Stock markets fall due to worries about US economy and tech stock prices – business live

Wall Street declines as economic concerns and price worries affect stocks

Wall Street has begun trading lower as concerns about the US economy's health and high tech stock prices continue to affect the markets.

The Dow Jones industrial average, which includes 30 big US companies, has dropped 209 points, or 0.45%, to 46,703 points in early trading.

The wider S&P 500 index is down 0.6%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq has lost almost 1%.

Fawad Razaqzada, market analyst at City Index, says:

"The appetite for risk kept dropping Friday morning as European stocks and US futures went back down after a short round of buying the dip faded – we've seen this kind of price movement all week .

Some experts say the rally driven by artificial intelligence this year has stopped for good, while others think the markets just needed to cool off anyway since indexes were racing to all-time highs without much of a break and no new boost.

This week has been tough for the markets – Reuters reports that the S&P 500 and the Dow are both on track for their biggest weekly drop in four, while the Nasdaq is set to have its worst week since March."

Fears about the ongoing US government shutdown lack of economic data, and warnings of a potential AI bubble burst seem to cause the selloff.

Stocks dropped yesterday after a report showed US company job cuts increased in October.

Stock markets are closing the week down, as concerns about the US economy and high tech valuations affect shares.

On Wall Street, the Nasdaq Composite has lost 2% today, on top of drops earlier this week.

The Financial Times reports that US tech companies linked to the AI boom have seen over $1tn wiped off their market value since last Friday.

The S&P 500 share index has fallen more than 1%.

Besides worries about an AI bubble recent economic numbers are making investors uneasy. They found out today that US consumer confidence has fallen (check the earlier post) just a day after learning that US job cuts rose in October.

James Knightley, who heads international economics for the US at ING, breaks it down:

The November reading of the University of Michigan sentiment index has gotten worse dropping to 50.3 from 53.6, compared to what experts thought would be 53.0.