Wall Street’s AI anxiety spilled into a second day of heavy selling on Thursday, Oct. 15, as Nasdaq-100 futures plunged 1.26% after hotter-than-expected inflation data reignited fears the Federal Reserve could raise interest rates — a move that would make it dramatically more expensive for companies to fund massive artificial-intelligence buildouts, according to Reuters.

Wednesday’s rout was the worst single-day drop since July, wiping $80 billion in market value, and the pain accelerated overnight:

CoreWeave crumbles. Heavily indebted AI cloud provider CoreWeave fell roughly 4.5% in premarket trading after plunging 15% on Wednesday, with its bond yields hitting record highs. Nvidia chief Jensen Huang publicly defended CoreWeave’s financial health.

Oracle slides. Oracle dropped about 2% in premarket trading after a 9% slide on Wednesday.

Chipmakers hit worldwide. TSMC struck a cautious 2027 note despite posting a record quarterly profit. In Asia, Samsung fell 9.5%, SK Hynix dropped 11% and SoftBank slid 9.3%. Europe’s ASML fell 6%.

The selloff reflects growing investor doubt about the debt-fueled AI infrastructure boom — and whether the returns will justify the borrowing.

Reporting via Reuters and Morningstar.

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Featured image: Nasdaq MarketSite, Times Square (Wikimedia Commons).