US stocks plunged on Thursday, with the S&P 500 down 4.4% and the Nasdaq down 5.5% as technology and AI-related shares sold off. About $2 trillion was wiped from the Nasdaq’s market value, while the Philadelphia chip index fell 12%, its second-biggest drop on record.
US stocks plunged as investors reassessed the implications of Democrats’ midterm election wins for the AI data center buildout. The Nasdaq fell as much as 14% from its all-time high, reached a month earlier, and lost about $2 trillion in market value on Thursday. All 11 S&P 500 sectors declined; technology fell 7.3%, while the Philadelphia chip index dropped 12%. SanDisk fell 22%, Micron Technology, AMD and Marvell each lost 17%, and Nvidia fell 9%.
Interest-rate traders pushed back the expected timing of the Federal Reserve’s next rate hike to March. US yields fell 12 basis points at the short end, and the yield curve steepened. The article also noted divergent signals from central banks, including a Bank of England rate hike and a pause in Brazil’s rate-cutting cycle.
Economists expected October US non-farm payrolls to rise by 65,000, with the unemployment rate unchanged at 4.2%. The article said recent labor-market data had been stronger than feared, while traders were watching the report for clues about Fed policy.
