The collapse and the session's numbers
According to The Guardian, the Nasdaq closed Thursday down 5.5%, its worst performance in 18 months. The tech index thus slid into correction territory, more than 10% below its recent high, with more than $2 trillion in value erased by the close. This was the largest single-day decline since April 2025, when Donald Trump announced tariffs dubbed Liberation Day on the United States' trading partners.
Losses hit all of Wall Street: the Dow Jones fell more than 1,800 points, or 3.4%, closing at 51,868, while the S&P 500 dropped 4.3%. Nvidia, described as the emblematic company of the AI boom, was the worst performer in the Dow Jones with a 9.2% decline, followed by Goldman Sachs at -3.7%. The fear index, the VIX, rose 61%.
The political cause and the most affected stocks
According to the newspaper, the sell-off is rooted in signals of regulatory tightening for the artificial intelligence sector after the outcome of the midterm elections. Investors anticipate stricter oversight of data center expansion plans: the analysts cited point to Democratic victories in a series of races for governor, with expectations of limits on building new data centers, and to the rejection of similar facilities in several local referendums.
Semiconductor stocks led the decline: memory-chip maker SanDisk lost 22% and hard-drive maker Western Digital 17%. Neil Wilson, strategist at Saxo UK, described it as a full capitulation event for tech stocks, explaining that the fear is a complete dismantling of the momentum, with Democrats ready to curb data center construction; according to Wilson, the move appears excessive, but in a market that is selling everything, a sign of stability would first be needed.
The reversal from Wednesday
The session marks a sharp reversal from Wednesday, when Wall Street had posted its largest daily gain in months precisely on expectations that a Democratic success could constrain the White House; that rally had prompted Trump to tout the markets' record highs on Truth Social. Now tech analyst Dan Ives warns that Democratic control, especially of the Senate, will create significant obstacles to AI and technology legislation in Washington over the next two years, and that the pace of data center construction will begin to slow. Ted Parkhill of Incline Investment Management sums up the phase shift: the market is moving from the promise of AI to its price, and not all stocks tied to the sector are adequately valued.
To be verified
Still to be confirmed are the actual scope of the regulatory measures announced or merely anticipated, their impact on the industrial plans of the companies cited, and the markets' resilience in the coming sessions: the material reports investor expectations and analysts' statements, not formal decisions by the authorities.
