AI stocks sold off again: Intel plunges 28.59%, Nvidia falls 4.22%, Nasdaq drops 2.86%

All three major U.S. stock indexes fell sharply on Friday (the 30th). Capital fled AI-related key stocks, and investors rotated into more defensive sectors.

By the close, the Dow fell 572.25 points, or 1.09%, to 51,770.31; the Nasdaq fell 747.73 points, or 2.86%, to 25,437.00, its worst single-day performance since June and about 8% below its recent high; the S&P 500 fell 140.32 points, or 1.82%, to 7,580.07.

Friday was also the last trading day of the month. On a monthly cumulative basis, the Dow rose 1.16%, the Nasdaq fell 6.45%, and the S&P 500 fell 1.85%.

[Performance of popular stocks]

Leading tech stocks generally fell. SpaceX closed down 6.37%, Nvidia fell 4.22%, Microsoft fell 1.55%, Meta fell 1.53%, Google fell 1.40%, Apple fell 1.23%, and Tesla fell 0.87%; Netflix bucked the trend with a slight gain of 0.05%.

Amazon shares closed down 1.41%. The company reported third-quarter profit and revenue that both fell short of Wall Street expectations. The e-commerce and cloud computing giant posted negative free cash flow of $42.4 billion for the quarter and maintained its 2026 capital expenditure forecast of $220 billion unchanged.

Intel shares plunged 28.59%. The company gave weak guidance for the current quarter's results, indicating slowing demand in the personal computer market. Revenue from its client computing and physical AI businesses fell 5% year over year to $8.1 billion.

Chip stocks suffered heavy losses, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index closing down 7.20%. AMD fell 10.88%, SK Hynix fell 7.95%, Applied Materials fell 7.49%, Teradyne fell 7.38%, KLA fell 5.69%, and Micron Technology fell 5.30%.

SanDisk shares fell 13.47%. Despite the company's first-quarter results beating expectations and its announcement of an 8-for-1 stock split, the shares still declined.

Popular Chinese concept stocks generally fell, with the Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index closing down 0.27%. Zhihu fell 7.01%, UP Fintech fell 4.91%, NIO fell 3.17%, Futu Holdings fell 2.98%, Baidu fell 2.86%, XPeng fell 1.53%, Alibaba fell 1.51%, Bilibili fell 1.48%, Weibo fell 1.43%, Li Auto fell 0.99%, PDD fell 0.85%, New Oriental fell 0.84%, and iQIYI fell 0.83%.

Among the gainers, NetEase rose 1.37%, Tencent Holdings rose 0.82%, and JD.com rose 0.20%.

[Market overview]

Defensive sectors such as consumer staples and health care rose. Walmart closed up 1.86% and Coca-Cola rose 1.34%, partly limiting the Dow's decline. Merck, a biopharmaceutical giant also a Dow component, rose 2.18%, and another pharmaceutical giant, Amgen, rose 1.15%.

Keith Buchanan, senior portfolio manager at U.S. asset management firm Globalt Investments, said, "The tone of the market has changed somewhat, and whether this can change the sustainability of the rotation remains to be seen."

In his view, the current market is a "cautious" and "picky" market. "Last year was about hope. This year's question is: ultimately, how does all this work in reality, such as where the money comes from and who owns the benefits. These questions are much harder to answer."

In addition, he believes that "there are indeed risks in the real economy, and the market has begun to perceive this."

Market sentiment came under further pressure. According to reports, Blackstone has told investors that Anthropic may not obtain an investment-grade rating after its listing. Earlier this week, Anthropic's S-1 filing briefly injected momentum into AI-related trades, but selling pressure returned as Wall Street digested more technology company earnings.

Friday was the last trading day of October. AI-related trades were highly volatile in October, and investors closely watched corporate spending on AI infrastructure. Neither Alphabet nor Microsoft raised its capital expenditure forecast.

Meanwhile, the debt levels of neoclouds—cloud computing companies that provide infrastructure for AI data centers—came under investor scrutiny. The bond yields of U.S. AI cloud computing company CoreWeave climbed sharply, becoming a typical example of this concern, and its shares plunged 37% cumulatively in October. Cloud computing platform Nebius fell nearly 35% cumulatively this month.

The Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM), which holds AI memory concept stocks such as Micron Technology and Seagate Technology, fell 20% cumulatively in October, while the iShares AI Innovation and Tech Active ETF (BAI) fell nearly 17% cumulatively.

On the Middle East situation, according to Xinhua News Agency, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations reported on the 30th that a vessel was hit by an unidentified projectile and caught fire in the waters south of Iran's Lavan Island that day, but the crew was safe. The report said the incident occurred at 18:00 UTC on the 30th (2:00 Beijing time on the 31st), 40 nautical miles (about 74 kilometers) south of Lavan Island. The captain reported that the vessel's port side was hit by an unidentified projectile, causing a fire on board.

According to CCTV News, on local time October 30, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced that several hours earlier, a U.S. MQM-170 reconnaissance drone was shot down over Qeshm Island in southern Iran by the air defense system of the IRGC Aerospace Force. The Guard said this was the second drone of this model it had shot down. Earlier in the day, the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia said the U.S. State Department had ordered non-emergency personnel and their family members to leave Saudi Arabia, effective from October 23. The embassy said the move was due to security risks.

[Commodities performance]

International oil prices rose significantly. December-delivery WTI crude oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose $2.12, or 2.08%, to settle at $104.12 per barrel; December-delivery Brent crude oil futures rose $2.76, or 2.4%, to settle at $117.64 per barrel.

Precious metals markets fell across the board. COMEX gold futures closed down 3.63% at $3,884.9 per ounce. COMEX silver futures fell 6.20% to $49.13 per ounce.