Investors dive into bonds as global AI tech selloff continues

Investors fled to the safety of bonds on Friday as stocks extended their slide in both Europe and Asia after worries around the AI boom wiped trillions of dollars off the major U.S. indexes. Europe’s FTSEurofirst and STOXX 600 benchmarks both fell more than one per cent early on as traders continued to fret that the Democrats’ victory in this week’s US midterm elections will lead to tougher rules around AI data centres.Wall Street saw a modest bounce early Friday, especially for the Nasdaq later after its trillion-dollar plunge on Thursday, although that did not comfort Asia overnight.Japan’s Nikkei and South Korea’s KOSPI both slumped about six per cent. For the Nikkei – as for Wall Street – that was the deepest one-day drop since U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” trade tariff panic of April 2025. Story continues below advertisement Taiwan plunged more than eight per cent at one point, before cutting losses as authorities scrambled to stem the selling.“This has been brutal,” James Athey, a fund manager at investment firm Marlborough in London, said, explaining that retail and hedge fund selling were feeding off each other.“The question is where we go now? We are still...