US stock futures fell on Friday following a tech rout led by chip giant Nvidia (NVDA), with AI skepticism still dogging Wall Street in the wait for a fresh report on inflation.

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures (YM=F) led the retreated, falling 0.5%. S&P 500 futures (ES=F) moved 0.3% lower, while those on the Nasdaq 100 (NQ=F) shed 0.2% on the heels of sharp closing losses for the tech-heavy indexes.

AI continues to dictate the conversation, as shares of Block (XYZ) jumped more than 20%.The move came after CEO Jack Dorsey said the company will cut nearly half its workforce, moving from 10,000 to around 6,000, as AI tools reshape how the business will operate. He said he believes "the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion" within the next year.

On Thursday, Nvidia broke a long run of gains to sink 5.5% despite strong earnings, amid mounting skepticism around whether sky-high AI spending can be maintained.

Elsewhere in corporate news, Netflix (NFLX) shares surged after the company said it was dropping out of the battle to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), essentially clinching the deal for Paramount Skydance (PSKY).

On the macro front, eyes now turn to January’s producer price index, due Friday morning. Economists expect headline wholesale inflation to rise to 0.3% for the month, with core PPI — which excludes volatile food and energy prices — also forecast to increase to 0.3%.

Netflix (NFLX) has walked away from the battle to buy Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), leaving rival bidder Paramount Skydance (PSKY) free to clinch a $111 billion deal for the storied Hollywood studio.

Shares in Netflix jumped over 8% before the bell on Friday, a sign investors were glad its pursuit had ended. WBD stock fell 2%, while Paramount shares were up 9%.

Bloomberg reports:

The streaming industry leader said that while it believed its deal would have passed muster with regulators and created shareholder value, it didn’t want to keep bidding.

“We’ve always been disciplined, and at the price required to match Paramount Skydance’s latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive,” Netflix said Thursday in a statement. Instead, it will keep investing in its business, including about $20 billion this year on films, TV shows and other entertainment offerings.

... The takeover fight has been contentious, in Hollywood and in Washington. Both Netflix co-Chief Executive Officer Ted Sarandos and Paramount CEO David Ellison made pilgrimages to the US capital this week to meet with lawmakers.

Sarandos spent about an hour on Thursday with officials in the Trump administration.

Read more here.

Intuit (INTU) stock fell 3% before the bell on Friday after reporting stronger-than-expected results for its second quarter revenue, but its outlook for the current quarter missed analyst estimates.

NCR Atleos (NATL) stock jumped 15% during premarket trading after Brinks Co (BCO) announced on Thursday that it will acquire NCR in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $6.6 billion.

Rocket Companies, Inc. (RKT) stock rose 7% during premarket hours after quarterly earnings beat analysts estimates.

CoreWeave (CRWV) stock fell 9% before the bell on Friday after announcing that it expects its capital expenditure to double in 2026. The AI cloud computing company said it will spend in order to scale up its AI cloud platform in order to manage the computing power that its customers need.

Reuters reports:

The cloud infrastructure technology company expects capital expenditure between $30 billion and $35 billion in 2026, up from $14.9 billion in 2025, driven by purchases of Nvidia's (NVDA) AI chips, rapid data ​center buildouts and energy procurement for powering them.

\\"We made the decision to go ahead and to build faster so that we can deliver more infrastructure,\\" CEO Michael Intrator told Reuters in an interview.

\\"It puts some short-term pressure on the margins,\\" he said, but added that the build-out was helping the company secure stable contracts.

\\"Q1 is going to be the low point, and then it's going to build from there,\\" he said, referring to margins. CoreWeave's ‌adjusted operating income margin fell to 6% in ⁠the December quarter from 16% a year ago.

All of the company's substantial capital expenses were tied to already signed customer contracts, CFO Nitin Agrawal said in the company's earnings call.

Read more here.

Block (XYZ) shares surged more than 24% in premarket trading after Jack Dorsey announced the payments company would lay off nearly half of its staff. The move was part of a major bet in artificial intelligence that came alongside the release of its fourth quarter earnings report.

\\"Today we're making one of the hardest decisions in the history of our company: we're reducing our organization by nearly half, from over 10,000 people to just under 6,000. that means over 4,000 of you are being asked to leave or entering into consultation,\\" Dorsey wrote in a post on X on Thursday.

\\"Something has changed,\\" Dorsey wrote, framing the decision as a risk intended to position the company for long-term growth. He cited new artificial intelligence tools that can automate work as the reason for the shift, noting that AI is \\"enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company.\\"

we're making @blocks smaller today. here's my note to the company.

####

today we're making one of the hardest decisions in the history of our company: we're reducing our organization by nearly half, from over 10,000 people to just under 6,000. that means over 4,000 of you are…

— jack (@jack) February 26, 2026

In the fourth quarter, Block reported adjusted earnings per share of $0.65, in line with Wall Street estimates. Revenue of $6.25 billion slightly beat expectations of $6.21 billion, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Block also raised its full-year guidance. The company, which supports the CashApp and Square platforms, said it expects gross profit growth of 18% year over year in 2026 and adjusted operating income of $3.20 billion or 26% margin.

Dell (DELL) forecast fiscal 2027 revenue above Wall Street estimates on Thursday, betting on growing demand for its ‌artificial intelligence-optimized servers. Its shares rose over 12% in premarket ‌trading.

Reuters reports:

Big Tech firms, such as Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN) and Meta (META), are expected to spend at least $630 ​billion to build AI infrastructure this year, which would boost demand for vendors like Dell and rival Super Micro Computer (SMCI).

... Dell expects AI servers revenue to grow 103% to about $50 billion ​in fiscal ​2027.

The company said it has more than ​4,000 AI server customers, including ‌Elon Musk's AI startup xAI and CoreWeave.

Dell forecast annual revenue of $138 billion to $142 billion, above analysts' average estimate of $125.54 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.

Read more here.

Reuters reports:

Zscaler (ZS) on Thursday posted a wider net loss in the second quarter, citing higher spending on sales, marketing, ‌and research and development in a competitive market, sending shares of ‌the cloud security firm down roughly 9% in extended trading.

The results come when IT budgets remain ​tight and clients spend cautiously on large deals amid economic uncertainty, even though cybersecurity budgets face less pressure than general capital outlays.

Zscaler provides cloud-based zero trust security, which is designed to eliminate the need for legacy firewalls and virtual private networks (VPNs) ‌by authenticating each connection rather ⁠than granting broader network access.

Zscaler, which competes with Palo Alto Networks and Cloudflare, reported a net loss of $34.3 million in ​the ​quarter ended January 31, widening sharply from ​a net loss of $7.7 million a ‌year earlier.

Read more here.

Bloomberg reports:

Netflix (NFLX) Inc. dropped out of the fight to buy Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. (WBD), clearing the way for rival bidder Paramount Skydance (PSKY) Corp. to clinch its $111 billion deal for the historic Hollywood studio.

“The transaction we negotiated would have created shareholder value with a clear path to regulatory approval,” Netflix said Thursday in a statement. “However, we’ve always been disciplined, and at the price required to match Paramount Skydance’s latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive, so we are declining to match the Paramount Skydance bid.

Netflix shares jumped as much as 13% in after-hours trading, indicating that investors were happy to see the company walk away from the deal. Warner Bros. fell with investors no longer anticipating a bidding war. Paramount shares were unchanged.

Netflix inked an $82.7 billion deal, including assumed debt, to acquire the studio and streaming businesses of Warner Bros. in December, but repeated counteroffers from Paramount for the entire company opened up the bidding again. Warner Bros. deemed Paramount’s latest $31-a-share offer superior on Thursday.

Read more here.