Wall Street’s best post-midterm rally in 44 years lasted just one day—then $3 trillion vanished as chip stocks plunged over AI fears
Source: Fortune ·
Chip and AI stocks led a delayed selloff on fears new Democratic governors will pause data centers. Analysts split on how long.
From the source
The Nasdaq fell about 5% on Thursday and the S&P 500 nearly 4%, just a day after Wall Street had cheered the Democratic sweep of Congress. By early Thursday afternoon, the Nasdaq dropped 5.2% and the S&P 500 3.8%, and the Dow was down 2.9%, or more than 1,500 points. The S&P 500 fell as low as 7,394.49, below where it closed on Election Day. Thursday’s drop off seemed to hit AI and tech stocks the hardest: the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index was down about 9.75% in a Reuters intraday snapshot and briefly fell as much as 11%, on track for its steepest daily loss since March 2020. Among other AI-related stocks include AMD and Micron, which each lost roughly 15%, and Nvidia fell almost 9%. But the drop came a day late. On Wednesday, the Dow rose 1,569 points, or 3%, its best performance after a midterm election in 44 years. The S&P 500 rose 1.6% to 7,688.62, as oil fell more than 8% and investors seemed to hope that a divided government would mean steadier policy. But by Thursday, U.S.…