Global wave of selling as traders flee tech stocks—and futures are signaling the bloodbath will continue today

Nvidia's Jensen Huang to AI doomers: If you fear it, quit

In an exclusive dialogue with Fortune's Jeremy Kahn and Bea Nolan, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang dismissed prevailing existential-risk warnings from key figures in the AI sector, such as Anthropic's Dario Amodei, asserting that the technology remains "completely in our control."

"I don't know why anybody would want to support the advancement of a technology that's going to result, you know, in the end of human civilization as we know it. And so, if they believe that, they really ought to stop working on it," he remarked.

Global wave of selling as traders flee tech stocks

Over the past 24 hours, traders exhibited a significant aversion to technology stocks, prompting a global wave of selling. The tech-heavy South Korean KOSPI index experienced a sharp decline of 7.57% and had to pause trading at one point. Nasdaq futures reported a decrease of 1.03% this morning, indicating that declines may persist when U.S. markets begin trading. CoreWeave fell by 15.46% yesterday, with an additional 5.89% drop overnight; Oracle's shares plummeted 8.83% and then lost another 1.57% in post-market trading. The semiconductor sector witnessed widespread losses.

Counterintuitively, much of this selling pressure emerged despite some positive developments within the sector. Notably, chipmaker TSMC announced Q3 earnings that surpassed expectations and projected an increase in capital expenditures over the next two years. Additionally, Apple shares closed at a record high, marking only the second instance (after Nvidia) of a company reaching a $5 trillion market capitalization. Furthermore, Anthropic reported adjusted profitability, although its revenue growth of $17 billion in Q3 seemed to lag behind earlier estimates.

The volatility also influenced the bond market, where investor sentiment wavered regarding the status of the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury as either a safe haven or a risk premium. The yield on this bond spiked to 5.32% before receding to 5.08% this morning, reflecting a significant fluctuation in this typically stable asset.

Market movements:

• S&P 500 futures remained down by 0.24% this morning. The index decreased by 1.11% the previous day.
• In Europe, the Stoxx 600 was lower by 0.10% during early trading, while the U.K.'s FTSE 100 rose by 0.48% prior to the lunch break.
• Asia: South Korea's KOSPI index dropped by 7.57%. Japan's Nikkei 225 fell by 4.90%. Conversely, India's Nifty 50 rose by 1.68%, and China's CSI 300 declined by 1.23%.
• Brent crude prices stood at $106 per barrel.
• Bitcoin saw a decrease, dropping to $81,265.

Ignore all their complaining, Europeans are secretly very happy

An analysis conducted by ING's Marieke Blom reveals that three-quarters (76%) of Europeans maintain an optimistic outlook for their future. Notably, Danes and Slovenians rank as the most content, while the French, despite exhibiting the least optimism, still have 62% expressing happiness about their future.

Blom posits that this optimistic sentiment is somewhat counterintuitive, as news coverage of Europe predominantly highlights its dysfunctions. "An analysis of 35 years of Wall Street Journal articles shows that bad news generates far more follow-up stories than good news. In other words, bad news sticks," she articulated. "Over those 35 years, a lot more attention has been devoted to bad news than to good."

British sentiment on Brexit

Current polling data tracked by James Moberly and Sven Jari Stehn at Goldman Sachs indicates that 59% of British citizens now wish to rejoin the E.U. They estimate that Brexit has resulted in a loss of 6% of the U.K.'s GDP to date.

Americans eat 10 pounds of avocados per year, on average

It may be surprising, but until 1993, Americans consumed very few avocados. The importation of Mexican avocados to certain states only became legal that year, and in 1997, the USDA permitted the entry of Mexican Hass avocados into 19 northeastern states for part of the year. Full access across all 50 states was established on February 1, 2007, according to Ron Campbell, a lobbyist for the Mexican Avocado Industrial Complex.

Since the 1990s, American per-capita avocado consumption has skyrocketed seven-fold, climbing from 424 million pounds in 1998/99 to an anticipated 3.25 billion pounds by 2024/25. This translates to approximately 9.5 pounds per person annually, a significant increase from just 1.52 pounds per capita in 1998/99.