NEW YORK, Oct. 15, 2026 | AI-linked stocks fell again on Thursday as investors questioned how AI data centres are being financed, after hotter-than-expected inflation data raised expectations of more U.S. Federal Reserve rate hikes, according to Reuters reporting carried by Business Recorder. The Nasdaq was down about 1.1% in morning trading and more than 4% below the record high it set last week.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq had their biggest one-day drops since July on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Reuters said in its futures report that investors fear higher interest rates will make it harder for companies to fund AI investment. CoreWeave, a heavily indebted data centre operator, fell 15% on Wednesday and Oracle fell nearly 9%. The bonds of both companies came under pressure, pushing their yields to record highs. The selloff, which also involved chipmakers, hyperscalers and cloud companies, wiped out $80 billion in market value, per the same report.

By 9:50 a.m. ET on Thursday, the Nasdaq Composite was down 1.06% at 26,409.80, and Reuters said the chip index was on track to shed about $2 trillion, a slide of more than 14% over seven sessions. Producer prices rose by the most in 4.5 years in September, Reuters reported. Yahoo Finance reported Nvidia, AMD and SK Hynix were all lower on Thursday, with TSMC down despite posting a record profit.

TSMC reported its sixth straight record quarterly profit but gave a cautious view of 2027 because of macroeconomic uncertainty, which also weighed on sentiment. Charu Chanana, chief investment strategist at Saxo, said investors are “increasingly questioning how much future growth is already priced into valuations” and are “less willing to finance AI infrastructure growth at any cost.”

Mohit Kumar, an economist at Jefferies, said: “A slowdown in the AI infrastructure build-out would imply a sharp slowdown in US growth expectations.” He also said he expects the coming earnings season to show that earnings and demand remain robust. LSEG data cited by Reuters show S&P 500 third-quarter profits are expected to grow 30.6%, though concerns about borrowing costs and AI spending could overshadow that.

Why are AI stocks falling?
Hotter-than-expected inflation raised expectations of more Fed rate hikes, and investors fear higher rates will make it harder to fund AI spending. Debt-heavy AI companies such as CoreWeave and Oracle were hit hardest, according to Reuters.

Does the selloff mean AI demand is falling?
Not according to the reports. TSMC posted a sixth straight record quarterly profit, and a Jefferies economist expects earnings to show demand remains robust. The concern is how AI expansion is financed and how much growth is already priced in.