Short sellers of artificial intelligence-related stocks raked in bumper profits after the smashing debut of low-cost AI models from China’s DeepSeek spooked Wall Street, with bets against Nvidia NVDA-Q yielding record profits totaling more than $6-billion.
Traders betting against AI-darling Nvidia earned profits of about $6.6-billion – the biggest single-day move ever on the stock – according to data analytics firm Ortex.
Nvidia saw $593-billion wiped off its market value on Monday, in the biggest single-session loss ever for any company, after Chinese startup DeepSeek launched AI models that it said are at par or better than industry-leading models in the United States, at a fraction of the cost.
Short sellers of chipmaker Broadcom AVGO-Q also earned more than $2-billion in profits.
Other AI-related stocks, such as server-maker Super Micro SMCI-Q, data-center operator Equinix EQIX-Q and energy provider Vistra VST-N, also witnessed heavy losses on Monday, giving investors betting against these firms combined profits of more than $900-million, according to Ortex.
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