AI stocks drop, but the rest of Wall Street holds steadier after oil
prices give back an early jump
[September 15, 2026] By
STAN CHOE
NEW YORK (AP) — Artificial-intelligence stocks slid worldwide Monday
after leaders of the industry warned a slowdown is needed for the safety
of humanity. Another jump in oil prices, meanwhile, briefly sent the
yield of the 10-year Treasury to 5% for the bond market ’s latest
pressure-raising milestone.
Despite all the downers for Wall Street, gains for many stocks outside
AI helped limit the market’s losses. So did a midday tempering of oil
prices, and the S&P 500 fell a relatively modest 0.5%. More stocks rose
within the index than fell.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 152 points, or 0.3%, and the
Nasdaq composite sank 0.6% after clawing back most of an early loss of
1.3%.
AI stocks have been under pressure a while because of worries their
prices shot too high in the frenzy around the technology. The concerns
jumped to another level over the weekend after one of the industry’s
leading voices, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, called for a deliberate and
global slowdown in the development of AI.
He cited safety issues, including the risk that AI becomes capable of
leading a swarm of agents that could take over the entire internet
within six to 12 months.
Nvidia, whose profits have soared because its chips are helping to train
AI models, sank 3.4% and was the heaviest weight on the market because
of its massive size.
SpaceX, which gets a chunk of its business from AI, fell 2% after Elon
Musk said over the weekend that he agrees with Amodei. Softbank Group,
the Japanese giant that is a major investor of OpenAI, lost 10.7% in
Tokyo after OpenAI’s Sam Altman likewise supported the concept of a
slowdown.
Altman also said in an interview with Fortune published Saturday that
the company behind ChatGPT would likely wait until next year for a sale
of its stock on Wall Street. That would delay a potential gusher of cash
for Softbank and other early investors in OpenAI.
In South Korea, the Kospi index dropped 3.3% due to losses for its two
most influential stocks, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.
President Donald Trump played down the need for his administration to
check the development of AI, saying he worried about ceding his
country’s edge over China in a global competition and that winning would
help address the risks from the advancing technology.
Even with many voices inside and outside the AI industry calling for a
slowdown to protect humanity, Trump said on his social media network
Monday that the only guardrail it needs “is a STRONG AND SMART (High
IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!”
Helping to limit Wall Street’s losses on Monday were several software
companies that tumbled earlier on worries AI-powered competitors would
undercut their businesses.
Intuit, the company behind TurboTax and QuickBooks, rose 5.5%. Autodesk,
whose software helps designers, climbed 7.8%, and Adobe added 5.3%.
[to top of second column] |
Electronic displays show financial news on the floor at the New York
Stock Exchange in New York, Monday, Sept. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth
Wenig)
 All told, the S&P 500 slipped 37.00
points to 7,619.98. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 152.09
to 52,421.20, and the Nasdaq composite fell 146.62 to 26,186.41.
Oil prices, meanwhile, continued to climb as fighting in the Middle
East keeps squeezing the global flow of crude. The price for a
barrel of Brent crude rose 1% to $105.68 after getting near $110 in
the morning.
An important Saudi oil pipeline will mostly be out
of service for weeks following an attack last week, two regional
officials told The Associated Press. The pipeline offered a way for
Saudi Arabia to shift exports to the Red Sea and avoid the Persian
Gulf’s Strait of Hormuz, where Iranian attacks have stifled the
movement of oil tankers.
Brent has jumped from less than $72 in early July as doubts rise
that the United States and Iran can come to an agreement that would
allow oil tankers to freely exit the Persian Gulf through the strait
again.
While the prospect of a de-escalation of war in Iran may have
dimmed, ING commodities strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey
wrote in a commentary on Monday that the situation is still fluid
and “sizable” volumes of oil have still been moving through the
strait.
So far, the jump in oil prices has sent the average cost of a gallon
of regular gasoline across the country to nearly $4.32 from $4.08 a
month ago and $3.18 a year ago, according to AAA.
Such upward pressure on inflation has much of Wall Street expecting
the Federal Reserve will hike its main interest rate on Wednesday at
the end of its next meeting.
Besides high inflation, worries about rising debt for the U.S. and
other governments and other concerns have sent longer-term Treasury
yields to their highest levels in years.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury briefly breached the 5.00% level
during the morning for the first time in nearly three years. That’s
up from 4.96% late Friday and just 3.97% before the war with Iran
began in February.
But the 10-year yield later pulled back to 4.98% after oil prices
came off their highs for the day.
The 10-year yield has not consistently remained above 5% since the
turn of the millennium, and its jump has already made it more
expensive for U.S. households and companies to borrow. That includes
the highest average long-term mortgage rate in more than 14 months.
___
AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Michelle Chapman contributed to
this report.
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