A trader works at the New York Stock Exchange on Jan. 23, 2026.
NYSE
S&P 500 futures fell for another day on Thursday, with popular trades unraveling as investors took a risk-off stance.
Futures tied to the broad market index and Nasdaq 100 futures declined 0.5% and 0.7%, respectively. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures shed 130 points, or 0.3%.
Alphabet was the latest of the so-called Magnificent Seven companies to report earnings results. The company projected a sharp increase in artificial intelligence spending that spooked some investors, calling for 2026 capital expenditures of up to $185 billion. Shares were last down 3% in premarket trading.
Alongside Alphabet, Qualcomm came under pressure, sliding 11% in early trading after posting a weaker-than-expected forecast because of a global memory shortage.
Elsewhere, the sell-off in the cryptocurrency market continued to gain steam, as bitcoin fell below $70,000 — which is considered a key support level. In the precious metals space, pressure on silver resumed, with the metal’s prices snapping a two-day rebound and dropping as much as 16%. It had plummeted nearly 30% last Friday.
Adding to the downbeat sentiment, outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that U.S. employers announced 108,435 layoffs in January, signifying the highest January total since the global financial crisis.
Wall Street is coming off a turbulent trading session, with a sell-off in chip and software stocks driving the S&P 500 to a second straight day of losses. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite slid 0.5% and 1.5%, respectively, as the tech rout intensified. However, the 30-stock Dow added 260 points, or 0.5%. The equal-weighted S&P 500 added 0.9%.
Software stocks were pummeled as fears of AI disruption in the industry had investors rotating out of technology en masse, and rotating to other more attractively valued parts of the market.
By the end of the trading session, however, many investors suspected the sell-off was overdone, and argued it could be time to buy the dip.
“I would say that there’s a lot that’s been sold out,” Sonali Basak, chief investment strategist at iCapital, told CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime” on Wednesday. “And there are software players, particularly the incumbents, that will win at the end, that are worth looking at soon, if not now.”