Monday, November 2, 2026
Intel's Worst Day on Record Sends the Nasdaq Down 2.9% as the AI Cash-Burn Selloff Deepens
Key Indicators
S&P 500 (Fri close)
7,580.07
-1.82% (down)Nasdaq Composite (Fri close)
25,437.00
-2.86% (down)Dow Jones Industrial Average (Fri close)
51,770.31
-1.09% (down)Market Recap
Friday's close: Nasdaq has its worst day since June
U.S. stocks closed sharply lower on Friday, October 30. The S&P 500 fell 140.32 points, or 1.82%, to 7,580.07, the Nasdaq Composite dropped 747.73 points, or 2.86%, to 25,437.00, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 572.25 points, or 1.09%, to 51,770.31. The Nasdaq now sits 7.8% below its all-time closing high of October 6. All three indexes finished the week lower, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq posted monthly losses while the Dow gained in October. The S&P 500 tech sector had its biggest monthly percentage loss since March 2025, and communication services had its worst month since April 2022. Breadth was poor: Nasdaq decliners outnumbered advancers about 3 to 1. U.S. markets are open today, Monday, November 2.
Intel falls 28.6% and chip stocks crater on AI spending worries
Intel plunged 28.6% after fourth-quarter revenue guidance of $15.0 to $16.0 billion came in well below the consensus near $17.07 billion, even though third-quarter adjusted EPS of $0.52 beat estimates and revenue of $16.51 billion was in line. Reports described it as the stock's worst session on record. The chip index fell 7.2% and is down more than 15% for the month, with Nvidia down 4.2% and AMD down 10.9%. Server makers Dell and HP fell 10.8% and 9.6%. Amazon, which missed third-quarter EPS ($1.89 versus roughly $1.96) and saw trailing free cash flow turn to a $42.4 billion outflow with 2026 capex still guided near $220 billion, pared its early losses as the session went on; its final close could not be verified. Crypto-linked stocks Coinbase, Strategy and Robinhood fell between 7.2% and 10.6% after reports that hackers stole $6.3 billion from Binance. Energy was a bright spot: Exxon Mobil rose 2.2% and Chevron 2.8% after beating profit expectations.
Earnings season remains strong underneath the selloff
Despite the price action, fundamentals are holding up. With 299 S&P 500 companies reported, 82% have beaten consensus expectations, according to LSEG, and analysts expect third-quarter S&P 500 earnings growth of 31.6% year over year. Volume was heavy at 19.87 billion shares against a 20-day average of 17.26 billion. Friday's selling reflects valuation and return-on-investment concerns about AI capital spending rather than a broad earnings miss. Starbucks fell 1.8% after forecasting an annual revenue decline. Closing figures for Treasury yields, oil and the VIX on Friday could not be verified this run and are omitted.
Concept of the Day
Drawdown
A drawdown is the decline in an investment's value from its prior peak to a later trough, usually expressed as a percentage. If an index peaks at 100 and falls to 92.2, it is in a 7.8% drawdown. The maximum drawdown is the largest such peak-to-trough decline over a given period, and it is one of the most intuitive measures of risk because it describes what an investor who bought at the worst moment would have experienced. Drawdowns are asymmetric. A 10% loss needs an 11.1% gain to recover, a 20% loss needs 25%, and a 50% loss needs 100%. That math is why large losses are so damaging to long-run compounding and why professionals pay attention to how deep and how long drawdowns last, not just to average returns or volatility. Market participants often use rough labels: a decline of 10% or more from a peak is called a correction, and 20% or more is called a bear market. Drawdown is measured from the peak, so it can look large even after a recovery has begun, and it depends on the start date chosen. It also says nothing about why prices fell. A drawdown driven by a sector-specific repricing, such as a reassessment of AI spending, can look very different from one driven by a recession.
Why it matters
The Nasdaq closed Friday at 25,437.00, 7.8% below its October 6 record close, after its worst day since June and a monthly decline in October. That is a drawdown short of the 10% correction threshold but moving toward it, concentrated in chips and AI-linked names: the chip index is down more than 15% for the month. For investors, the useful questions are how deep a decline can go before it forces a sale, and whether position sizing assumes drawdowns of this size are possible.
What to Watch
Fri, Nov 6
Employment Situation (October jobs report)
Payrolls and wages will shape expectations for the Fed's next move at a moment when stocks are already under pressure.