Markets

Markets Today: Tech gets smoked — Nasdaq's worst day since June as AI spending fears return (October 22, 2026)

By ToolPilot Editors · Updated October 22, 2026

Nasdaq plunged 2.6% as Meta's AI spending and Lam's chip warning rattled investors. Bitcoin slid to ~$81,300. Brent topped $113 on Mideast escalation.

Wednesday's AI rally didn't survive Thursday. The Nasdaq plunged 2.6% to 26,008.86 — its worst session since June, per Associated Press reporting — as investors shredded tech after Meta's and Tesla's earnings and a gloomy warning from chip-equipment giant Lam Research. The S&P 500 lost 1.2% to 7,663.43, while the Dow actually ticked up 0.02% to 52,867.98 and small caps held flat — the damage was almost entirely in tech. Bitcoin fell with it, sliding about 3.3% to around $81,300 after a rejection near $85,000. Stocks as of the 4 p.m. ET close; crypto as of about 4:40 p.m. MDT, October 22, 2026. This is not financial advice.

Crypto snapshot

Digital assets caught Wall Street's risk-off mood. Bitcoin lost roughly $3,000 on the day, briefly dipping to $80,940 before steadying near $81,300, with CoinDesk noting altcoins fell even harder — its DeFi index slumped 5.6% while the broad CoinDesk 5 fell 2.5%. Ether dropped 3.6% to about $2,381, putting the $2,300 level The Motley Fool's crypto desk flagged as the next key test in focus. Leveraged traders got hit: about $412 million of crypto longs were liquidated in 24 hours, per Coinglass data cited by CoinLab.

*Per ₿Proud's CoinGecko-based snapshot; the Crypto Fear & Greed Index still reads 68 (Greed).

Stock market snapshot

This was a tech-led rotation, not a broad panic. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 6.7% — its biggest daily loss since June 23, per Reuters — while six of the eleven S&P sectors actually rose. Money piled into bonds, pushing the 10-year Treasury yield down 17 basis points to 4.96%, back below 5% according to Edge Consultancy's market wrap. The VIX fear gauge jumped 14% to 19.03.

Closes via VistapGlobal's session review; Russell 2000 added 0.11% to 2,784.03.

Today's winners and losers

Winners

• Spotify +9%+ — Soared on improved margins, the session's standout as most of tech sank, per The Motley Fool.
• Builders FirstSource (BLDR) +7.53% — Climbed despite a William Blair downgrade to Market Perform; Equifax (EFX) rose 6.59% on an Argus upgrade to Buy, per Capp Notes' closing look.
• Consumer staples +3.11% — The day's best sector as investors bought safety; utilities (+1.98%) and health care (+1.33%) followed, per Edge Consultancy.
• Monero (XMR) +12.4% — The strongest large-cap crypto mover at about $650, defying the selloff entirely, per ₿Proud.
• Pearl (PEARL) +7.7% and Lighter (LIT) +6.1% — Smaller tokens that bucked the downtrend while majors bled.

Losers

• Lam Research (LRCX) −11.8% — The session's trigger: the chip-equipment maker warned of supply-chain and clean-room constraints stretching into 2027, dragging AMD (−8.1%), Marvell (−8.7%) and the whole semiconductor sector down with it, per Capp Notes.
• Meta (META) −7% — Beat earnings, then torched its own stock by disclosing roughly $825 billion in future lease and contract commitments (up from $700 billion in July), negative free cash flow, and plans to issue new non-voting shares to fund AI spending.
• CoreWeave (CRWV) −10.1% — An analyst downgrade on AI financing worries sent it to a 17-month low; fellow neocloud names IREN (−8.4%) joined the slide, per The Motley Fool.
• Nvidia (NVDA) −4.4% — CEO Jensen Huang's comment that neoclouds lack the working capital to fund growth rattled the AI bellwether.
• Tesla (TSLA) −3.1% — Beat Q3 earnings but cut its 2026 capex plan from over $25 billion to about $20 billion while net income fell 44% from a year earlier, per CoinPaper — feeding doubts about the pace of AI and robotics spending.
• Zcash (ZEC) −10.1% and XRP −6.4% — Led crypto's large-cap losers as altcoins bore the brunt of the risk-off move.

What's driving the moves

• The market is asking who's paying for AI. Meta's ballooning commitments and Tesla's capex cut hit the same nerve: investors cheered the AI buildout, but now the invoices are arriving. Wednesday's Lam Research warning added a supply-side shock on top of the financing worries.
• Oil surged on Middle East escalation. Brent touched $113.17 — its highest since May — after Houthi strikes hit a Saudi airport and an Aramco oil field, and the U.S. ordered some diplomats to leave Saudi Arabia; WTI traded near $99.50, up more than 2%, per Capital Street FX. That's an inflation tax on everything else.
• The Fed watch is heating up again. Higher energy costs revived rate-hike bets: CME FedWatch shows about a 15% chance of a hike at the Oct. 27–28 meeting and roughly 91% for December. Gold fell nearly 2% to about $4,060 as the "higher for longer" view won out.
• Defensive rotation, not capitulation. Staples, utilities, health care and bonds all rose — classic hideouts — while tech and communication services each fell about 3%. Thursday looked less like a wholesale exit from stocks than a violent repricing of expensive AI exposure.
• Crypto-specific damage. The selloff came after three strong days of spot Bitcoin ETF inflows totaling about $1.07 billion, per CoinJuice's flow data — good demand, but not enough to hold the $85,000 resistance. Solana's Alpenglow upgrade went live overnight, though SOL still fell 3.3% to about $103.

What investors are watching next

• The Fed meets Oct. 27–28 (decision announced Oct. 28). A Reuters poll found 94 of 100 economists expect a hold at 3.75%–4.00% — but all of them expect a hike in December, per The Hindu BusinessLine. PCE inflation data lands next week too.
• Friday's data dump: Japan's CPI, global flash PMIs, the U.S. flash manufacturing and services PMIs, and the final University of Michigan consumer sentiment reading — with markets hypersensitive to anything that moves December hike odds.
• More Big Tech earnings: Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon all report on Oct. 28, then Apple on Nov. 2 — investors will be grading every AI capex number against Thursday's fallout, per Hargreaves Lansdown's earnings preview. Intel and Western Digital report after today's close.
• Jobless claims stayed healthy at 194,000 versus 200,000 expected — a three-month low that keeps the labor market story intact, per Alpha Trader News — which, perversely, gives the Fed room to stay tight.
• Stablecoin regulation is moving: the OCC finalized GENIUS Act rules for stablecoin issuers on Oct. 21 — reserve backing, two-business-day redemption processing, no direct issuer yield — taking effect January 18, 2027, per Analytics Insight.
• What the chatter says: market commentators are calling this one of the most violent tech-to-defensive rotations in recent memory — and traders are pricing it as a repricing of AI spending, not the end of the AI story. Giottus CEO Vikram Subburaj advises watching Bitcoin's $84,850 resistance, ETF flows, and Fed signals before chasing any rebound.

Bottom line: Thursday was the bill coming due. Wall Street looked at the AI buildout's soaring price tag — Meta's $825 billion in commitments, Tesla's spending cuts, Lam's supply warnings — and hit the brakes hard on tech while piling into staples, utilities, and bonds. The rest of the market held up, which is the one hopeful sign: this was a rotation, not a rush for the exits.