Wall Street closed out the week with a broad selloff that painted trading screens red across the board, as renewed anxiety about artificial intelligence investments triggered a tech-led retreat that dragged down major indexes.

The trouble started with Broadcom Inc. (AVGO), one of the market's most prominent AI plays, which somehow managed to plunge more than 11% despite actually beating Wall Street's quarterly expectations. It's the kind of move that tells you investors aren't worried about what happened last quarter but what might happen in the quarters ahead.

The AI theme has been under pressure since Thursday, when Oracle Corp. (ORCL) shares collapsed 11% after the company detailed elevated data center spending plans that raised uncomfortable questions about when all that investment would actually start generating cash. On Friday, Bloomberg added fuel to the fire with a report that certain Oracle data centers tied to OpenAI would be pushed back from 2027 to 2028. That sent Oracle down another 6%, bringing its two-day decline to nearly 17%, the company's worst two-session stretch since March 2020. You remember March 2020, right? Not exactly the best historical parallel.

Indexes Retreat as Tech Drags Everything Down

The carnage across chipmakers and AI-linked stocks pulled the Nasdaq 100 down 2%, marking its weakest session in more than three weeks. The S&P 500 fell 1.3%, failing to extend what had been a string of record highs. Even the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Russell 2000 retreated from recent peaks, despite having far less exposure to technology stocks than their Nasdaq cousin.

Market volatility surged alongside the selling. The CBOE Volatility Index, better known as the VIX or Wall Street's "fear gauge," jumped 15%, eyeing its strongest one-day increase in nearly two months. When the VIX moves like that, it's usually a sign that investors are getting genuinely nervous rather than just taking profits.

Rising Yields Add to the Pressure

As if tech concerns weren't enough, rising Treasury yields added another layer of pressure on equities. The 30-year Treasury yield climbed to 4.86%, its highest level since early September. Several Federal Reserve officials struck a more upbeat tone on the economic outlook, which might sound like good news but actually dampens expectations for additional interest rate cuts next year. Higher rates for longer is not what stock investors want to hear.

Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee told CNBC he was "uncomfortable front-loading too many rate cuts," cautioning against assuming recent progress on inflation will prove transitory. Goolsbee had dissented at the Fed's latest meeting, voting to keep rates unchanged, so his comments carried extra weight.

Weakness Spreads Beyond Stocks

Risk sentiment cooled across commodities as well. Silver, which had surged roughly 120% year-to-date as of Thursday's close, fell more than 3%. Copper slid 2.5%, while gold traded little changed. When precious metals and industrial commodities both retreat simultaneously, it suggests investors are questioning both growth prospects and safe-haven demand.

The weakness extended into crypto markets too. Bitcoin (BTC) fell 2.5% to around $90,000, while Ethereum (ETH) dropped 5% to roughly $3,070. So much for digital assets providing portfolio diversification during equity selloffs.

ETF Movements Tell the Story

The major exchange-traded funds reflected the broad-based selling pressure. The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF slid 1.1% to $626.74, while the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF moved 0.5% lower to $485.52. The tech-heavy Invesco QQQ Trust Series fell 1.8% to $614.19, and the iShares Russell 2000 ETF traded down 1.3% at $254.50.

Sector performance showed a clear defensive tilt. The Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR Fund actually outperformed, gaining 0.3%, while the Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund lagged badly, down 2.5%. When consumer staples are the winners and technology is the loser, you know it's been a rough day for risk assets.

Russell 1000's Top 5 Gainers

Russell 1000's Top 5 Losers

The market's reaction to the AI spending concerns suggests investors are starting to ask harder questions about when all these massive infrastructure investments will actually pay off. It's one thing to spend billions building data centers when everyone believes the AI revolution is just around the corner. It's another thing entirely when those data centers get delayed and the path to profitability starts looking longer and more uncertain.