Dow Jones futures pointed modestly lower Sunday evening after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for slowing the pace of advanced AI model development. The move adds a new variable heading into this week's Federal Reserve meeting, with crude oil and Treasury yields already running hot from last week's trading.
Dow Jones futures opened at 6 p.m. ET alongside S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures, indicated modestly lower after a choppy week for stocks. The market fell for most of last week before rebounding Friday, when Apple, Moderna and NetApp flashed buy signals. Even so, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.6% on the week, while the S&P 500 declined 0.8% and the Nasdaq fell 0.7%, both still above their 50-day moving averages. The small-cap Russell 2000 shed 2.4% and sits below its 50-day line.
Oil And Yields Add Pressure
U.S. crude oil futures spiked 9.4% to $100.05 a barrel last week, even after a 2.4% drop on Friday, with oil up 20% over two weeks amid the widening U.S.-Iran conflict. Meanwhile, the 10-year Treasury yield surged 19 basis points to 4.97%, its highest since nearly hitting 5% in October 2023.
AI Leaders Call For A Pause
Amodei wrote in a blog post Saturday that it was time to slow the pace of improving advanced AI models, saying Anthropic would adopt steps such as independent evaluators. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, posting on X, pledged to use third-party evaluators as well. According to Investor's Business Daily: "Dario is right." That's how Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, responded on X.
The comments followed the resignation of an Anthropic researcher who cited existential AI threats, and Amodei pointed to a July incident in which OpenAI's models hacked AI and robotics startup Hugging Face. Nvidia agreed on Sept. 3 to buy Hugging Face for $12.93 billion. If Anthropic slows down just weeks before a planned IPO that could value the company at $2 trillion, OpenAI could race ahead — and a coordinated slowdown among U.S. firms could let Chinese AI developers leap forward instead.
Fed Decision Looms
Fed policymakers meet Tuesday and Wednesday, with the policy statement due at 2 p.m. ET Wednesday, followed by a press conference from Chairman Kevin Warsh. Markets now see an 87% chance of a rate hike. President Donald Trump reiterated his call for the Fed to lower rates on Sunday, after earlier this month threatening to cut off trade with countries running a trade deficit with the U.S. unless the central bank cuts rates.
For investors, what matters is the market reaction to the Fed decision on Wednesday, Thursday and possibly Friday.
Source: Investor's Business Daily
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