On Friday (the 30th), the three major U.S. stock indices all tumbled. Funds fled key stocks related to artificial intelligence, and investors turned to sectors with stronger defensive characteristics.
As of the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 572.25 points, or 1.09%, to 51,770.31 points; the Nasdaq Composite Index dropped by 747.73 points, or 2.86%, to 25,437.00 points, recording its worst single-day performance since June and falling about 8% from recent highs; the S&P 500 Index lost 140.32 points, or 1.82%, to 7,580.07 points.
Friday is also the last trading day of this month. Looking at the monthly cumulative gains and losses, the Dow Jones has risen by 1.16%, the Nasdaq has fallen by 6.45%, and the S&P 500 index has fallen by 1.85%.
【Popular Stocks Performance】
Leading technology stocks generally fell. SpaceX declined by 6.37%, NVIDIA fell by 4.22%, Microsoft fell by 1.55%, Meta fell by 1.53%, Google fell by 1.40%, Apple Inc. fell by 1.23%, and Tesla fell by 0.87%; Netflix, however, managed a slight increase of 0.05% against the trend.
Amazon's stock price closed down 1.41%. The company's third-quarter profits and revenue fell short of Wall Street's expectations. This e-commerce and cloud computing giant had a negative free cash flow of $42.4 billion for the quarter and maintained its forecast of $220 billion in capital expenditures for 2026.
Intel's stock price plummeted by 28.59%. The company provided weak guidance for this quarter's performance, indicating a slowdown in demand for personal computers. Its client computing and physical artificial intelligence business revenue decreased by 5% year-on-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 dropped 7.95%, Applied Materials lost 7.49%, Teradyne declined 7.38%, KLA Corporation fell 5.69%, and Micron Technology dropped 5.30%.
Sandisk's stock price fell by 13.47%. Despite the company's first-quarter performance exceeding expectations and the announcement of a 1:8 stock split, the stock price still declined.
Popular Chinese concept stocks generally fell, with the NASDAQ Golden Dragon China Index closing down 0.27%. Zhihu dropped 7.01%, Tiger Securities fell 4.91%, NIO fell 3.17%, Futu Holdings fell 2.98%, Baidu fell 2.86%, Xpeng Motors fell 1.53%, Alibaba fell 1.51%, Bilibili fell 1.48%, Weibo fell 1.43%, Li Auto fell 0.99%, Pinduoduo fell 0.85%, New Oriental fell 0.84%, and iQiyi fell 0.83%.
In the bullish camp, NetEase rose by 1.37%, Tencent Holdings rose by 0.82%, and JD.com rose by 0.20%.
【Market Overview】
As investors withdraw from tech stocks, the selling pressure on AI concept stocks has further increased. With the end of the month approaching and the mid-term elections in the United States next week looming, investors are opting to take their profits.
Defensive sectors such as essential consumer goods and healthcare saw gains. Walmart closed up 1.86%, and Coca-Cola rose 1.34%, which to some extent limited the decline of the Dow Jones index. Merck, a giant in biopharmaceuticals that is also a component of the Dow Jones, rose 2.18%, while another pharmaceutical giant, Amgen, increased by 1.15%.
Keith Buchanan, a senior portfolio manager at the American asset management firm Globalt Investments, stated, "There has been a change in the market tone, and it remains to be seen whether this will affect the sustainability of capital turnover."
In his view, the current market is a “prudent” and “picky” one. “Last year, it was about hope. This year’s question is: ultimately, how does all this work in reality? For example, where does the funding come from and who owns the profits? 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 is under further pressure. It is reported that Blackstone Group has informed investors that Anthropic may not be able to obtain an investment-grade rating after its listing. Earlier this week, the S-1 prospectus submitted by Anthropic once provided momentum for AI-related transactions, but as Wall Street digested more financial reports from tech companies, selling pressure returned.
Friday is the last trading day of October. In October, there were significant fluctuations in transactions related to AI. Investors are closely monitoring the companies' expenditures on infrastructure construction under AI. Neither Alphabet nor Microsoft has raised their capital expenditure forecasts.
At the same time, the debt levels of emerging cloud service providers (neocloud, which is the cloud computing company that provides infrastructure for AI's data centers) are under scrutiny by investors. The bond yield of the American AI cloud computing company CoreWeave has soared significantly, becoming a typical representation of this concern, with its stock price plummeting by 37% in October. The cloud computing platform Nebius also saw a nearly 35% decline this month.
Regarding the situation in the Middle East, according to Xinhua News Agency, on the 30th, the UK Maritime Trade Operations Office reported that a vessel was hit by an unidentified projectile in the southern waters of Lavan Island, Iran, and caught fire, but the crew was safe. The incident occurred at 18:00 Coordinated Universal Time (2:00 Beijing Time on the 31st), and the location was about 40 nautical miles (approximately 74 kilometers) south of Lavan Island. The captain reported that the vessel's port side was hit by the unidentified projectile, which caused a fire on board.
According to CCTV News, on October 30th local time, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards announced that a few hours earlier, an American MQM-170 type reconnaissance drone was shot down by the air defense system of the Revolutionary Guards' aerospace forces over the island of Qeshm in southern Iran. The Guards stated that this was the second time they had downed a drone of this model. Earlier in the same day, the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia announced that the U.S. State Department had ordered non-essential staff and their families to leave Saudi Arabia, with the order taking effect on October 23rd. The embassy cited security risks as the reason for this move.
【Large-Cap Performance】
International oil prices have risen significantly. The futures price of WTI crude oil for delivery in December on the New York Mercantile Exchange increased by $2.12, a gain of 2.08%, closing at $104.12 per barrel; the futures price of Brent crude oil for delivery in December also rose by $2.76, a gain of 2.4%, closing at $117.64 per barrel.
The precious metals market declined across all sectors. COMEX Gold futures closed down 3.63%, at $3,884.9 per ounce. COMEX Silver futures fell 6.20%, at $49.13 per ounce.
