Nasdaq Falls 1.25% as the FT Puts OpenAI's Annualized Revenue Near $50 Billion, Not $70 Billion

That is a reassuring reading for OpenAI and an uncomfortable one for anyone who had priced the higher number into chip makers, cloud providers and data-centre lenders. A smaller base means the same spending plans rest on less income.

Which stocks fell on the OpenAI news?

The memory and chip names took the heaviest hits. Micron fell 4.79 percent to close at $1,035.84, SanDisk lost 4.90 percent, Broadcom 4.35 percent and Nvidia 2.94 percent, according to TradingKey. During the afternoon the Nasdaq 100 dropped more than 300 points in about half an hour, and Yahoo Finance's live page showed Arm, Intel and Marvell each down more than 6 percent at one stage. Palantir bucked the trend, rising about 3 percent after Goldman Sachs upgraded it to Buy.

Is the AI borrowing the bigger worry?

The same Yahoo Finance report cited the Wall Street Journal as saying Broadcom is seeking more than $50 billion in financing for a custom chip it is building with OpenAI. Set beside a 30-year Treasury yield at its highest in more than two decades and Brent crude above $100, the numbers describe an industry that is borrowing heavily at the moment borrowing has become expensive. Macquarie, quoted on Yahoo's live page, noted that "almost all of the high-profile financial blow-outs" of the past five decades followed rapid moves in bond yields.

Yahoo's live page put the 10-year yield at 5.23 percent by the close, and Reuters's market report framed the session around an oil jump and high yields fuelling inflation concerns. We covered the bond side of this in today's yields report.

The test now is whether this was a one-session reaction to an accounting footnote or the first sign that investors will want proof of income before they fund the next round of AI capacity. Friday's trading will show how much of the damage was a rush for the exit and how much was repricing.