{"id":676850,"date":"2026-11-06T15:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T15:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/676850\/"},"modified":"2026-11-06T15:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T15:30:11","slug":"global-stocks-plunge-amid-ai-slowdown-fears-after-democrats-midterm-triumph-stock-markets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/676850\/","title":{"rendered":"Global stocks plunge amid AI slowdown fears after Democrats\u2019 midterm triumph | Stock markets"},"content":{"rendered":"

European stock markets have fallen sharply as a rout in US tech stocks spread across the Atlantic, after the Democrats\u2019 midterms victory<\/a> sparked fears of a slowdown in the AI industry.<\/p>\n

A sell-off on Wall Street on Thursday was followed by sharp falls in Asian stocks markets on Friday morning. The investor sentiment then reached London, where the market is poised for its worst day since March.<\/p>\n

The FTSE<\/a> 100 index, which tracks blue-chip shares listed in London, was down 207 points, or 1.9%, at 10,575 points in mid-morning trading.<\/p>\n

Germany\u2019s Dax index fell by 1.9% in morning trading, France\u2019s Cac 40 dropped by 1.5% and Spain\u2019s Ibex lost 1.1%.<\/p>\n

Susannah Streeter, the chief investment strategist at Wealth Club, said: \u201cThe tech sell-off has intensified, with the pain of the brutal sell-off on Wall Street carried straight through to Asia and knocking sentiment in Europe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cBig worries are colliding \u2013 the build-out of datacentres looks set to slow, which risks shredding the spending spree underpinning the boom, right at the time that investors have become super nervous about returns on this massive investment.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Thursday the Nasdaq share index had its worst day in 19 months<\/a> after slumping 5.5%.<\/p>\n

Chip stocks led the slump, with the memory maker SanDisk tumbling by 22% and the hard drive maker Western Digital falling by 17%. Wall Street\u2019s \u201cfear index\u201d, the Vix, jumped by 61% to its highest levels since the early weeks of the Iran war, in a sign of rising market volatility.<\/p>\n

The heavy falls continued in Asia on Friday, with Japan\u2019s Nikkei 225 index sinking 6% and South Korea\u2019s Kospi index tumbling more than 8%.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s actually a bit of a disaster,\u201d said Christopher Forbes, the head of Asia and Middle East at CMC Markets. \u201c[Clients] were long index, long stocks, and they all got carried out. All night, all day \u2013 we had client margin calls, client complaints \u2026 because it\u2019s a very emotional thing, right? People are wedded to their positions and views on a stock or outcome, and you\u2019re telling them: \u2018Look, you\u2019ve just lost money.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Chris Beauchamp, the chief market analyst at the investing and trading platform IG, said: \u201cYesterday\u2019s brutal session marked a dramatic turnaround from Wednesday, but with AI fears still prominent there is a risk that there is much more selling to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cInvestors remain on watch for a potential resumption of the Iran conflict, and are nervously watching the oil price after its slump earlier in the week. All in all it remains a very febrile atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, despite the sharp losses suffered on global stock markets around the world, most indices are still up for the year.<\/p>\n

The Nasdaq<\/a> Composite index remains up 4.6% since the start of January \u2013 even though it is more than 10% below its peak.<\/p>\n

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The FTSE 100 has gained almost 6.9% in 2026 \u2013 but it is now more than 300 points below the record high set in July.<\/p>\n

Mohit Kumar, an economist at the investment bank Jefferies, said that while he did not expect a quick rebound from Thursday\u2019s losses in the US, he also did not believe it marked the \u201cstart of the unwind of the AI trade\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cAI investment has been a key driver of US growth and we do not see the Democrats as giving up on this growth engine. Datacentres and AI infrastructure also create jobs and Democrats would be reluctant to let those jobs move on to other states or outside the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stock market tremors have also hit the London Metal Exchange, with copper set for its biggest weekly fall since March.<\/p>\n

Benchmark three-month copper, a key metal used in the semiconductor, electronics and automotive industry, has dropped 0.61%, leaving it positioned for a 2.79% fall this week.<\/p>\n

Craig Lang, a principal analyst at the consultancy CRU, said the price of copper was increasingly influenced by the AI market and \u201csentiment towards datacentre expansion\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"European stock markets have fallen sharply as a rout in US tech stocks spread across the Atlantic, after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":676851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,80],"class_list":["post-676850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=676850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/676851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}