Nasdaq Slides 5.5% Into Correction as AI Stocks Wipe Out Trillions After Midterms
U.S. stocks plunged Thursday as AI and semiconductor shares led a broad selloff that wiped trillions from market value after the midterms.
The Nasdaq Composite fell more than 5.5% into correction territory, at least 10% below its recent high, NBC News reported.
The Nasdaq 100 dropped 6.3% and erased $2.3 trillion in market value. The S&P 500 plunged 4.4% and erased $2.8 trillion.
It was the S&P 500’s worst day since the April 2025 Liberation Day tariffs selloff, and the Dow sank 1,833 points, or 3.4%, the Associated Press reported.
Major indexes closed near 24,315 on the Nasdaq, 7,354 on the S&P 500 and 51,523 on the Dow.
Chipmakers and AI infrastructure names led the plunge after soft earnings and fresh political pressure on data-center buildouts.
Nvidia was the biggest drag on the Dow, falling 9.2% in its largest one-day drop since April 2025, NBC News reported.
Qualcomm slid 9.5% and Arm plunged 13% after earnings that rattled the sector. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 12.3%, its worst day since March 2020, and a DRAM ETF sank about 18%.
SpaceX and Tesla each slid nearly 10%, and on paper Elon Musk’s companies have shed more than $400 billion since the election results.
SanDisk tumbled more than 22%. Micron, Western Digital and AMD each fell about 17%, Seagate dropped 16%, and Intel lost 10.3%, the BBC reported.
The Magnificent Seven collectively shed about $1 trillion in market value in a single session.
Data Centers and Rate Bets
Texas governor-elect Gina Hinojosa pledged a data-center moratorium in the nation’s largest data-center market, amplifying fears of slower AI infrastructure spending, NBC News reported.
“Fresh panic over the AI trade has hit Wall Street hard,” Susannah Streeter, Wealth Club chief investment strategist, told the BBC.
“Fears that the vast sums poured into AI infrastructure may not deliver the returns investors have been banking on are now colliding with the prospect of a sharp slowdown in data centre construction,” Streeter said.
Ed Yardeni of Yardeni Research told NBC News, “I don’t think this is an AI bubble bursting… I think it’s an AI bubble losing some air very, very rapidly…”
“Today is the cold shower that I anticipated might occur after a blue-wave situation,” Yardeni said.
OpenAI president Greg Brockman said communities need more engagement on data centers. Meta’s Dina Powell McCormick said the industry needs to “double and triple down on telling the story,” the BBC reported from a Wall Street Journal Tech conference.
Odds of a December Federal Reserve rate hike were dialed back to about 60% as traders digested the equity rout.
Investors will watch whether Friday’s jobs report and weekend headlines on data-center politics stabilize the AI complex or extend the correction.
The session marked one of the sharpest one-day hits to AI-linked equities since the spring tariff shock, leaving the Nasdaq Composite officially in correction territory.
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