Finance

Semiconductor equities encountered heavy downward pressure amid renewed anxieties regarding the longevity and scale of artificial intelligence infrastructure spending. Market heavyweights such as Micron Technology plunged roughly 6%, and Nvidia fell over 2%, heavily impacting the broader weighted indexes. Analysts noted that the massive market concentration of these chip firms has made benchmark indices highly sensitive to daily swings in the sector.

Defensive sectors, including healthcare and consumer staples, bucked the broader market downturn to register substantial gains. UnitedHealth Group boosted the blue-chip Dow after exceeding quarterly expectations and raising its full-year guidance, while Abbott Laboratories surged over 10% on a strong corporate earnings report. Consequently, an equal-weight version of the S&P 500 closed noticeably higher on the day.

The broader cryptocurrency market experienced a downturn alongside high-growth tech shares as escalating geopolitical tensions in the Middle East sparked general risk aversion. Bitcoin declined over 1% to slide back toward the $64,000 psychological baseline, while Ethereum and Solana recorded steeper losses of 2.6% and 2.0%, respectively. This pulled the collective global cryptocurrency market capitalization down by 1.3% to settle at $2.28 trillion.