Global markets slide; Brent crude rises to $98.29 per barrel

Global stock markets tumbled sharply as investors reacted to the outcome of the U.S. midterm elections and growing doubts about the pace of new data‑centre construction for artificial intelligence. Technology names and firms linked to AI data centres were hit hardest, while Brent crude rallied nearly 4 percent to $98.29 per barrel.

Wall Street’s sell‑off erased around $2.5 trillion of market value. The S&P 500 fell 4.4 percent, the Dow Jones lost 1,833 points (3.4 percent) and the Nasdaq declined 5.5 percent, pushing it into correction territory.

Concerns that the election results will increase uncertainty around approvals and financing for new AI data centres — and criticism over their high electricity consumption and potential effect on power bills — weighed on investor sentiment toward related stocks.

Sector losses and oil rebound

Chip and cloud providers suffered steep losses: Nvidia shares dropped 9.3 percent, AMD fell 17.3 percent, and CoreWeave — a cloud service that rents access to AI chips — slid 9.8 percent. GE Vernova, which supplies energy infrastructure to data centres, declined 7.5 percent.

On commodity markets, Brent crude rose 3.9 percent to $98.29 per barrel, recovering much of the nearly 9 percent fall from the previous day. The rebound reflected renewed worries over the course of the conflict with Iran and risks to energy supply after reports of incidents involving ships in the region and concerns about maritime traffic.

Safe‑haven demand pushed the yield on the 10‑year U.S. Treasury down to 4.84 percent from 4.90 percent at the end of the prior day. The weakness in U.S. tech stocks was felt in Asia and Europe as well: South Korea’s KOSPI slid 5.3 percent, Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.8 percent and London’s FTSE 100 was down 0.4 percent.

Photo: press material from the event