Nasdaq 100 on track to lose more than $2 trillion in value in October

More than $2 trillion in market value was on track to be wiped from the Nasdaq 100 index in October 2026, according to Reuters and The Guardian. The figure was a projection made during trading. It was not a final month-end total.

US technology shares fell sharply on Friday, 30 October 2026, after earnings reports from major technology companies, The Guardian reported. Both outlets linked the losses to growing investor scrutiny of whether the billions being spent on artificial intelligence (AI) can generate returns quickly enough. This is the outlets' description of investor sentiment.

Market moves

The following figures come from The Guardian, which included reporting from the Associated Press. The article is timestamped 18:27 UTC.

• The Nasdaq composite fell by more than 3% on Friday.
• The S&P 500 fell by more than 1%. It was on track to erase its October gain, even though it set an all-time high earlier in the month.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by a smaller amount.
• The Nasdaq 100 had fallen more than 5.8% so far in October.
• The sell-off had knocked nearly $1 trillion off the Nasdaq in one week and about $2 trillion in a month. In this passage The Guardian refers to the "Nasdaq exchange"; elsewhere it cites the Nasdaq 100 index.
• The projected October loss would be slightly more than SpaceX's entire market value, according to The Guardian.

Apart from the large tech losses, the S&P 500 was roughly evenly split between gainers and losers on Friday, The Guardian reported.

Company moves

According to The Guardian:

• Intel shares fell nearly 30% and were on course for the company's worst day since 1974. Intel reported a stronger quarterly profit than analysts expected. However, its profit forecast for the final three months of the year fell far short of expectations.
• On Thursday, Alphabet shares fell more than 12%, removing $500 billion from its market value. It was the stock's worst day on record. The company had told investors it used more cash in the summer than in the spring because of AI investments.
• Amazon shares fell 1.8% after a weaker summer-quarter profit than analysts expected. Amazon also said it had spent more this year than anticipated.
• Meta Platforms, Alphabet and Amazon raised their spending forecasts as they expand AI infrastructure.
• Nvidia shares fell 3.1%, the largest single drag on the S&P 500. Nvidia had previously been valued at about $5 trillion.
• Chipmakers and other companies benefiting from AI data-center construction were under pressure. This was amid concerns that high interest rates may slow further data-center building.

What the reports do not include

The reports reviewed by Vocemundi do not include closing index levels, final daily changes or a confirmed month-end total. Company disclosures appear only as summarized by The Guardian; the reports contain no direct quotes from company representatives and no statements from named analysts. They do not describe how Meta's shares moved or how much spending forecasts rose. They do not identify the source or method behind the market-value estimates. Vocemundi reviewed only a summary of the Reuters report. The Guardian's passage on the $2 trillion figure is nearly identical to that summary, which suggests the two may share an origin for that claim.

Analysis

The reported figures point to investors weighing heavy AI spending against the timing of returns. However, the link between earnings, AI costs and the share-price falls is the outlets' interpretation, not an established cause. Several outcomes remain possible. Final October losses could be larger or smaller than the intraday projection. Further company results and forecasts may ease or deepen concerns about spending. Interest-rate conditions, cited as a pressure on data-center-related shares, may also matter. The broadly even split among other S&P 500 stocks suggests the moves were concentrated in large technology companies rather than spread across the whole market.

Produced by the Vocemundi newsroom with AI assistance.