US equities received limited support Monday from easing oil-price pressures, but persisting fears over artificial-intelligence safety kept the technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 firmly in negative territory, closing down 0.82% at 29,127.16.
The mark broadening S&P 500 trimmed its loss to 0.48% at 7,619.98, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.29% to 52,421.20 after briefly posting gains.
Semiconductor names bore the brunt of the AI-safety debate. ARM Holdings, Marvell Technology and Applied Materials all fell between 7.1% and 9.7%, while Nvidia declined 3.4%. Timothy Arcuri of UBS described the developing risk as a "new, considerable risk factor" clouding the chip industry's outlook, though he cautioned against expecting a fundamental slowdown. Leading AI labs had recently committed to extensive infrastructure investment, he noted, adding that meeting those expectations would require "an exceptionally positive scenario for infrastructure buildout."
The concerns echoed warnings from Dario Amodei, chief executive of AI firm Anthropic, who said that in six to twelve months an AI swarm could potentially seize control of the entire internet and cause hundreds of billions of dollars in damage. Amodei urged the industry to slow the development of its most capable models.
Regulatory anxieties about AI had already weighed on Asian and European markets earlier in the week; South Korea's Kospi index fell, and European investors largely shunned technology shares.
On the commodity front, oil prices gave back part of recent gains after Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that Russia and Ukraine wished to refrain from attacking each other's energy installations. Trump offered no further detail. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the gesture as a "forceful proposal" but said Kyiv would only support such de-escalation if Russia halted its own attacks on critical infrastructure in Ukraine. Moscow had not yet responded to the announcement.
Amid the technology-sector weakness, cybersecurity stocks rallied. Shares of CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks and Okta climbed between 12% and 14%.
Reported by Gerold Löhle, dpa-AFX.
