US Stock Markets Today: S&P 500 Falls, Nasdaq Sheds 3.6% As Nvidia Tanks 12%

All three major US stock market indices opened lower on Friday. The broader S&P 500 opened 2.2% lower at 6,076.32, while the Dow Jones slipped 0.6% to 44,148.84 at the opening bell.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 3.6% to 19,906.99 at the opening bell. The sharp slide was triggered by a rout in Nvidia Corp.'s stock, as the AI chipmaker plunged 13% in early trade.

The slide in Nvidia's stock comes in the aftermath of Chinese startup DeepSeek releasing its open source AI model which could stand toe-to-toe with existing AI fixtures like OpenAI's Chat GPT, while achieving these results for a fraction of the funds spent on the latter.

This could reduce the need for powerful AI accelerators like the ones that put Nvidia on the map.

Apart from Nvidia, other tech stocks also logged significant decline in early trade. This includes tech mega caps like Microsoft Corp, which plunged around 4%, Amazon.com Inc whose shares were down 2.5% and Meta Platforms Inc which declined around 1.5% in early trade.

Among the 11 S&P 500 sectoral indices, eight were edging lower against the previous day's close. Information technology and utilities were the major drags, whereas healthcare and consumer staples led the gains.