Nasdaq Plunges 5% Into Correction as $2 Trillion Chip Wipeout Erases Election Rally

Top photo: Nasdaq MarketSite in Times Square (file photo). Photo: Luca Marfè, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

Figures as of about 12:54 p.m. ET, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026. Markets were still open.

The stock market decline on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, pushed the Nasdaq Composite into correction territory by midday. A sell-off in chip stocks wiped out the previous day’s post-election rally in a single morning. At about 12:54 p.m. ET, the Nasdaq was down 4.95%, or roughly 1,275 points, at 24,461. That left it 11.4% below its Oct. 6 closing high of 27,599.79.

The S&P 500 was down 3.73% at 7,401.58, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average had lost 1,528 points, or 2.86%, to 51,827.66. The small-cap Russell 2000 fell 4.12% to 2,739.35. The day had started differently: at the open, the Dow was up and the Nasdaq was off less than 1%, as The Boston Report covered in its market open report.

Chip stock sell-off drives the Nasdaq correction

The PHLX Semiconductor Index fell 10.49% to 9,191.57. It had traded as low as 9,051.65 earlier in the session. Yahoo Finance reported that the S&P 500 had shed more than $2 trillion in market value by midmorning, with Nvidia, Broadcom, Micron and AMD among the hardest hit.

The biggest losers at midday were storage and memory names. SanDisk fell 19.6% to about $835, Micron dropped 14.7% to $678.51, and AMD fell 15.3% to $414.21. Nvidia lost 8.7% to $182.79 and Broadcom slid 8.5% to $297.87. Qualcomm was down about 11% after its earnings report and handset chip results, covered in our Qualcomm stock story.

Tesla fell 11.3% to $341.80. Yahoo Finance reported that SpaceX and Tesla had each dropped more than 9%. It tied the declines to the Democratic gains in Washington and Texas, which it said raised regulatory questions about data center buildouts and a possible merger of the two Musk-led companies. “We will believe a SpaceX/Tesla merger happens but now faces a much tougher regulatory roadmap to get this deal done in 2027 given this new political blue roadmap in DC/Texas,” analyst Dan Ives wrote, according to Yahoo Finance.

Election rally erased in one session

Stocks rallied on Wednesday after Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections. The Dow closed at 53,356.12 that day, up 3.0% from Tuesday’s close. Yahoo Finance said it was the Dow’s best day after a midterm election since 1982. Yahoo Finance also reported that it took the Nasdaq six minutes on Thursday to erase its entire post-election gain, and that the Dow was on pace for its worst second session after a midterm in data going back to 1896.

Yahoo Finance reported that investors had turned their attention to what a Democratic Congress could mean for artificial intelligence spending and the data centers behind it. Both the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 were on pace for their worst day since the April 2025 tariff crash.

By the numbers: how deep the stock market decline runs

According to TBR calculations from Yahoo Finance daily closing data, Thursday’s losses come on top of an extended slide in chip stocks:

• The chip index is 37.2% below its June 22 closing high of 14,634.72. It has also lost 20.2% since its Oct. 29 close of 11,518.20, just five sessions ago.
• The Nasdaq’s 11.4% drop from its Oct. 6 peak is past the 10% decline that traders call a correction. The Russell 2000 is 10.7% below its Aug. 14 closing high.
• The S&P 500 is 5.3% below its Oct. 6 closing high of 7,818.93, and the Dow is 4.6% below 54,349.12, its highest close of the past year, set Aug. 5.
• The Nasdaq is now 3.6% below its Nov. 3 close of 25,372.01, the last close before the election results were known.

These levels are intraday readings. A correction is usually measured on closing prices, so the label depends on where the Nasdaq ends the day.

Fear gauge spikes; bonds, oil and gold move

The Cboe Volatility Index, known as the VIX, rose 53% to about 25.5, up from 16.61 on Wednesday. Yahoo Finance reported that it briefly jumped more than 65% to 27.45, which Futurum Equities strategist Shay Boloor called the biggest one-day jump in over two years.

Investors bought Treasurys. The 10-year yield fell about 6 basis points to 4.84%, a move tracked in our Federal Reserve tracker. Gold rose about 1% to $4,114.90 an ounce, and Bitcoin fell about 5.7% to roughly $75,800.

U.S. crude for December delivery rose 2.7% to about $90.46 a barrel. Yahoo Finance said oil moved on uncertainty over whether President Trump would pursue a deal with Iran to end the war in the Middle East. Overseas, the Bank of England voted 8-1 to raise its key rate by a quarter point to 4%, its first increase since 2023.

What comes next

Duke Energy, Airbnb and Lumentum were scheduled to report earnings on Thursday, and the government’s October jobs report is due Friday. Final closing figures may differ from the midday readings in this report.

Sources

• Yahoo Finance: Stock market today live coverage, Nov. 5, 2026
• Yahoo Finance: Nasdaq Composite historical data
• Yahoo Finance: PHLX Semiconductor Index historical data
• Bank of England: Monetary Policy Summary and minutes

Additional sources

• Cboe: VIX Index
• U.S. Treasury: Daily Treasury par yield curve rates
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Employment Situation release schedule