US pre-open: Futures fall as AI IPO doubts grow, oil continues to climb

14th Sep 2026 11:23

(Sharecast News) - Wall Street futures were in the red ahead of the open on Monday as investors assessed fresh uncertainty around the artificial‑intelligence IPO pipeline and monitored another jump in oil prices.

As of 1230 BST, Dow Jones futures were down 0.18%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures had the indices opening 0.65% and 1.57%, respectively.

The Dow closed 509.19 points higher on Friday, rising for the first time in five days after a much-anticipated inflation report cemented expectations for a Federal Reserve rate hike next week.

Futures headed south after an interview with OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman published over the weekend said the company would not pursue a stock‑market listing this year, calling an IPO "ill‑advised" just a month after CFO Sarah Friar suggested the group would go public by 2027 at the latest. The comments add to growing questions over how quickly major AI firms will reach public markets.

Separately, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei used an essay released on Saturday to urge the industry to slow the pace of frontier‑model development due to safety risks. He told CBS News that the biggest challenge for any slowdown would be how to respond if China continued to accelerate its own AI efforts. The weekend's remarks come amid heightened scrutiny of the sector following warnings from a former Anthropic researcher about existential risks.

The AI boom has been a major driver of equity‑market gains and corporate investment in recent years, but the latest developments suggest the scale and timing of public‑market benefits may be less certain than previously assumed.

Energy prices were also drawing an amount of investor attention prior to the open as oil prices rose more than 2% on Sunday night after Saudi Arabia shut a key pipeline that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz. Before the open, Brent crude futures were up 2.66% at $107.39 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate crude was up 2.44% at $102.49 a barrel.

In the corporate space, Dave & Busters Entertainment was scheduled to publish its latest quarterly earnings figures after the close.

No major data points were scheduled for release on Monday.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com