AI stocks wipeout sends Wall Street reeling: S&P 500 down 3.9% intraday and Nasdaq in correction
Stocks tied to the buildout of AI data centres overwhelmed Wall Street on Thursday 5 November 2026, more than erasing Wednesday's gains — the market's best day in three months. In AP's update as of 1:46 p.m. Eastern time, the S&P 500 was down 3.9% intraday and on track for its worst loss since President Trump's April 2025 'Liberation Day' tariffs, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1,656 points (3.1%), and the Nasdaq composite was down 5.2% — leaving it more than 10% below its October all-time high, the drop professionals call a correction. Nvidia fell 8.7%, Advanced Micro Devices 15.5% and CoreWeave 12.5%. Every figure on this page is an intraday reading from a session still open at publication — none of them is a closing figure, and this page will be updated with the closes.
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This story is still being checked. Claims below are published as claims — never dressed as facts — and each one moves only when the evidence earns it.
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Key points
- AP at 1:46 p.m. ET Thursday: S&P 500 down 3.9% intraday, Dow down 1,656 points (3.1%), Nasdaq down 5.2% — all intraday readings from an open session, not closes.
- The Nasdaq is now more than 10% below its October all-time high — a correction — and the S&P 500 is on track for its worst day since April 2025's 'Liberation Day' tariff falls.
- Nvidia fell 8.7%, AMD 15.5% and CoreWeave 12.5%; AP ties the selloff to data-centre buildout worries, expensive borrowing, and Democratic midterm wins raising the possibility of forced construction pauses.
- Asia felt it too: South Korea's Kospi fell 5.3% and Japan's Nikkei 1.8%; Brent crude recovered 3.6% to $98.03.
What happened
Wednesday had been Wall Street's best day in three months, a rally on the US midterm results; Thursday's AI-led fall more than erased it in a single session. AI chip stocks carry outsized weight in the indexes — AP notes a 1% move in Nvidia moves the S&P 500 more than a 1% move in nearly any other US stock — so a bad day for a handful of chip and data-centre names is now a bad day for the whole market.
The political thread is new: the nationwide Democratic victories in Tuesday's midterms raised, in investors' reading, the possibility that governments could force pauses on new data-centre construction. No such pause has been imposed in the reporting read — it is a possibility investors are pricing, not a policy that exists.
Claim by claim
Why this label: Verified as AP's timestamped intraday readings, read in full in this run (the 1:46 p.m. ET update, with AP's 2:04 p.m. EST news summary carrying the same figures). These are readings from a live session, labelled intraday in the headline, summary and this claim — the session had not closed when this page was published, and no figure here is a close. Earlier AP updates the same day carried smaller falls (3.2% at the morning update), which is the normal movement of a falling session, not a disagreement.
On the ladder: a claim earns Verified from primary evidence, or from two independent sources that do not copy each other.
Why this label: Verified from the same AP update read in full in this run. Stock moves are AP's intraday readings at that timestamp; the AppLovin and Tapestry rises are carried so the page does not read as if every stock fell — AP is explicit that the AI losses 'drowned out' gains, not that gains did not exist.
On the ladder: a claim earns Verified from primary evidence, or from two independent sources that do not copy each other.
Why this label: Verified as AP's reported account of the selloff's drivers, read in full in this run — this is market reporting of investor reasoning, carried as such. Whether any government actually imposes a data-centre pause is a separate, unsettled question and sits in the don't-know list; no moratorium is stated as fact anywhere on this page. The '$2 trillion erased' figure in some other carries is an estimate with no stated calculation and is not published here.
On the ladder: a claim earns Verified from primary evidence, or from two independent sources that do not copy each other.
Show all claims (2 more)
Why this label: Verified from AP's update read in full in this run; the Kospi figure also appeared in AP's earlier morning update, in agreement. The Bank of England rise is the decision Vozia already carries live today; it is context here, not a new claim about the bank.
On the ladder: a claim earns Verified from primary evidence, or from two independent sources that do not copy each other.
Why this label: Carried openly so no reader mistakes an intraday reading for a result. AP's own framing at 1:46 p.m. was 'on track for' its worst loss since April 2025 — a projection about a session in progress, stated here as exactly that.
On the ladder: the evidence so far sits low — early, single or social sources. We publish the claim as a claim, never as fact.
What we know / what we don't know yet
What we know
- AP's timestamped intraday readings (1:46 p.m. ET: S&P 500 −3.9%, Dow −1,656 points, Nasdaq −5.2%), the AI names' falls, and the worldwide moves in the same update — read in full in this run.
- That the fall erased Wednesday's rally, the market's best day in three months (AP).
What we don't know yet
- The closing figures — the session was still open at publication; this page will replace its intraday claim with the confirmed closes, not stack a second one.
- Whether any government imposes a pause or moratorium on data-centre construction — a possibility AP says investors are weighing after the midterms, not an announced policy.
- How much market value was erased in total — the '$2 trillion' figure in some carries is an estimate with no stated calculation, so it is not carried here.
Why it matters
The AI buildout is the engine of the US stock market's recent growth, and Thursday showed how concentrated that engine has become: when a few chip and data-centre stocks fall together, the whole market — and markets in Seoul and Tokyo — fall with them, and a year's political argument about who should control data-centre growth turned, in one session, into a 5% fall in the Nasdaq. For anyone with savings in an index fund, this is what concentration risk looks like on the day it arrives.
Background
US midterm elections: Democrats win control of the Senate and the House (carried live on Vozia).
Wall Street's best day in three months, rallying on the election results (AP).
AI and data-centre stocks fall heavily from the open; by AP's 1:46 p.m. ET update the Nasdaq is down 5.2% and in correction territory.
Update history
No silent edits. Every change is written here, with its time.
- Latest
Published in Checking state as a standard from queue MANUAL 1769 (BIG — Wall Street AI/semiconductor wipeout, flagged BIG in the 17:40 scan; Vozia was not carrying it). Basis: AP's market report read in full in this run (1:46 p.m. ET update), with AP's 2:04 p.m. EST summary in agreement. JUDGE AUDIT: (1) headline, slug, SEO title and summary all state the same outcome — an intraday AI-led fall, with 'intraday' surviving into headline, slug and summary so no reading can be mistaken for a close. (2) Index and stock figures are Verified only as AP's timestamped intraday readings; the closes are a Not-yet-verified claim, and the data-centre-moratorium possibility is carried as investor reasoning in AP's reporting, never as policy. (3) Every number traces to AP's update: S&P −3.9%, Dow −1,656/−3.1%, Nasdaq −5.2%, Nvidia −8.7%, AMD −15.5%, CoreWeave −12.5%, Kospi −5.3%, Nikkei −1.8%, Brent $98.03. The '$2 trillion erased' estimate in other carries is withheld as uncalculated. (6) Photo is the NYSE, labelled a file photo; no official video was oEmbed-verified, so none is attached. Translations: headline, summary and take labels in all 13 non-English languages at publish; this story carries no FR/AR full text, so no full-text rebuild arose.