Semiconductors fell 8.24 percent, the largest single move in the tables, with Broadcom down 5.48 percent, Nvidia down 4.22 percent and the broader tech sector down 4.89 percent. The selling caps a week in which Intel’s weak fourth quarter guidance and scrutiny of AI spending reset chip valuations; see today’s Intel update and the AMD and Infineon stories for where the industry is still committing capital.
The miners complex fell with it. Silver miners dropped 5.58 percent, uranium miners 5.57 percent, gold miners 5.21 percent, copper miners 5.19 percent and rare earth miners 5.12 percent, tracking the underlying metals: silver futures fell 5.59 percent and gold futures 3.29 percent to 3,898.9 dollars, with gold below 4,000 dollars for the first time in a year. See today’s base metals selloff story, which records the same liquidation across the LME and SHFE, and today’s Australian miners story on why local producers rose on the week anyway.
Copper fell 1.5 percent to 6.48 dollars a pound in the same session, part of the collective base metals decline led by tin and nickel on both the London and Shanghai exchanges.
Oil and shipping moved the other way. WTI crude rose 2.08 percent to 104.12 dollars and tanker freight climbed 2.05 percent as Gulf shipping risk built: a Qatari LNG carrier was struck in the Gulf and a second tanker was hit by limpet mines, both in today’s commodities reporting, while OPEC+ held December output targets steady at Sunday’s meeting. Brent eased 1.26 percent to 113.43 dollars despite the same risk backdrop; no clear single driver for Brent’s fall appears in this morning’s reporting.
Treasury yields fell in the risk-off bid, the US 5 year down 8 basis points to 4.72 percent and the 10 year down 6 basis points to 4.93 percent; no clear single driver beyond the equity and metals selloff appears in this morning’s reporting. The Nikkei 225 fell 2.12 percent in the same global move, again with no Japan specific driver in this morning’s reporting.
The pattern is a clean risk-off split: growth and metals exposure was sold hard, government bonds were bid, and the only bid in commodities sat where physical supply is actually at risk, in crude and the freight that moves it. European gas was the exception that proves the rule, with TTF at a four year high on storage at its lowest seasonal level since 2011 in today’s commodities story, a physical tightness story rather than a sentiment one.