Wall Street spent Thursday unwinding its heaviest bets on artificial intelligence, and by Friday morning some of that money was coming back. The trigger was Tuesday's midterm election, which handed Democrats both chambers of Congress after a campaign in which many of the party's candidates pushed for new rules on AI and data centers. AI shares clawed back part of a two-day sell-off on Friday, the AP reported, with the Nasdaq Composite opening 1.23% higher after a 5.5% slide on Thursday and Nvidia, one of the hardest-hit names, gaining more than 6% at the open, according to the BBC. The selling had rolled through Asian and European sessions overnight before US trading resumed.
The election landed on a trade that was already wobbling. October had already brought a sell-off in chipmakers and data-center operators, driven by interest-rate fears and doubts about the scale of spending, with several of the largest cloud providers now burning cash as they build capacity. Resistance to new data centers has also been building at the community level for some time, long before Congress changed hands. The open question for investors is whether a Democratic majority turns that local pushback into federal policy that slows construction, or simply makes it costlier.
The day's other big release pointed the opposite way from the market's nerves. Hiring was led by professional and business services and health care, and the agency also revised its August and September totals higher, its release showed. That is a firmer picture than the modest monthly gains that had become the norm over the past year. The next employment report is due in early December, by which time the new Congress will be closer to taking its seats.