Wall Street mixed as AI regulation fears hit chip and data center stocks

Wall Street opened mixed on Thursday, with semiconductor and data center stocks plunging on fears of stricter AI regulation following the Democrats' sweeping midterm election victory. The Dow Jones rose 0.62%, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.77%. Data center operators IREN, Hut 8, and Applied Digital dropped 3% to 8%, while cloud service firms CoreWeave and Nebius lost 5.8% and 9% respectively. Chipmakers Nvidia, Marvell, and Intel fell 4%, 7.8%, and 6.3%, with Qualcomm collapsing over 10% after missing smartphone chip sales forecasts. The tech-heavy Nasdaq had finished sharply higher the previous day, but the new congressional majority's campaign focus on curbing data center growth now threatens a key driver of the recent stock rally. Ralph Lauren also slipped 3% on disappointing quarterly revenue guidance despite raising its annual outlook.