{"id":305087,"date":"2026-02-27T16:06:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T16:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/305087\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:06:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T16:06:18","slug":"u-s-stocks-battered-by-ai-derangement-syndrome-and-ceos-are-learning-not-to-talk-about-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/305087\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. stocks battered by \u2018AI derangement syndrome\u2019 and CEOs are learning not to talk about it"},"content":{"rendered":"

S&P 500 futures were down 0.32% this morning prior to the opening bell in New York, after the index fell 0.54% yesterday, suggesting that investors hate U.S. equities right now.<\/p>\n

The index is up 0.93% year-to-date, a feeble performance compared to foreign stocks. The U.K.\u2019s FTSE 100 is up nearly 10% over the same period. The STOXX Europe 600 is up 6.53% and sits at an all-time high. Japan\u2019s Nikkei 225 is up nearly 14%. South Korea\u2019s KOSPI is up an astonishing 45%.<\/p>\n

Growth is everywhere, except the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cAI derangement syndrome,\u201d according to an email sent by Yardeni Research to its clients.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Investors have become so skittish of stocks linked to AI that it\u2019s dragging down the entire U.S. market. Exhibit A: Nvidia<\/a>, the AI chipmaker that is the largest company on planet earth by market cap. Nvidia\u2019s performance as a business has been unambiguously excellent. Its Q4 2025 earnings call<\/a> was another blowout, expectations-beating, record performance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But no good deed goes unpunished in the S&P 500, and Nvidia\u2019s stock fell 5.46% yesterday. It is down 0.86% year-to-date. \u201cOut of 13 total quarterly reports, [Nvidia] has reported ten triple plays (beat earnings per share, beat sales, raised guidance). \u2026 Following its last seven reports, though, shares have averaged a decline of -3%,\u201d Bespoke Investment Group said. (Bespoke tracks a custom \u201cAI Doom basket\u201d of stocks, which gives you an idea of how negatively AI is viewed by traders right now.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

AI-linked tech stocks are, in fact, dragging down the S&P as a whole. The equal-weight S&P 500\u2014a notional index that ignores the market cap of each stock in favor of counting them all equally\u2014is up 6.7% year-to-date, suggesting that the U.S. market would be better off without the tech stocks that dominate it. The tech-heavy Nasdaq<\/a>, by contrast, is down 1.56% for the year.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main driver [of the market\u2019s recent decline] was a serious slump for semiconductor stocks,\u201d Jim Reid and his colleagues at Deutsche Bank<\/a> told clients this morning.<\/p>\n

AI is now regarded as a liability, not a benefit, according to some analysts. \u201cIf AI continues to disrupt, if not destroy, more and more business models, won\u2019t that cause a recession?\u201d asked Ed Yardeni of Yardeni Research in his recent email.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might if it triggers lots of white-collar layoffs, which in turn lead to blue-collar job losses. Alternatively, it might cause a credit crunch in the private credit markets. UBS Group<\/a> AG has raised its private credit default forecast, with its strategists warning that losses could reach as high as 15% in a worst-case scenario, up from 13% just weeks ago,\u201d he said, citing Bloomberg.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Corporate America appears to be slowly waking up to the fact that banging on about AI all the time is hurting, not helping. Bespoke tracked the mentions of AI in conference calls by Apple<\/a>, Amazon<\/a>, Alphabet (Google), Meta<\/a>, Microsoft<\/a>, and Nvidia, and discovered that chief executives are dialling down their mentions of AI.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018AI\u2019 was mentioned 348 times this quarter. As shown below, that\u2019s down quite a bit from the 401 \u2018AI\u2019 mentions last quarter, and it\u2019s 102 fewer than peak \u2018AI\u2019 reached during the Q1 2025 earnings season,\u201d the group said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a snapshot of the markets this morning prior to the opening bell in New York:<\/p>\n

S&P 500 futures were down 0.32% this morning. The index closed down 0.54% in its last session.\u00a0<\/p>\n

STOXX Europe 600 was up 0.22% in early trading.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The U.K.\u2019s FTSE 100 was up 0.4% in early trading.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Japan\u2019s Nikkei 225 was up 0.16%.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s CSI 300 is down 0.34%.<\/p>\n

The South Korea KOSPI was down 1%.<\/p>\n

India\u2019s NIFTY 50 was down 1.25%.<\/p>\n

Bitcoin declined to $66.8K.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"S&P 500 futures were down 0.32% this morning prior to the opening bell in New York, after the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,220,111,139,1042,69,781,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-305087","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-markets","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nvidia","15":"tag-nz","16":"tag-stock","17":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305087","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=305087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}