Global stocks slide as AI selloff sends investors running to bonds

The AI trade had a rough couple of days. Global stocks fell sharply on October 14 and 15, 2026, as investors dumped AI-related shares and piled into government bonds. The trigger was a growing worry about how much debt is being used to build AI infrastructure. Add a hotter-than-expected US inflation print, and markets had two reasons to get nervous at once. The damage, by the numbers The Nasdaq Composite fell 1.9% on October 14. That was its biggest single-day drop since July 2026. The broader S&P 500 lost 1.1% the same day. Chipmakers took the worst of it. The Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index, the main benchmark for semiconductor stocks, fell 4.3% as it logged a sixth straight losing session. CoreWeave became the poster child for the anxiety. The company rents out AI computing capacity, and its shares fell as much as 15-16% on October 14. The pain carried into the next morning. CoreWeave dropped roughly another 6% in premarket trading on October 15. Asia had it worse. South Korea’s KOSPI sank approximately 8% on October 15, its seventh decline in a row. The index’s two heavyweights, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, fell roughly 9% to 11% during the selloff. Japan wasn’t sp...