US equity indices declined on Monday amid renewed concerns that AI safety risks could slow development and investment in the sector, while global bond yields stayed elevated. The S&P 500 fell 0.7%, the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 dropped 1.7%, and the Dow edged down 0.3%.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for a more measured pace of advanced AI development to mitigate risks associated with increasingly capable models, drawing guarded support from OpenAI’s Sam Altman and xAI’s Elon Musk. The heightened focus on AI-related risks dampened speculative interest in chipmakers and AI infrastructure names: Micron, AMD, SanDisk, Lam Research, Marvell, and GE Vernova declined between 5% and 8%, while Nvidia lost 2.5%.
At the same time, long-dated Treasury yields held near recent highs ahead of this week’s Federal Reserve decision, with futures markets pricing in a near-consensus expectation of a 25 bp rate hike. In energy markets, the breakdown of talks among GCC states extended disruptions to tanker traffic from the region, pushing energy prices higher.
