Viral Doomsday Report Lays Bare Wall Street’s Deep Anxiety About AI F… | David Uberti, Read more
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Viral Doomsday Report Lays Bare Wall Street’s Deep Anxiety About AI Future
Citrini Research’s thought experiment rattles investors already wary of tech disruptions
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Several Blackstone employees are visible through windows of the Blackstone building.
Shares of Blackstone, one of those named in the report, declined Monday. Michael Nagle/Bloomberg News
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.7%, or 822 points, on Monday, driven by fears of AI disruption and new trade-policy uncertainty.
- Software firms DataDog, CrowdStrike, Zscaler and IBM plunged over 9%, with IBM’s 13% decline its worst since 2000.
- Bonds rallied and precious metals gained as investors sought safer assets, after President Trump announced a new 15% global tariff.
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- The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.7%, or 822 points, on Monday, driven by fears of AI disruption and new trade-policy uncertainty.
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It doesn’t take much to cause tumultuous stock moves in a market top-heavy with tech shares and jumpy about the prospects for artificial intelligence.
But nothing underlines the sensitivity of stocks right now quite like what happened on Monday, when one of the factors behind the Dow’s 800-point drop was a 7,000-word hypothetical.
A viral report by Citrini Research tapped into a new strain of fears about AI, painting a dark portrait of a future in which technological change inspires a race to the bottom in white-collar knowledge work. Concerns of hyperscalers overspending are out. Worries of software-industry disruption don’t go far enough. The “global intelligence crisis” is about to hit.
The new, broader question: What if AI is so bullish for the economy that it is actually bearish?
“For the entirety of modern economic history, human intelligence has been the scarce input,” Citrini wrote in a post it described as a scenario dated June 2028, not a prediction. “We are now experiencing the unwind of that premium.”
Many of Monday’s moves roughly aligned with the situation outlined by Citrini, in which fast-advancing AI tools allow spending cuts across industries, sparking mass white-collar unemployment and in turn leading to financial contagion.
Software firms Datadog, CrowdStrike and Zscaler each plunged more than 9%. International Business Machines’ 13% decline was its worst one-day performance since 2000. American Express, KKR and Blackstone —all name-checked by Citrini—tumbled.
That anxiety, coupled with renewed uncertainty about trade policy from Washington, weighed down major indexes Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average led declines, falling 1.7%, or 822 points. The S&P 500 shed 1%, while the Nasdaq composite retreated 1.1%.
Fears of AI disruption have rolled across software, private credit, insurance and wealth-management firms in recent weeks. Earlier this month, transport stocks had one of their worst days ever after a onetime karaoke machine-maker touted new AI tools to streamline trucking. Many of those stocks soon after clawed back much of their losses, leaving some investors to describe the market as trigger-happy.
The pricing of AI-related disruption “is all happening sooner than most folks anticipated,” said Jordan Rizzuto, chief investment officer for GammaRoad Capital Partners. “Such is the nature of an accelerating technology.”
While investors on Monday kept rotating money into sectors such as energy and consumer staples, those industries carry relatively little weight in major indexes. Rizzuto also noted that the growing popularity of defensive plays can suggest Wall Street is growing more cautious about the road ahead.
“Be careful what kind of rotation you wish for,” he said.
Over the weekend, President Trump said he would increase to 15% his new global tariff aimed at replacing many of the import taxes ruled illegal by the Supreme Court last week. While that has injected yet more uncertainty into trade deals or ongoing talks, many analysts believe the economic impact will be relatively limited.
“We advise investors not to overreact to headlines,” Edward Jones strategist Angelo Kourkafas said.
Still, individual companies waiting for potential tariff refunds or planning new investments may not be immune. Trade-sensitive stocks including American Eagle Outfitters, Ralph Lauren and Yeti Holdings slumped Monday. So did logistics and transit firms, pushing the Dow Jones Transportation Average down 2.8%.
Bonds rallied, benefiting from investors’ flight to safer assets. The 10-year Treasury yield settled Monday at 4.026%, its lowest close since late November. Precious metals also resumed their rally. Front-month gold futures gained 2.9% to $5,204.70 a troy ounce, while silver rose 5.2% to $86.52 a troy ounce.
Monday’s market swings extended a run of AI-linked volatility. A small research outfit that has garnered a huge Substack following for macro and thematic stock research, Citrini said in its new post that software firms, payment processors and other companies formed “one long daisy chain of correlated bets on white-collar productivity growth” that AI is poised to disrupt.
Private credit firms, which have loaned huge sums to the tech industry in recent years, were among those hit Monday. Blue Owl fell 3.4%, while Apollo Global Management declined 5%. Lenders stretching from Wall Street’s biggest banks to regional counterparts also sold off.
“From a credit standpoint, the key risk is speed of disruption rather than its existence,” UBS analysts told clients recently. “A rapid shock within 12 months could overwhelm contractual protections, but we view a multi-year adjustment as far more likely.”
Minute Briefing
Stocks Fall Sharply on AI and Trade Concerns
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Shares in DoorDash also veered 6.6% lower Monday after Citrini’s Substack note called the delivery app a “poster child” for how new tools would upend companies that monetize interpersonal friction. In the research firm’s scenario, AI agents would help both drivers and customers navigate food deliveries at much lower costs.
In a social-media post Monday responding to Citrini, DoorDash co-founder Andy Fang said the rise of “agentic commerce” would require his firm to evolve in ways that work for both AI agents and real-world merchants.
“The ground is shifting underneath our feet,” Fang wrote, “and the industry is going to need to adapt to it.”
Write to David Uberti at david.uberti@wsj.com
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Appeared in the February 24, 2026, print edition as 'AI Report Goes Viral, Sets Off Plunge In Stocks'.