Nasdaq 100 closes in correction as AI spending doubts hit tech
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The gist
The Nasdaq 100 closed 10.4% below its October 6 record on November 2, confirming a correction.
The tech-heavy index's slide reflects investor doubt over whether AI spending will pay off.
Background
The Nasdaq 100 is the tech-heavy index of the largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market. It set a record close of 31,224.47 on October 6, 2026, then slid as investors questioned whether heavy AI infrastructure spending by hyperscalers such as Meta, Alphabet and Amazon will pay off. The drop marked the index's third technical correction of 2026, after a fall at the outbreak of the Iran war and a summer semiconductor selloff.
How it unfolded
- Oct 6, 2026The Nasdaq 100 set its record close of 31,224.47.
- Oct 30, 2026The index fell as much as 4.5% intraday, more than 10% below its peak, but closed down 3.46% at 28,384.85, 9.1% below the record. Intel fell 28.58%, its worst day in 50 years, after guiding fourth-quarter revenue below its prior quarter.
- Nov 2, 2026The index closed down 1.39% at 27,989.82, 10.4% below the record and its lowest close since July 29. Oracle fell almost 9% on a $20 billion debt and stock sale plan, Intel lost 8.8% and AMD fell 7.5%.
- Nov 3, 2026The Nasdaq ended higher as AI heavyweights rebounded ahead of US midterm election results; Micron gained 2.6% and Nvidia rose 2.3%, while Apple dropped 1.9% on rising memory chip costs.
- Nov 5, 2026Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.5%, and an ETF tracking US-listed chip giants dropped more than 2% in premarket trading on fears the Democrats' election sweep will bring tighter data center regulation.
Key terms
- correction
- A stock index decline of more than 10% from its recent high, typically shorter and sharper than a bear market.
- hyperscalers
- Large cloud computing providers whose infrastructure can scale rapidly to meet growing demand.
- midterm election
- US general elections held near the midpoint of a president's four-year term, when all House seats and about a third of Senate seats are contested.
Source: Wikipedia
Who’s saying what
- Analysts
- Joe Tigay of Equity Armor Investments said the market is moving out of the 'hopes and dreams' phase of the AI trade into the 'show me' phase.
- Analysts
- John Bilton of JPMorgan Asset Management said growth may have been overestimated but companies are not going negative in aggregate, citing insatiable demand for data.
- Analysts
- Jay Hatfield of Infrastructure Capital Management called it a rotation from safe tech like Apple into riskier chipmakers, and clear dip-buying.