Nasdaq futures fell 1% on Tuesday evening, signalling a weak start to U.S. equity markets. Concerns over heavy corporate spending on AI infrastructure and rising Chinese competition weighed on technology stocks.
At about 6 pm IST, Nasdaq 100 futures were down 1%, while S&P 500 and Dow Jones futures were largely flat.
In pre‑market trading, Nvidia fell 1%, Micron dropped 5.5%, and Applied Materials slid 4.3%. Shares of TSMC and SK Hynix fell 3.4% and 4.8% respectively.
The dip shows investors are cautious ahead of earnings from major Wall Street firms. They are reassessing how much companies will spend on AI hardware, which had boosted chip stocks last quarter.
In Asia, South Korea’s KOSPI fell 10.84%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 and China’s Shanghai SSE Composite also ended lower, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose slightly.
European markets traded in the green, showing a contrast to the Asia‑Pacific region.
Back in India, the benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty ended almost unchanged. The Sensex slipped 69.86 points, or 0.09%, to close at 76,765.92. The Nifty fell 10.60 points, or 0.04%, to finish at 23,985.35.
Investors remain cautious ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve decision on Wednesday and the broader sell‑off across Asian markets.