There’s a headline doing the rounds this morning that AI tech stocks are “getting smashed.” And yes, Wall Street was in the red, the Dow down 171 points, and Nvidia, the poster child of the AI boom, took a hit. But let’s keep it in perspective.
This isn’t a “crash”. It’s profit-taking.
Big investors have made big money on these AI names. At some point, they were going to lock some of that in. And when you remember that September is statistically the worst month of the year for US stocks — down an average of 4% — the fact that the market is holding up this well is actually impressive.
There’s also a raft of important US data coming this week — jobless claims, and the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge (the PCE) — and in uncertain moments, markets like to play it safe. That’s all this is.
Could we see a proper sell-off down the track? Sure. When US unemployment starts rising meaningfully, that’s when I’ll get concerned. But today’s AI sell-off? It’s just the market doing what the market does.
So no, it’s not a crash. It could be a lot worse. September usually is.
