Stocks retreat as tech mood sours, oil prices jump

Equities sank Thursday as tech firms resumed their downward spiral after a mixed bag of earnings from Wall Street titans, while rising oil prices soured sentiment. AI-linked companies continued the rollercoaster ride they have endured since hitting record highs in June amid worries over colossal investment sums and their timeline for profitability, with growing debt-servicing costs adding to the uncertainty. A blockbuster quarterly report from Elon Musk's SpaceX, its first since listing in June, provided what some hoped would be solid support heading into a crucial earnings season, helping push all three main Wall Street indexes higher Wednesday. But mixed after-hours releases from Meta and Tesla muddied the waters again for investors. Tesla announced lower profits in July-September and cut its capital spending forecast for this year, while Facebook-parent Meta lifted its estimates for how much it would spend on artificial intelligence. Shares of Tesla shed 1.3 percent at the start of trading in New York, while those of Meta slumped 6.7 percent. "Risk-off sentiment is returning amid high geopolitical tensions and a swirl of worries about financing the AI juggernaut," noted Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist at Wealth Club. Wall Street's main indices moved lower, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropping 1.3 percent. The reports come as...