High-flying chip and memory stocks were tumbling ahead of Monday's opening bell-but investors shouldn't make any rash moves, despite a series of dire warnings about AI killing us all.
The likes of Intel, Marvell, Micron, and Sandisk were all slumping in the premarket after the bosses of Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX called for a slowdown in AI development. It comes after a former Anthropic researcher warned last week that those building AI believe it could "kill us all by the end of the decade."
Plenty on Wall Street have been looking for excuses to sell following a breakneck rally. Surging bond yields and a potential Federal Reserve rate hike later this week had already put the market on edge.
Still, the brutal tech selloff probably isn't the sound of the AI bubble popping. At this stage, the talk about deceleration is nothing more than words.
Just look at Anthropic. CEO Dario Amodei called for tech giants to ease the pace of AI development, but it doesn't look like that will slow down the Claude developer's own public listing.
Anthropic told investors that it would be profitable for a second straight quarter, the Financial Times reported. The company didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Barron's.
The looming IPO isn't the only reason to think the tech rally still has legs. The data-center boom that has driven up demand for chips, memory, and networking looks set to carry on despite Amodei's warning.
President Donald Trump also played down the AI risks over the weekend, saying during a visit to Ireland that if the U.S. doesn't win the development race, China will.
It's not a surprise that Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk have sparked a stock-market panic, but trigger-happy investors should hold their fire for now.