{"id":257972,"date":"2026-01-29T17:25:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T17:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/257972\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T17:25:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T17:25:07","slug":"us-tech-stocks-tumble-after-microsofts-ai-spending-unnerves-investors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/257972\/","title":{"rendered":"US tech stocks tumble after Microsoft\u2019s AI spending unnerves investors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stay informed with free updates<\/p>\n

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US tech stocks dropped sharply on Thursday after Microsoft reported a surge in data centre spending, reigniting investor nerves about the vast expenditure by Silicon Valley giants. <\/p>\n

The Nasdaq Composite fell 2.1 per cent, while the broader S&P 500 was 1.1 per cent lower. <\/p>\n

Microsoft tumbled 12 per cent, dragging the market<\/a> lower, after the company reported a 66 per cent year-on-year surge in its data centre spending, taking its capital expenditure to $37.5bn in the three months to December.<\/p>\n

The software group also reported slower than expected cloud growth, although adjusted net income and revenue both exceeded analysts\u2019 expectations. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe scale of spending is so high that there\u2019s a laser focus on the monetisation of it,\u201d said Venu Krishna, head of US equities strategy at Barclays.<\/p>\n

Investors expressed nervousness about Microsoft\u2019s over-reliance on OpenAI, with Wednesday\u2019s results revealing that 45 per cent of Microsoft\u2019s $625bn book of future cloud contracts came from the ChatGPT maker. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe market is watching the exposure of Microsoft on OpenAI,\u201d said Manish Kabra, head of US equity strategy at Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 G\u00e9n\u00e9rale. <\/p>\n

The Financial Times reported on Thursday that OpenAI was in talks to raise close to $40bn in its upcoming funding round from Nvidia, Microsoft and Amazon \u2014 three of its largest infrastructure providers \u2014 reigniting fears about circular financing in the AI sector. <\/p>\n

Oracle, which has signed a $300bn data centre deal with OpenAI, fell 5.1 per cent on Thursday, while Nvidia slid 1.9 per cent.<\/p>\n

Better results from Meta on Wednesday evening sent its share price 8.1 per cent higher but failed to reassure traders about the broader sector.<\/p>\n

Correlations between mega cap tech stocks \u201chave declined to historic lows\u201d, said Barclays\u2019 Krishna.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have entered a new stage in the AI narrative,\u201d he added. \u201cWe\u2019ve moved from a \u2018rising tide\u2019 concept to a winners and losers phase, as the market tries to assess which business model\u00a0has the edge.\u201d <\/p>\n

The price of oil jumped<\/a> on Thursday as traders reacted to US President Donald Trump\u2019s escalating threats against Iran. <\/p>\n

Precious metals, which had jumped sharply on Thursday morning, reversed course after New York trading began, with some analysts suggesting that investors could be selling their holdings to meet margin calls on US tech stocks. <\/p>\n

The price of gold was down 2.4 per cent on the day to $5,272, and silver was down 2.9 per cent to about $113.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the US equities myFT Digest — delivered directly to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,111,139,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-257972","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}