Technology Thumps US Equity Indexes Amid Sliding Treasury Yields

04:58 PM EST, 02/12/2026 (MT Newswires) -- US equity indexes fell on Thursday as technology emerged as the worst-performing sector amid sliding government bond yields and as Friday's inflation print loomed.

The Nasdaq Composite slumped 2% to 22,597.15, the S&P 500 dropped 1.6% to 6,832.76, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 1.3% to 49,451.98. Energy, financials, and consumer discretionary were among the worst performers. Only three sectors rose -- utilities, consumer staples, and real estate.

Apple (AAPL) led declines in the so-called Magnificent-7, retreating 5.1%, according to data compiled by Finviz. The iPhone maker received a letter from the US Federal Trade Commission over the political leanings of news outlets included in its News app.

Meanwhile, AppLovin (APP) received several price-target downgrades from Wall Street firms such as Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan after the mobile technology firm released Q4 results overnight that handily beat forecasts. Shares of AppLovin (APP) sank 20%, the worst performer on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq.

Cisco (CSCO) dived 12%, among the steepest decliners on the S&P 500, the Nasdaq, and the Dow, after the tech giant released a beat-and-raise fiscal Q2 overnight. The networking equipment maker projected its adjusted gross margin will be lower in fiscal Q3 amid rising memory prices.

The AI-scare-trade, first felt last week, is still keeping traders from extending US equity risk too much, Thierry Wizman, a global foreign-exchange and rates strategist at Macquarie, said in a note. On Tuesday, it was the legacy financial companies that were the targets, and, on Wednesday, it was the real estate services companies that fell.

This AI-scare-trade is a premise that in many business sectors, AI will shift from being another tool in the kit to a core "operating infrastructure" of new business models, Wizman added.

Meanwhile, in economic news, US initial jobless claims fell to 227,000 in the week ended Feb. 7 from an upwardly revised 232,000 in the previous week, compared with expectations for 223,000 in a survey of analysts compiled by Bloomberg. The four-week moving average rose by 7,000 to 219,500.

The pace of US existing home sales fell by 8.4% to a 3.91 million seasonally adjusted annual rate in January from 4.27 million in December, compared with a 4.15 million rate in a survey compiled by Bloomberg, data from the National Association of Realtors released Thursday showed. Total sales were down 4.4% from a year earlier and the lowest since December 2023.

The headline inflation rate in January is expected to remain unchanged sequentially from December while falling from a year ago, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Core inflation is expected to rise month-over-month while declining from a year earlier.

Most US Treasury yields fell on Thursday, with the two-year down 5.4 basis points to 3.46% and the 10-year by 8.1 basis points to 4.1%.

In precious metals, gold futures dropped 3.1% to $4,941.1 per troy ounce, and silver futures slumped 11% to $75.08 per troy ounce.

In the energy market, West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures dropped 2.6% to $62.93 a barrel.

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