Wall Street AI stocks rebound after trillion-dollar sell-off

Technology and artificial intelligence shares on Wall Street recovered part of a steep fall on Friday, after a sell-off that removed trillions of dollars from global stock values and hit chipmakers hardest.

The Nasdaq Composite closed up 1.1%, clawing back some of its 5.5% drop the previous session, according to the BBC. The S&P 500 added 0.3%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down 0.4%.

The losses were larger outside the United States. The BBC reported that South Korea's Kospi closed down 6%, with chipmaker SK Hynix falling more than 10%. Main indexes in Germany, France and Spain also ended lower, and London's FTSE 100 shed 1.01%.

The reports sized the damage differently. KVIA said $2.5 trillion had been wiped off US markets. The National put the loss at $2.3 trillion and tied the slide directly to the midterm results in its headline. The BBC said trillions of dollars came off stock values without giving a single figure.

Investors had sold tech shares partly on concern that the Democrats' midterm victory would slow AI development. A number of Democrats had campaigned for new rules on AI and data centres, and the party won control of both houses of Congress as well as contests in states competing for data centre investment, the BBC reported. US President Donald Trump on Friday repeated his support for what he called "super intelligence", saying only "foolish leadership" would "say no to the riches they bring".

The BBC reported that US employers added 165,000 jobs in October, citing the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and that unemployment eased to 4.1% from 4.2%. The same report gave September as the month for the 165,000 figure in one passage.

In London, traders weighed the sell-off alongside the Bank of England's decision to raise interest rates and its signal that another increase was possible.

Russ Shaw, founder of the advocacy group Tech London Advocates, told the BBC's Business Today that the incoming Congress would focus on AI "in a very dramatic way". Pierre Baqué, chief executive of the AI platform Neural Concept, called the share moves a "necessary market correction" and said the industry had to show "greater financial discipline". Dan Coatsworth, head of markets at AJ Bell, said next week would show whether the tech trade was "going down the pan or fighting back".