Overview
- Last week’s heavy sell‑off in technology and AI‑linked stocks pushed the Nasdaq into correction territory and erased an estimated trillions in market value as investors reassessed the economics of a big data‑centre buildout.
- U.S. Democratic gains raised fears that tighter rules on data‑centre construction and AI could reduce future chip demand and capex, a concern that helped trigger the sudden revaluation.
- Seoul’s KOSPI plunged more than 6 percent, briefly tripping a circuit breaker, and Korean authorities responded with emergency steps including a three‑month exemption on collateral reserve requirements for margin loans to blunt forced selling.
- Nvidia disclosed an independent board investigation after CEO Jensen Huang acknowledged an affair linked to allegations that a businesswoman was an intelligence target, creating a new, evolving source of corporate‑governance risk for the sector.
- Stronger U.S. payrolls raised the odds of a December Fed rate rise and left investors focused on this week’s inflation prints and AI‑sector earnings as the key tests that will determine whether the AI investment cycle reaccelerates or cools.