Wall Street was painted red; Netflix and Block are soaring

17:20

Wall Street declines continue; The Dow Jones sheds 1.3%, the S&P 500 falls 0.7%, the Nasdaq loses 0.8%. The fear index (VIX) jumps about 10%.

City downgraded Fresh dollar from “buy” to “neutral”, which caused the stock to drop by almost 2%.

stock Dell Technologies Jumps more than 17% after posting strong results for the fourth quarter. The company earned $3.89 per share, when the early expectation was $3.53 per share. Revenues amounted to33.38 billion dollars, they also defeated the forecasts which stood at 31.73 billion dollars.

16:30

Wall Street markets opened lower on the last day of the trading week for the week and for the month of February: the Dow Jones sheds 1%, the S&P 500 falls 0.9%, the Nasdaq loses 1.3%. The fear index (VIX) jumps more than 14%.

Netflix Jumps 7.5% after the streaming giant refused to raise its offer for Warner after Warner Bros. Discovery said yesterday that Paramount’s $111 billion offer to buy the company is a “better deal” than the one it signed with the streaming giant Netflix in December, a deal valued at $83 billion.

The report came after it was announced last week that the company announced that it would return to talks with Paramount, for a period of one week during which it would be possible to receive competing offers. This means, according to reports around the world, that the WBD board is now giving Netflix the option of four working days to make an improved offer or give up the acquisition race.

The payment company block Jumps 18% after CEO Jack Dorsey announced in an e-mail he sent yesterday to his shareholders that the company will cut nearly half of its employees, in what is considered the second wave of layoffs for the company in the past year.

Block, the company behind the payment applications Square and Cash App, will, according to Dorsey, lay off close to half of its 10,000 employees after less than a year ago about 930 employees were laid off, and this despite the fact that Block, which is traded on the New York Stock Exchange with a market value of $33 billion, is a profitable company that generated a net profit of about half a billion dollars in the third quarter of last year.

In total, the company earned $1.3 billion in the past fiscal year, with gross profit jumping 24% to $2.87 billion, in what Dorsey called a “strong year.” Immediately after the publication of the email, the company’s stock jumped by about 24% in late trading.

Nvidia decreases by about 2.5%.

15:20

Wall Street futures are trading lower on the last trading day of the month, which did not help tech stocks amid concerns about the future of artificial intelligence. The Nasdaq index is expected to register a 2.5% decline during the month, and also its worst monthly performance since March 2025.

The S&P 500 index is also on track for a decrease, albeit a smaller one, of 0.4% in February, while the Dow Jones index is expected to register a monthly increase of 1.2%.

At this time, Nasdaq futures are down about 0.7%, as are Dow and S&P 500 futures. In Europe, trading is mixed.

A document published this week by the independent research body Citrini Research, “The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis” managed to ignite sharp declines on Wall Street earlier this week. The basic argument he makes: If AI continues to improve at its current rate, the markets’ problem may not be disappointment, but AI success. At the beginning of the report, the authors explicitly state the paradox: what will happen if the optimism towards AI continues to turn out to be justified, and precisely because of this will become negative for the markets.

The viral document did not remain within the limits of the theoretical discussion. On Monday, what Bloomberg, among others, called the “AI fear trade” developed on Wall Street, as investors rushed to reduce exposure to stocks that are seen as particularly vulnerable to possible disruptions from advanced artificial intelligence.

Thus, a share IBM fell 13% in one day, its sharpest drop since 2000. At the same time, companies like Doordash , American Express , KKR andBlackstone lost at least 6%, while Mastercard, visa Capital One and Apollo fell by 4% or more. Software and cyber stocks also suffered declines, and the whole event made it clear that it was due

Nvidia continued the negative streak with a 1% drop in pre-trade. On the previous trading day, the stock was down more than 5%. Investors attributed the decline to concerns surrounding the company’s deal with OpenAI, and weak sentiment on the artificial intelligence issue.

OpenAI, in any case, completes a fundraising round of 110 billion dollars with the backing of Amazon, Nvidia and Softbank.

Amazon invested $50 billion, Nvidia invested $30 billion and SoftBank invested $30 billion in the round, OpenAI said in a statement it published today. The investment boosts OpenAI to a pre-money valuation of $730 billion, a big jump from its $500 billion valuation in a secondary offering in October. More investors are expected to join as the round progresses, OpenAI said.

“These partnerships expand our global reach, deepen our infrastructure and strengthen our balance sheet so we can bring leading artificial intelligence to more people, more businesses and more communities around the world,” OpenAI said.

In addition to its participation in the funding round, Amazon announced a multi-year strategic partnership with OpenAI. The companies will develop custom models to help run Amazon’s customer-facing applications as part of the agreement.

The producer price index rose by 0.5% in January, when according to the early forecast the increase was expected to be 0.3%.

The dollar has been strengthening in recent hours, trading above NIS 3.15. Yossi Menashe, joint CEO of Altshuler Shaham Financial Services, commented on the increase in the dollar and noted that “the main reason for this is the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the geopolitical situation and the talks between the US and Iran. Despite the optimistic statements from both sides, it seems that the Iranian army continues to train and the US concentrates forces in the Middle East, so the winds of war are still blowing.” At the same time, there were declines in the US markets – another element that supported the strengthening of the dollar.”

After weeks of preparations, global tensions seem to be reaching a peak in recent hours. China calls on its citizens not to come to Iran and those who are currently in Iran to leave the country, Canada’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on its citizens to leave Iran now as long as it is possible to do so safely, and the US Embassy in Israel announced the evacuation of non-emergency workers and family members of workers due to “security risks”.

The New York Times reported that the American ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, addressed the embassy employees in an email: “Those who want to leave, should do so today.” The report also stated that the ambassador urged the workers to board a flight wherever they could. “Try to find a seat on every flight that you can finally continue to Washington DC, your first priority is to get out of the country.”

These are against the background of the major military deployment in the Middle East region, when nearly 20 American refueling planes landed in Benghazi tonight and have already arrived in Israel, and the aircraft carrier Gerald Ford is arriving on the shores of Israel and joining the large forces that have accumulated in the area in recent weeks.

The Warner Brothers Discovery company said yesterday (Thursday) that Paramount’s offer of $111 billion to purchase the company is a “better deal” than the one it signed with the streaming giant Netflix in December, a deal estimated at $83 billion. This report comes after last week it was announced that the company announced that it would return to talks with Paramount, for a period of one week during which it would be possible to receive competing offers. This means, according to reports around the world, that the WBD board is now giving Netflix the option of four working days to make an improved offer or give up the acquisition race.

In the US, the number of initial unemployment claims in the US stood at 212,000 in the week ending February 21 – a moderate increase compared to 208,000 in the previous week. However, the figure was lower than forecasts, about 215,000 claims.

Meaning: the American labor market continues to demonstrate relative stability. Although there was a slight increase in the number of newly unemployed, the level is still historically low – a figure that may support the notion that the American economy maintains resilience, even against a background of market volatility and fears of a slowdown.

Oil climbed above $67 per barrel after a temporary drop, following yesterday’s announcement that the US and Iran will continue nuclear talks on a technical level next week, after what they said was “significant progress” in Switzerland. The combination of stable employment data, falling yields and geopolitical tensions continues to generate volatility and split investor response between risk assets and safe havens.

Bitcoin, which has weakened since last October (then trading at a record high of over $126,000), has recovered slightly in recent days and is trading around $67,000, after earlier this week it had already fallen below $64,000.

Bloomberg quoted digital assets analyst Gautam Chaugani from the investment bank Bernstein who remains optimistic: “The price levels of bitcoin today are just a crisis of confidence. Nothing is broken and no skeleton will come out of the closet,” the analyst wrote, estimating that by the end of 2026 the price will rise to $150,000. Meanwhile, gold traded with some volatility this week, and its price is above $5,200.