AI Selloff Pulls Stocks Down

The sell-off for winners of the artificial intelligence boom deepened Friday and yanked stock markets lower worldwide. Oil prices, meanwhile, continued to jump because of the war with Iran.

• The Dow fell 406.55 points, or 0.8%, to 52,146.42, closing the week down 0.9%.
• The S&P 500 fell 76.08 points, or 1%, to 7,475.69, dropping 1.6% for the week.
• The Nasdaq composite fell 361.70 points, or 1.4%, to 25,520.24, ending the week down 2.9%.

Chip stocks and other AI darlings once again were at the center of the shaky trading, the AP reports. They've been under pressure for weeks on worries that their prices shot too high and that voracious demand for computer memory and processors may be unsustainable if AI ends up producing less profit and productivity than promised. Nvidia was the heaviest weight on the S&P 500 after dropping 2.2%. Its recent losses forced it to briefly cede the No. 1 ranking as the most valuable company on Wall Street on Friday, but it finished the day back above Apple. Applied Materials sank 5.6% to trim its surge for the year to 106%. Micron Technology swung between a loss of 5.8% and a gain of 3.2% before slipping 0.5%.

Several stocks dropped following earnings reports. Companies are under pressure to deliver big growth for the spring to justify the big moves upward that their stock prices have already made. Netflix sank 7.3% after its revenue for the latest quarter fell just short of analysts' expectations, even though its profit was bigger than expected. Its forecasts for upcoming revenue and profit in the summer also fell below expectations. Intuitive Surgical, a maker of robotic surgical systems, dropped 14.1% despite topping expectations for the latest quarter. Analysts pointed to worries about slowing procedure growth because of the expiration of enhanced tax credits that helped lower the cost of health insurance for many Affordable Care Act enrollees. Elon Musk's SpaceX fell 5.4% and touched its lowest level since its stock began trading on the Nasdaq just over a month ago.