The decline in tech stocks continued for a second day on Wednesday, as investors hurried to offload many of the same shares that have driven indexes up this year.
The Nasdaq Composite ended the day down 0.7%, after falling 1.5% Tuesday. Recent highfliers including Palantir, Micron and Robinhood Markets were some of the more notable decliners, News.Az reports citing The Wall Street Journal.
Traders said there was no one catalyst for the selloff but pointed to a few possible culprits, including recent comments from OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman suggesting the artificial-intelligence boom has some bubble-like characteristics.
Some investors said the sector was due for at least a modest fall. The Nasdaq is up more than 9% for the year and has had 20 record closes in 2025.
“We’ve been worried about tech-stock prices,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management. “Market prices were reflecting very aggressive growth expectations, and whenever the price depends on growth expectations, that creates vulnerabilities.”
A busy week for retail earnings continued. Shares in Lowe’s advanced after the home-improvement retailer boosted its annual outlook. Target stock tumbled after it posted another quarter of flat or falling sales, and named its next CEO.
Meanwhile, President Trump opened a new front in his battle with the Federal Reserve, calling on governor Lisa Cook to resign after his housing-finance chief, Bill Pulte, accused the Biden appointee of mortgage fraud. Minutes from the Fed’s July meeting suggested officials were divided over when they could be confident that higher import costs wouldn’t lead to a period of broader, rolling price hikes.
