) edged lower by 0.14% on Wednesday after sliding 3.5% on Tuesday. 'Investors rotated out of high-momentum tech stocks, reflecting renewed jitters over the sustainability of the AI trade,' Ulrike Hoffmann-Buchardi, head of global equities at UBS, said in a note. Investors are also in wait-and-see mode ahead of a critical day for markets on Friday when Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is set to deliver remarks at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium. 'It's just a pause that may refresh as investors retrench and rethink how they want to position their tech dollars,' Rob Haworth, senior investment strategy director at US Bank Asset Management Group, told CNN. Powell's closely watched speech on Friday could provide signals about the Fed's potential rate-cutting path and comes at a key inflection points for markets after past months' ascent to record highs. Excitement about AI propelled markets higher in recent months, boosted by robust corporate earnings and enormous spending by companies like Meta and Microsoft. But Wall Street's eagerness was tested this week after Sam Altman, chief executive at OpenAI, said he thinks the market might be in a bubble. 'Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI? My opinion is yes,' Altman told reporters last week, according to The Verge. The OpenAI chief also said he thinks AI will provide value for the economy. 'Is AI the most important thing to happen in a very long time? My opinion is also yes,' he said. Also, researchers at MIT on Monday published a report detailing how the majority of companies testing new generative AI tools are seeing zero returns. While there was not an explicit catalyst for the decline of tech and AI stocks decline this week, investors said Altman's comments and the MIT report could be contributing to negative momentum. AI chip and semiconductor companies Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Marvell Technology (MRVL) were each down almost 7% this week. 'Altman's comments spooked some people when he talked about the AI bubble,' Dan Ives, head of global technology research at Wedbush Securities, told CNN. 'Tech stocks have had a massive run, so I think it's just typical that investors are starting to take some chips off the table going into Labor Day,' Ives said. 'But I believe it's going to be short lived.' Each of the Magnificent Seven tech stocks — Apple (AAPL), Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), Meta (META), Microsoft (MSFT), Nvidia (NVDA) and Tesla (TSLA) — fell on both Tuesday and Wednesday, dragging down the broader market. As of Tuesday, they made up 33.5% of the S&P 500's total market value, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices, reflecting their outsized influence on the index's performance. 'Stocks have been on an absolute tear. Valuations have sprinted up,' said Ross Mayfield, an investment strategist at Baird. 'The fundamentals are good but not keeping pace with the price action.' 'I think along the way we'll see pockets of profit taking, even if it doesn't mark the end of the bull market in general,' Mayfield said. While tech dragged on the market, about 70% of stocks in the S&P 500 had closed higher on Tuesday, UBS' Hoffmann-Buchardi said. Sectors that outperformed included consumer staples, utilities and real estate. It's a sign that investors are shifting out of Big Tech and AI-related trades and toward more defensive stocks as they reassess the markets. Nvidia as of Monday had surged 93% since a low point in early April. 'We've been expecting this type of a pullback,' said Jay Hatfield, chief executive at Infrastructure Capital Advisors, who said he has taken down his exposure to tech in recent months. It's also the start of a historically weak season for stocks, Hatfield said. 'We're neutral on the market right now, but still really bullish for year end.' Palantir is still up 106% this year. But shares in Palantir are down six days in a row and had dropped as much as 9.8% on Wednesday before paring losses, reflecting the volatility in AI stocks. 'Now we're getting the downward momentum,' Hatfield said. 'Palantir is like the poster child for excessive valuation, and those investors are learning that the momentum works in both directions.'
a minute ago
FTC sues LA Fitness operators for 'exceedingly difficult' gym cancellation policies
NEW YORK -- The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is suing the operators of LA Fitness, over allegations that they make it 'exceedingly difficult' for consumers to cancel gym memberships and other related services offered in their clubs nationwide. In a Wednesday complaint, the FTC accused Fitness International and its subsidiary Fitness & Sports Clubs of illegally charging consumers 'hundreds of millions of dollars in unwanted recurring fees' as a result of cumbersome cancellation processes. The agency said that tens of thousands of customers have reported difficulties with these policies to date. 'The FTC's complaint describes a scenario that too many Americans have experienced — a gym membership that seems impossible to cancel,' Christopher Mufarrige, director of the agency's Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement. Beyond LA Fitness, California-based Fitness International operates brands like Esporta Fitness, City Sports Club, and Club Studio — spanning across more than 600 locations with over 3.7 million members nationwide. And the FTC pointed to two 'unfair and unlawful' cancellation processes that it says these gyms have used for years: in-person cancellation or cancellation by mail. Both of these options require consumers to print out a form on the gym's website, which includes logging in with credentials that the agency says some customers don't have or remember. And if a customer opts for in-person cancellation, there's limited hours and often difficulty finding a manager to process the forms, the complaint notes — while mailing the form comes with additional costs. 'Each of these cancellation methods is opaque, complicated, and demanding — far from simple,' the FTC writes in its complaint. It also alleges that the company doesn't adequately disclose cancellation offerings when consumers sign up for memberships, and that some will be signed up for additional services with recurring charges without realizing there may be different cancellation requirements. According to the FTC, Fitness International now offers website cancellations for subscriptions 'with stand-alone agreements' — but the agency said the process 'still imposes unnecessary burdens' on customers and claims that that option is buried online. It's also still not possible to cancel memberships on the company's mobile apps, the FTC added. Fitness International did not immediately respond to The Associated Press' request for comment on Wednesday. This isn't the first time that federal regulators have accused gym operators — and other companies with subscription services — of making their cancellation processes too difficult for consumers. Under the Biden administration, the FTC adopted a 'click to cancel' rule, which would have made it easier for consumers to end unwanted subscriptions. But last month, days before that rule was poised to go into effect, a federal appeals court blocked the proposed changes.
CNBC
a minute ago
- CNBC
Santoli's Wednesday market wrap-up: Highest-momentum stocks remain under pressure
(These are the market notes on today's action by Mike Santoli, CNBC's Senior Markets Commentator. See today's video update from Mike above.) Another flurry of treacherous rotation roiled the tape, though by the closing hour the swirling currents were showing signs of slowing. The highest-momentum, most-expensive, most-crowded stocks — the sort that drove the Nasdaq-100 up 40% and the S & P 500 High Beta ETF (SPHB) up 60% over four months – remained under pressure, peaking at midmorning. While largely mechanical and tactical, the action coincides with a moment of broad reconsideration of the trajectory of the AI-investment theme and the assumptions underlying it. Meta Platforms is now down nearly 5% on the week, as it again is said to be reorienting its AI efforts. Chat GPT5 has been deemed largely underwhelming. Perhaps most relevant, though, the AI trade became pretty crowded. Strategas here shows flows into AI-specific ETFs having shot higher in recent weeks. For now, the reallocation is relatively orderly, and has not undercut the stability of consumer cyclicals, financial stocks or industrials, and thus would seem to be saying little about the macroeconomic setup. This is largely how the market tries to relieve extremes in concentrated positioning, rapidly racing from leaders to laggards, the crowded to the neglected. Several similar episodes in recent years were sometimes hazardous but only a minority of the time resulted in a sizable, broad index correction. VIX flat today suggest little real stress. Minutes from the Fed's July meeting were somewhat hawkish, though the bond market quickly moved on given that meeting was before the jarring Aug. 1 payroll report that caused odds of a September rate cut to soar above 80%. The market is holding this stance, though presumably Fed Chair Powell on Friday in Jackson Hole will stop short of fully endorsing any September move, not wishing to front-run another jobs report in early September. It remains debatable whether the economy "needs" a rate cut, but the market would gladly take one. Big picture, stocks are near highs, valuations full, credit spreads tight, market-based yields and oil prices unchallenging. A rate cut into such conditions is typically more than investors would dare ask for, although the cadence of the recent economic and monetary cycles has been unusual. So far this week, the equal-weighted S & P 500 is up 0.5% with the market-cap-weighted version down 0.8%. A small measure of "broadening" that so many seem to root for, even if it comes with a bumpier ride along the way.
