U.S. stock futures climbed on Friday morning as technology shares staged a rebound from the previous session's sharp selloff. The turnaround came one day after a Financial Times report on OpenAI's revenue outlook sent AI-linked stocks tumbling, with the Nasdaq Composite dropping 1.25% and a gauge of chipmakers plunging 3.4%.
The trigger was a single number. The Financial Times reported that OpenAI's annualized revenue stood at roughly $50 billion at the end of September — about $20 billion below what the company had previously signaled, and well short of the $70 billion markets had been expecting. Investors swiftly repriced AI-related valuations and the spending expectations built on them. Oracle fell more than 5%, Nvidia dropped around 3%, AMD declined nearly 4%, and Broadcom shed 4.4%. The Nasdaq 100 sank 1.4%, its steepest one-day fall in seven weeks. The Nasdaq Composite closed at 27,193.34, down 345 points, while the S&P 500 slipped 0.47% to 7,765.36. Only the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished higher, edging up 0.10% to 51,231.64.
Sentiment flipped overnight. Dow futures rose about 0.23%, S&P 500 futures gained 0.28%, and Nasdaq-100 futures advanced 0.36% in late Thursday trading. By early European hours the gains widened: Nasdaq futures were up 0.8%, S&P 500 futures added 0.4%, and Dow futures inched up 0.1%, while chipmakers and hyperscalers traded higher premarket. In Europe, the Stoxx 600 climbed 0.75% on a software rally. For the week, all three U.S. benchmarks remained on track to close higher — Thursday's rout did not erase the week's gains.
The rebound had more than one tailwind. Brent crude dropped about 1% to $103.20 a barrel after President Trump said the U.S. would not attack Iran before the midterm elections, citing "productive" talks with Tehran. That reversed part of Thursday's 4.07% surge to $104.28, which had also lifted West Texas Intermediate 3.64% to $91.49. Supply risks linger, though: Houthi militants continue attacks on Saudi Arabia, and Hurricane Isaias threatens oil production in the Gulf of Mexico. In the bond market, the 10-year Treasury yield edged up to 5.244% and the 30-year to 5.615% in early European trade — comfortably below the multidecade highs hit earlier this month, after solid demand at a 30-year auction on Thursday cooled yields.
Not every sector joined the rally. Telecommunications stocks were a weak spot on both sides of the Atlantic: T-Mobile shares dropped more than 6% premarket and European telecom names tumbled after SpaceX said it had agreed to buy up to 14 megahertz of paired spectrum in the 800 MHz band, putting Starlink Mobile on track to compete as a major U.S. mobile carrier. Separately, the U.S. Labor Department on Thursday suspended Microsoft and Adobe from its Permanent Labor Certification (PERM) program, citing multiple active federal investigations; it also said it would stop processing new applications from Cognizant, Infosys, Capgemini, Wipro, TCS, and HCLTech — adding a layer of policy uncertainty for the tech industry.
Analysts see Friday's bounce as a technical repair rather than a trend reversal. Three things will decide what happens next. First, the U.S. third-quarter bank earnings season is about to begin, and Wall Street needs to see whether corporate profits can justify lofty valuations. Second, whether the 10-year Treasury yield can hold near 5.2% after touching multidecade highs. And third, how long the AI infrastructure spending boom can keep burning — Ray Dalio warned this week that the AI bubble is approaching its breaking point, so every tech pullback will be examined under a magnifying glass. In Asia, markets were mixed on Friday: South Korea and Taiwan were closed for holidays, and Japan's Nikkei pared early losses to trade 0.58% lower.