About $2.5 trillion in market value was wiped off the US stock market in a single day on Thursday, amid fears that the pace of artificial intelligence (AI) development worldwide will slow after Democratic candidates won in the US midterm elections. Stock markets around the world also fell sharply in its wake.
When trading opened on Friday, South Korea’s main index, the KOSPI, dropped nearly 9 percent, and trading on the country’s main stock exchange had to be halted for 20 minutes.
On Thursday the Nasdaq, the main US technology index, fell 5.52 percent. The index hit a record high on 6 October and is now 10 percent below that level.
The Nasdaq had not suffered such a large fall since April 2025, when US President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs around the world. Other US indices also fell heavily. The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones had their biggest one-day falls since April 2025.
Only the day before, on Wednesday, US stocks had risen strongly after the midterm elections. The Dow Jones gained 1,569 points that day and the Nasdaq rose 1.44 percent. On Thursday, however, the Dow Jones lost 1,833 points.
Even as the main indices rose on Wednesday, shares of semiconductor chip makers and companies building AI data centres were falling. That set off a rush to sell technology shares, which dragged down the main indices too.
One of the main reasons for the fall in US technology shares was the victory of Democratic candidate Gina Hinojosa in the Texas governor’s race. The state plays an important part in the growth of AI. Companies such as Google, Meta, Oracle and OpenAI are investing huge sums in building data centres there.
During the campaign, Hinojosa promised to pause data centre construction in the state for a time and to withdraw some tax breaks for businesses investing in the sector.
Democratic wins in states such as Texas, where big technology companies are investing heavily in data centres, have raised worries about future investment in AI. Investors have therefore been selling large volumes of shares in chip makers and companies that supply equipment for building data centres.
On Thursday shares of Nvidia, the leading US technology company, fell 9.3 percent. An index of chip-making companies dropped 12.3 percent.
It was the index’s biggest one-day fall in about six and a half years. Shares of Elon Musk’s carmaker Tesla fell 11 percent, and those of his space company SpaceX fell 9 percent.
The Nasdaq-100, made up of large technology companies, also fell 6.36 percent on Thursday. It was the index’s biggest one-day drop since the coronavirus pandemic began in March 2020.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report