Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on December 17, 2025 in New York City, USA.
Brendan McDiarmid | Reuters
Shares fell on Wednesday as investors continued to exit major artificial intelligence stocks following reports that Oracle’s main investor had pulled out of one of its data center projects.
of S&P500 While the stock traded 1% lower, Nasdaq Composite It fell 1.5%. of Dow Jones Industrial Average It fell by 174 points (0.4%).
AI stocks that once attracted attention oracle Shares fell 5% after the Financial Times reported that Blue Owl Capital’s plan to finance the cloud infrastructure company’s $10 billion Michigan data center fell through, with people familiar with the matter citing concerns about Oracle’s debt and spending levels. Oracle has since disputed the report and said the project is moving forward.
Risky financing schemes related to companies’ data center construction plans have kept investors on edge in recent weeks. Oracle was in the spotlight during the session after the company disputed a Bloomberg report last week that said it had delayed some OpenAI projects to 2028.
Other stocks related to AI trading fell in line on Wednesday. chip manufacturer broadcom Another stock that led the recent turnover in tech stocks fell 4%. Nvidia I lost 3%, but advanced micro device I lost 5%. Google’s parent company alphabet It decreased by 3%.
“We’re definitely seeing a pretty clear rotation from large-cap growth stocks to large-cap value stocks. I think what we’re really seeing is people taking a more defensive stance in preparation for what’s going to happen next year,” said Brian Mulberry, client portfolio manager at Zacks Investment Management. “The real question being asked is, ‘Who will monetize these very large investments in AI?'”
Oracle and Broadcom, like other companies in the AI space, suffered huge losses in December as investors moved to value-oriented areas of the market such as finance. Month-to-date, Oracle and Broadcom are down 12% and 18%, respectively. of State Street Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK) It has fallen 2.3% this month.
Mulberry expects the rotation from high-value stocks to “more fair-value sectors” to continue through 2026. He believes this trend, combined with uncertainty around monetary policy, could lead to some volatility.
“At this point, it will be important to look at a specific subset of factors to determine when and where AI’s moment of profitability will occur. It will be something like free cash flow. You can fake a balance sheet, but you can’t fake free cash flow,” he said. “The biggest driver of returns is now the biggest risk to the market.”
On Wednesday, the S&P 500 and Dow 30 fell for the fourth day in a row.
Two benchmark indexes fell on Tuesday as the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its November jobs report, which included data for October. The findings put a lid on the health of the U.S. economy after federal data was backed up due to the U.S. government shutdown this fall.
