The Nasdaq Composite was down 1,370.24 points, or 5.32%, at 24,366.28 as of 11:05:46 a.m. Eastern Thursday, according to Yahoo Finance. The decline put the index in correction territory as investors sold AI-linked chip and data-center stocks.
The S&P 500 was down 269.10 points, or 3.50%, at 7,419.52 as of 11:05:04 a.m. Eastern, according to its Yahoo quote. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1,238.57 points, or 2.32%, at 52,117.55 as of 11:01:09 a.m. Eastern, according to its Yahoo quote. Each reading has its own timestamp; the indexes continued to move.
Earlier, at 10:38 a.m. Eastern, the Nasdaq was down 1,046.92 points, or 4.07%, at 24,689.60. A correction is a decline of at least 10% from a record close.
SpaceX and Tesla, the companies led by Elon Musk, were each down about 10% as of 10:58 a.m. Eastern, CNBC reported. In the prior session, Tesla fell 3.3% and SpaceX dropped 3.8% after voters rebuked Musk-backed Republicans, according to a November 4 IBD report updated at 4:03 p.m. Eastern. CNBC reported that Democratic control of Congress could bring investigations of Musk’s federal contracts and companies’ ties to Washington. Citing Federal Election Commission filings, CNBC said his America PAC spent nearly $87 million across 44 federal races, with 93% of its spending going to races Republicans lost. Musk spent at least $474 million on the midterms overall, including $224 million in Texas, where the Republican Senate and governor candidates he backed lost, CNBC reported. These are political risks investors are weighing, not a finding that Congress has already changed the companies’ contracts.
The selling extended across the AI supply chain. Nvidia, Broadcom and Oracle were each down about 9%, Qualcomm had fallen 13%, and the iShares Semiconductor ETF, or SOXX, was down 11%, all as of 10:58 a.m. Eastern in CNBC’s report. CNBC tied Qualcomm’s decline to a weaker-than-expected earnings outlook.
Data-center companies also fell sharply: CoreWeave was down 14%, Nebius 17% and Iren 19%, as of 10:58 a.m. Eastern, CNBC reported. The network said investors feared that Democratic wins in Congress and important gubernatorial races could bring more regulation of the AI buildout. That is a market concern about future policy, not an enacted nationwide halt to data centers.
One stock went the opposite way. Earlier, AppLovin was up 31.6% as of 10:12 a.m. Eastern after reporting record third-quarter revenue of $2.18 billion, up 55% from a year earlier, with net income up 72% to $1.44 billion and diluted earnings of $4.30 a share, according to the company’s results release. The marketing-platform maker also bought back $1.4 billion of its own stock in the quarter.
The labor market offered a counterpoint: initial jobless claims fell to 189,000 last week, the fewest since mid-July, the Labor Department reported – and the October jobs report arrives Friday at 8:30 a.m. from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
For investors holding broad stock-index funds, a decline in the S&P 500 reduces the market value of their holdings. Tech-heavy funds can move more sharply when chip stocks fall. These are market-price changes, and the effect on any portfolio depends on its holdings. Thursday’s jobless-claims report points to a still-firm labor market, but one economic release cannot settle the outlook for growth or future stock prices.
JBizNews Desk | Wall Street
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