Trucking, real estate stocks latest victims of AI fears

Investors are anxious heading into the final trading session of the week, after AI concerns gripped equity markets again to trigger a fresh sell-off — this time, hitting the logistics and real estate sectors.

Here’s how some of the worst-hit stocks were faring in premarket trading on Friday.

On Thursday, logistics stocks became the latest victims of the AI fear trade, thanks to a new tool from AI firm Algorhythm Holdings. The tool, called SemiCab, touts itself as “the world’s most well-orchestrated transportation platform.”

Logistics giants C.H. Robinson and RXO — which fell as much as 20% each on Thursday — moved in opposite directions ahead of the bell on Friday morning. The former rebounded slightly, adding 0.7%, while RXO extended losses to decline a further 1.5%.

On Thursday, a sell-off of commercial real estate companies entered its second day. CBRE was among the hardest hit, extending its losses into Friday’s premarket session with a 0.6% decline.

Jones Lang LaSalle was marginally lower ahead of Friday’s opening bell, while Hudson Pacific Properties was flat. The stocks lost almost 8% and 4%, respectively on Thursday.

Elsewhere in the sector, SL Green Realty, which dropped 5% on Thursday, rebounded to gain 0.4% in Friday’s premarket session.

Software stocks — which were at the center of a historic sell-off just last week — also got caught up in Thursday’s drawdown, but were mixed on Friday morning.

Palantir Technologies extended the previous day’s losses to move 1.5% lower, while Autodesk and Salesforce were both down 0.1%.

The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV), which posted a loss of around 3% on Thursday, was last seen trading down 0.3%. However, the fund — which entered a bear market last month — is now around 23% lower on a year-to-date basis.

All of the “Magnificent Seven” tech stocks ended Thursday’s session in negative territory, with most of them moving lower on Friday morning. Tesla led losses among the cohort on a 0.8% pullback, while Nvidia was 0.1% lower after earlier trading above the flatline.

“While the comprehensive impact on these industries and individual names remains to be seen, we view it as a validation of AI’s monetization potential,” strategists at UBS said in a Friday morning note. “The latest advances also underscore the transformative nature of AI, which makes it a critical component of an investor’s portfolio.”

They added that focusing solely on the U.S. information technology sector was “unlikely to fully capture the direct beneficiaries of AI,” and recommended investors diversify across sectors and geographies.

Speaking to CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Friday, Wedbush Securities Global Head of Tech Research Dan Ives said that although some software names will be casualties of AI’s rise, investors should not discount the entire sector.  

“Is Adobe a potential loser? Are software names like UiPath, some of the pure play names? Yeah,” he said. “But is Salesforce, ServiceNow? No – I think [they] are going to be core parts of the play in the AI revolution, the use cases.”

Ives argued that Wall Street is miscalculating “the ripple effect that we’re going to see across tech” thanks to AI.  

“I think what you’re seeing here is just a massive dislocation,” he said of the software sell-off. “I would say in my career, it’s the most disconnected call that I’ve ever seen, where you’re essentially treating the sector like it’s a structurally broken sector.”

— CNBC’s Sarah Min, Michelle Fox and Sean Conlon contributed to this report.