Oracle shares plunge on 'AI bubble' worries, silver hits record high

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Silver prices jumped to their highest levels ever on speculation the industrial metal may be hit with Trump tariffs. Meanwhile, the ASX finished its week sharply higher, while US tech giant Oracle shed around AUD $100 billion in market value on concerns it may be overspending on artificial intelligence, as finance presenter David Chau explains.

Transcript

00:00Well, fears of an AI bubble are back and the biggest casualty was Oracle, the US tech giant

00:07founded by billionaire and Trump ally Larry Ellison. Around $100 billion was wiped off

00:12its market value after its shares plunged 11% to a six-month low. That's after the

00:17company revealed its debt pile has surged to about $150 billion as it ramps up spending

00:23on artificial intelligence. Now, the world's biggest companies have been spending trillions

00:27on developing AI and its infrastructure. But it's gone to a point where people are questioning

00:32whether this extravagant spending will actually pay off for most companies. So that led to

00:37a slight fall on America's tech index, the NASDAQ, but record highs for the Dow and S&P

00:42as people sold out of tech and bought into sectors which aren't as overvalued. Meanwhile,

00:48the Australian share market jumped 1.2% thanks to a sharp rise in gold, copper and zinc prices,

00:53but not oil or iron ore, which led to big gains for local mining stocks. While ANZ rose,

01:00even though it's getting sued by its former CEO Shane Elliott, after it took away $13.5 million

01:05from his bonus. In currencies, the Aussie dollar is buying 66.6 US cents and the price of silver

01:12has surged well above $60 US an ounce, which is a new record high. One reason is because the US

01:18government recently added silver to its list of critical minerals and their speculation President

01:23Trump might impose tariffs on it at some point. Its price has more than doubled since the year began,

01:29so it's doing even better than gold and Bitcoin, the so-called digital gold, which is actually down

01:34for the year and not really a safe haven asset. And that's finance.

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