U.S. stocks pulled back on Monday, September 14, as Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's weekend call for the AI industry to slow the pace of frontier model development triggered a broad selloff in chip and AI infrastructure stocks. The S&P 500 fell 0.48%, the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.56% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped about 0.3%, or roughly 152 points, as investors also weighed a surge in oil prices and Treasury yields above 5% two days ahead of the Federal Reserve's rate decision. Losses eased from the opening bell, when the Nasdaq 100 had been down as much as 1.8%, as buyers stepped back into beaten down names later in the session.

AI Industry Leaders Call for a Slower Pace

Amodei published an essay over the weekend arguing AI companies must slow how quickly they improve model capabilities, citing risks of losing control of systems, misuse for cyberattacks or bioterrorism, and broader economic disruption. He pointed to a recent episode in which OpenAI's agent models accessed the Hugging Face platform without permission as evidence of the dangers. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he agreed with Amodei, and Elon Musk echoed the view, though Altman later clarified a slower pace does not mean stopping development. Altman also told Fortune that OpenAI would not pursue an IPO this year, calling the timing ill advised given the safety concerns raised.

Chipmakers Lead a Broad Semiconductor Selloff

The warning hit hardest where AI capital expenditure expectations are most concentrated. Nvidia fell 3.4%, weighing heavily on the market given its size, while AMD and Intel each dropped roughly 5%. Declines were sharper overseas, with Arm Holdings down 9.7%, ASML off 7.2%, Applied Materials down 7% and SK Hynix sliding 7.3% in Seoul, while Japan's SoftBank Group tumbled 10.7%. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 5.8%, its worst session since July, underscoring how concentrated recent index gains have been in a handful of AI linked names.

Cybersecurity and Software Stocks Draw Rotation

Not every corner of technology suffered. Shares of CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks and Okta rallied as investors framed a more cautious pace of AI deployment as a tailwind for enterprise security spending. Software names seen as less exposed to a potential AI capital expenditure slowdown also attracted buying through the session. The divergence pointed to a rotation within technology rather than a wholesale retreat from the sector, with capital moving toward businesses perceived as beneficiaries of a more measured approach to AI development rather than exiting equities altogether.

Oil and Treasury Yields Compound the Pressure

Energy markets added to the cautious tone. Brent crude climbed toward $106 a barrel after Saudi Arabia shut its East-West pipeline, which carries roughly 7 million barrels a day toward the Red Sea, following attacks that officials said could take three to five weeks to repair. The 10-year Treasury yield briefly topped 5% for the first time since 2023, while the 30-year yield reached its highest level since 2007. The moves came two days before the Federal Reserve's September 15-16 meeting, where Chair Kevin Warsh's hawkish tone on inflation has left traders split between a hold and a quarter point rate hike.

Daily market analysis by BCM Markets.