Nasdaq futures fall 2.4% in a sell-off concentrated in big technology

Futures on the Nasdaq-100, the large-company Nasdaq index, were down 2.4% before Friday’s open. S&P 500 futures were down 1.1%, and Dow futures were little changed. On Thursday the broader Nasdaq Composite fell 1.4% while the Russell 2000, the small-company index, rose 1%.

This is a technology sell-off, not a broad one. That is why Dow futures are flat, and why smaller companies rose on Thursday while the Nasdaq fell. Invesco QQQ Trust, Series 1 QQQ, which tracks the Nasdaq-100, fell 1.4% on Thursday with that index.

Amazon and Intel reported after Thursday’s close, and they fell for different reasons.

CNBC reported that Amazon was down 7% before the open after a disappointing quarter and a second straight quarter of negative free cash flow. Earnings were $1.89 a share, short of the $1.96 analysts expected, CNBC reported.

Free cash flow for the 12 months through September was an outflow of $42.4 billion, Amazon said, against an outflow of $7.6 billion for the 12 months through June. The outflow was not new. It was much larger, and Amazon said it came from spending on equipment for artificial intelligence.

Amazon left this year’s cash capital-spending forecast at about $220 billion. That was not a cut. Chief Executive Andy Jassy said the company expects to spend meaningfully more in 2027, CNBC reported.

Intel’s quarter was not the problem. Earnings came in ahead of forecasts, CNBC reported, and the shares fell on the outlook. Intel guided fourth-quarter revenue to $15 billion to $16 billion and adjusted earnings to 25 cents a share. Analysts had expected $17.1 billion and 43 cents, CNBC reported, citing LSEG.

“We see the PC slowdown continuing at least through the first half of next year,” David Zinsner, Intel’s finance chief, said in the earnings release.

CNBC reported that the shares were down 25% before the open after that weaker guidance, which Intel blamed on a slowdown in personal-computer sales.

Overnight, the selling was in technology again. South Korea’s Kospi fell 3.5%. Yonhap reported that the drop was led by semiconductor shares, on concern about whether investment in artificial intelligence is sustainable. Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 2.1%. Jiji Press said that decline was led by selling in shares tied to artificial intelligence, after the drop in U.S. technology stocks.

In Europe the broad market slipped, and technology stocks fell harder. Reuters reported the STOXX 600, a broad index of European shares, down 0.3%, and European technology stocks down 2%, after the Amazon and Intel results revived concern about the returns on heavy spending on artificial intelligence.

At 8:30 a.m. ET the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes the third-quarter Employment Cost Index, its measure of what employers pay in wages and benefits. Compensation for civilian workers rose 0.9% in the second quarter, the same pace as the quarter before, and 3.4% over the year through June, the bureau reported. The Amazon and Intel results are what the open is set up on. This release is the next number after the open.