Intel and Reddit both plunge nearly 30%, as US stocks end the last trading day of October on a "brutal" note

Intel and Reddit both plunge nearly 30%, as US stocks end the last trading day of October in a "brutal" fashion

2026-10-31 21:30 IT Home - Qingyuan

IT Home, October 31 news: According to Reuters, market performance on the last trading day of October was quite brutal, and tech stocks that have been rising continuously this year once again came under pressure.

On the 30th local time, the Nasdaq Composite Index recorded its largest single-day decline since June. Shares of Intel and social media platform Reddit both fell 29%, and chipmaker SanDisk, one of the important beneficiaries of the AI infrastructure investment boom, also fell 13%.

The sell-off came after large tech stocks fell successively this week. Shares of Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Google parent Alphabet, core participants in AI infrastructure construction, fell another 1% to 2% on Friday, after already showing clear declines earlier in the week.

Capital Economics noted that over the past 12 months, capital expenditure by the four hyperscale tech companies—Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Alphabet—has accounted for more than one-third of the total capital expenditure of the current constituents of the S&P 500 Index.

The institution expects this proportion to continue rising, but investors are increasingly uneasy about this trend. John Higgins, market economist at Capital Economics, believes: "The huge capital expenditure of the giants has begun to rely partly on external financing, and investors are increasingly worried about exactly how much they are investing and through what means these investments are being funded."

The Nasdaq 100 Index fell even more at one point on Friday, eventually closing down 3.5%, not far from a 10% pullback from its recent high that would put it in technical correction territory. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 7.8% from its previous closing high. October became the index's worst month since March 2025, erasing some of the gains accumulated during this year's AI rally.

Brian Jacobsen, chief economic strategist at Annex Wealth Management, noted: "Investors suddenly began voting collectively with their actions, judging which companies will ultimately be able to make money from these investments and which will not."

The sell-off was not confined to tech stocks. Tech stocks had previously been driven continuously higher by optimistic market sentiment, but this time there was a broader withdrawal from risk assets, and US Treasury prices also rose accordingly. Silver fell 6% in a single day, extending its year-to-date decline to 31%; gold fell 3.5%, bringing its cumulative decline in 2026 to 10%.

However, in the view of some investors, the recent stock market sell-off at first glance looks merely like a normal pullback after excessive prior gains.

Sahak Manuelian, managing director of global equity sales and trading at Wedbush Securities, does not believe this is mainly a leverage problem, and said bluntly that it is "not particularly severe." The reason is that the entire sector had simply risen far too much before. "The market had been rising almost in a straight line, so the subsequent pullback was naturally going to be very sharp. I think that is what we are seeing right now. Moreover, some investors have already begun withdrawing funds and turning to other markets."

Oil prices rose 2%, further deepening market concerns about the US economic outlook. Many investors believe that the growth vitality of the US economy relies heavily on AI infrastructure construction. Financial stocks were likewise not spared: Goldman Sachs fell 4% and Jefferies fell 6%. Meanwhile, hackers stole more than $6 billion from Binance (IT Home note: currently about RMB 40.017 billion at the exchange rate), and Bitcoin fell 3% as a result.

What investors are now concerned about is whether the market can stabilize again after entering November. After Friday's violent sell-off, many chose to exit to avoid risk rather than hold positions over the weekend and wait for the market to give further signals.