US stocks fall as report on OpenAI fuels tech jitters
Partners such as Oracle Corp. and CoreWeave Inc. tumbled, with the S&P 500 dropping from a record. The Nasdaq 100 lost 1.3%.
April 28, 2026 / 19:25 IST
OpenAI missed several sales targets in 2026 after rival Anthropic PBC gained ground in the coding and enterprise markets, according to the Wall Street Journal.
A selloff in technology giants dragged down stocks as concerns resurfaced over whether vast investments in artificial intelligence will pay off just as traders gear up for a slew of megacap results.
The industry that’s powered this month’s equity rally got hit on a news report that OpenAI failed to meet its own goals for new user acquisition and sales, fueling internal concerns the firm may struggle to support its AI infrastructure spending. Partners such as Oracle Corp. and CoreWeave Inc. tumbled, with the S&P 500 dropping from a record. The Nasdaq 100 lost 1.3%.
OpenAI missed several sales targets in 2026 after rival Anthropic PBC gained ground in the coding and enterprise markets, according to the Wall Street Journal. ChatGPT didn’t hit the goal of one billion weekly active users by the end of 2025 while the subscriber-defection rate remained a challenge, it said.
The news came just as a group of big techs that represent a quarter of the S&P 500’s value get ready to release their earnings. Alphabet Inc., Microsoft Corp., Amazon.com Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. are set to report results Wednesday, followed by Apple Inc. a day later.
“In a stock market where earnings expectations are rising even faster than stock prices, any misstep involving AI-related demand or capital budget expenditures from one of the four Magnificent Seven companies reporting Wednesday could easily give this market second thoughts about how far it has run in the past month,” said Dennis Follmer at Montis Financial.
Oil eased from intraday highs after the United Arab Emirates announced a historic decision to exit OPEC, nine weeks into the US–Israel war on Iran that has reshaped global oil flows and cut off millions of barrels per day of Middle Eastern supply from the market.
President Donald Trump convened his national security team to discuss Iran’s proposal to end a war now in its third month and which has left thousands dead across the Middle East, as well as disrupted energy supplies.