Wall Street tumbles as tech stocks plunge: Intel slides 28%, Alphabet and Amazon dip 3%

The US stock markets are headed for a weekly loss across the board on Friday after megacap earnings failed to meet investor expectations. The tech-heavy NASDAQ 100 index plunged 2.6%, followed by the S&P 500 at -1.2% and the Dow Jones at -0.2%. Investors remained overtly pessimistic on tech stocks amid overheated valuations and disappointing earnings growth.

The crash was largely driven by a massive sell-off in tech stocks. Among the tech-heavy NASDAQ 100 index, Intel Corporation was the top loser, plunging over 28% on a weak outlook and guidance for the ongoing quarter. Following Intel Corporation, Strategy Inc. was the second most beaten-down stock on Friday in the NASDAQ index after cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum fell after a hacking incident at Binance worth $6.4 billion.

Besides the two major mishaps, shares of other chip makers like Advanced Micro Devices (-9%), SanDisk Corporation (-8.9%), CoreWeave (-8.4%), and Qualcomm (-7.3%) were among other major losers on Friday too.

On the flip side, amid the bleaky outlook on tech stocks, investors rotated their bets away from tech stocks to more defensive bets in the consumer, retail, and financial services sector. Consequently, shares of Coca-Cola Company, Nike, Walmart, Procter & Gamble, and Johnson & Johnson jumped as much as 3% on Friday.

Apart from the AI worries, the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge for inflation, core PCE inflation, rose the most in six months at 0.5% for September, followed by a 0.3% rise in August. The US economy also grew by 3.4% in Q3 2026, compared to 2.2% in Q2 and above market expectations of 3.2%.

Stronger economic activity, coupled with high inflation, gives headroom for the Central Bank to take more rate hikes into account to tame inflation and the debt problem.

Meanwhile, crude oil prices also bounced back from the intraday lows after media reports indicated a military strike on Iran after the US mid-term elections. Brent crude oil prices hovered near $113 per barrel after hitting the $111 per barrel mark earlier on Friday.

The rout in tech stocks ran across Asia as chip and semiconductor stocks in Korea and Japan also suffered major losses on Friday. The Korean Kospi closed 3.4% lower, followed by Taiwan’s benchmark weighted average at -2.4% and Japan's Nikkei at -2.2%.