The data center trade is getting hammered Friday, marking its sharpest drop since President Donald Trump’s Rose Garden tariff announcement rattled markets back in April. Goldman Sachs’ AI data center basket was down more than 6 percent by midday, putting it on pace for its worst session since that sell-off.
Nearly every corner of the data center supply chain is getting crushed. Hardware names were among the hardest hit, including storage makers Sandisk $SNDK ( ▲ 7.9% ) , Western Digital $WDC ( ▲ 5.41% ) , and Seagate $STX ( ▲ 4.06% ) . DRAM leader Micron $MU ( ▲ 7.31% ) , one of the S&P 500’s top performers this year, also sold off. Networking stocks slid too, with Cisco $CSCO ( ▲ 2.6% ) and Arista Networks $ANET ( ▲ 5.65% ) moving sharply lower, while builders like Vertiv $VRT ( ▲ 4.57% ) and Emcor $EME ( ▼ 0.29% ) were deep in the red.
The mood around AI has soured throughout the week. Oracle $ORCL ( ▲ 7.58% ) and Broadcom $AVGO ( ▲ 1.98% ) both delivered underwhelming quarterly results, sparking fears about rising debt loads, slowing cloud momentum, and stretched cash flows. Those concerns spilled over into the broader ecosystem on Friday, dragging down companies that have been major beneficiaries of the AI data center boom.
Retail dip buyers, usually quick to swarm these pullbacks, have been notably absent so far as the market heads into the weekend.