More Stories

Informist, Friday, Feb. 6, 2026                                      Tel +91 (22) 6985-4000

---

Equity Alert: US indices end lower Thu on fall in tech stocks, jobs data

 

MUMBAI--0742 IST--Equity indices in the US ended lower on Thursday, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite indices recording a fall for a third consecutive session. Shares of software companies continued to weigh on sentiment amid fears of artificial intelligence taking a toll on the software services industry. Jobs data for January added to the pressure on markets. 

 

The S&P 500 software and services index fell 4.6% and shed around $1 trillion in market value since Jan. 28, Reuters reported. Shares of Microsoft fell around 5% owing to the weakness, with those of Sales Force and Service Now ending nearly 5% and 8% lower, respectively. "I would classify this as a sell-everything mindset at this point," Dave Harrison Smith, chief investment officer and head of technology investing at asset management firm Bailard, was reported as saying. Shares of Thomson Reuters Corp. ended nearly 6% lower. This is despite the company, which owns the Westlaw legal database and the Reuters news agency, reporting its results in line with estimates and also announced dividend for the December quarter. "The uncertainty around the eventual impact of AI means near-term earnings results will be important signals of business resilience, but in many cases insufficient to disprove the long-term downside risk," Ben Snider, Goldman Sachs' chief US equity strategist, was reported as saying.

 

The software selloff is part of a wider trend of rotation out of technology stocks and into value-oriented sectors such as consumer staples, energy, and industrials that were struggling in the bull market, which commenced in October 2022, Reuters said. "We're seeing people de-risk from technology in a general way, and we've been seeing that since the beginning of the year," Andrew Wells, chief investment officer at SanJac Alpha in Houston, was reported as saying. The selloff has spread to sectors exposed to the software industry as well, such as asset management companies over concerns that they extend loans without private credit. Shares of Blue Owl, an asset management firm, fell around 4%. 

 

Shares of Alphabet declined nearly 1% as its capital expenditure plans of $185 billion for 2026 raised concerns, but a rise in shares of Broadcom, up nearly 1%, after the announcement of Alphabet's capital expenditure offered hopes for AI traders, CNBC reported. Shares of Qualcomm fell nearly 9% due to a weaker-than-expected forecast owing to the shortage of global memory chips. 

 

Contributing to the sombre environment, outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that US employers announced 108,435 layoffs in January, making it the highest total for the month since the global financial crisis. Initial jobs claims for the week rose more than expected as well, along with job openings in December falling to their lowest level since September 2020. This comes prior to the release of the official January jobs report next week, which has been delayed due to the partial government shutdown that ended Tuesday.

 

Following are the closing levels of US indices Thursday:  

 

Index	Level	Change in %
S&P 500	6798.40	(-)1.23
NASDAQ Composite	22540.59	(-)1.59
Dow Jones Industrial Average	48908.72	(-)1.20

 

(Akshat Saksena)

 

US$1 = INR 90.36

IST, or Indian Standard Time, is five-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT

 

Edited by Avishek Dutta

 

All prices from National Stock Exchange, unless otherwise specified.

All percentage changes for share prices are rounded off to the nearest whole number; percentage changes for index values are rounded off to one decimal place.

All times are Indian Standard Time.

 

NSE: National Stock Exchange
NYSE: New York Stock Exchange
NYMEX: New York Mercantile Exchange
SEBI: Securities and Exchange Board of India
RBI: Reserve Bank of India

Internet links:
Securities and Exchange Board of India - http://www.sebi.gov.in
Bombay Stock Exchange - http://www.bseindia.com
National Stock Exchange of India - http://www.nseindia.com
Directory of Indian government websites - http://goidirectory.nic.in
Indian Ministry of Finance - http://www.finmin.nic.in
Reserve Bank of India - http://rbi.org.in
Controller General of Accounts, Government of India - http://www.cga.nic.in
Government's Press Information Bureau - http://www.pib.nic.in

 

For users of real-time market data terminals, Informist news is available exclusively on the NSE Cogencis WorkStation.

 

Cogencis news is now Informist news. This follows the acquisition of Cogencis Information Services Ltd by NSE Data & Analytics Ltd, a 100% subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. As a part of the transaction, the news department of Cogencis has been sold to Informist Media Pvt Ltd.

 

Informist Media Tel +91 (22) 6985-4000

Send comments to feedback@informistmedia.com

 

© Informist Media Pvt. Ltd. 2025. All rights reserved.