Key keywords: tech shares, consumer spending concerns, Fed interest rate hikes, semiconductor stock volatility, enterprise IT budget cuts, Nasdaq 100 performance, Q3 2024 tech earnings, inflationary pressure U.S. tech stocks extended their losing streak for the third consecutive trading week as growing concerns over both consumer and enterprise spending weigh heavily on sector valuations, erasing nearly $800 billion in market value from the Nasdaq 100 index since the start of September. The core trigger for the downturn comes from dual pressures on spending: persistent inflation has squeezed household disposable income, leading to sharp declines in consumer purchases of electronics, premium streaming subscriptions, and other tech-related discretionary goods, while higher borrowing costs driven by 11 Federal Reserve rate hikes since 2022 have pushed enterprises to slash IT budgets for the second half of 2024. Recent data from the U.S. Department of Commerce shows that consumer spending on durable tech goods fell 3.2% month-over-month in August, the steepest drop since the 2022 holiday season, while a survey by Gartner found that 62% of large U.S. corporations plan to cut IT spending by an average of 9% in Q4, with cloud service subscriptions, hardware upgrades, and AI pilot projects taking the biggest hits. Semiconductor stocks, which led the first-half 2024 tech rally on AI hype, have been the hardest hit so far: shares of NVIDIA fell 11% in the past two weeks, while AMD and Intel dropped 8.7% and 7.2% respectively, after leading chipmakers warned of weakening order volumes from PC and data center clients. Mega-cap tech giants have also faced significant pressure: Apple revised its Q3 iPhone sales forecast down by 8% earlier this month, citing soft consumer demand in both North America and China, while Microsoft noted in a recent investor filing that its Azure cloud business growth could slow to 23% in Q3, down from 30% in Q2, as corporate clients scale back non-essential cloud workloads. Market analysts note that the first-half tech rally was driven largely by investor optimism around AI monetization, but many of those expectations have yet to translate into tangible revenue growth for most firms. With the Q3 tech earnings season kicking off next week, investors are closely watching forward guidance from sector leaders to gauge how long the spending slowdown may last. If the Fed moves forward with another 25-basis-point rate hike in November as many market participants expect, financing costs for tech firms will rise further, potentially leading to deeper budget cuts and more downside risk for tech shares in the final quarter of the year.