US equity benchmarks finished mixed on Monday as chipmakers extended their selloff ahead of this week’s Fed decision and a heavy calendar of economic data and corporate earnings. The S&P 500 ended largely unchanged, the Nasdaq 100 slipped 0.3%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 263 points.
Nvidia dropped 5% after announcing a $500 billion AI memory-chip supply agreement with SK Hynix. Separately, the company committed $250 billion to support OpenAI’s leasing of computing capacity from a major data center project, rekindling worries that circular AI financing structures could come under pressure if hyperscalers rein in capital expenditures. Other chip names also retreated, with Micron down 2.2%, AMD off 5.2%, Intel down 0.7%, and Sandisk falling 11%.
By contrast, easing worries about tight financial conditions underpinned gains in the Dow. The US and Iran paused strikes over the weekend, pushing oil prices and Treasury yields lower and dampening expectations of a Fed rate hike this week. Mega-cap tech traded mixed ahead of earnings, with Apple up 1.2%, Meta down 0.2%, Amazon off 0.3%, and Microsoft gaining 1.9%.
