Nasdaq Sinks 2.9% as Intel and Reddit Plunge, Capping October With a Broad Tech Sell-Off

Weak outlooks from a handful of tech companies turned the last trading day of October into one of the roughest sessions of the fall for growth stocks.

How bad was Friday's stock market sell-off?

On Friday, Oct. 30, 2026, the S&P 500 fell 1.82% to 7,580.07, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 572.25 points, or 1.09%, to 51,770.31, and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.86% to 25,437.00. Tech led the way down after Intel and Reddit each lost close to 30%.

Those closing figures come from Yahoo Finance's market coverage and match the closing recap from The Wall Street Republic. That recap also reported that the Nasdaq 100, the index of the 100 largest non-financial Nasdaq companies, sank 3.46% and officially entered a correction, which means a drop of at least 10% from a recent high. It was the index's third correction of the year, according to the recap.

The selling was broad. TheStreet reported that nearly 70% of U.S. stocks fell and that the S&P 500's technology sector lost close to 5%.

Why did tech stocks fall so hard?

The biggest blow came from Intel (INTC). The chipmaker's weak fourth-quarter forecast, released after the market closed on Thursday, sent the stock down 28.58% to $65.76, according to The Wall Street Republic. TheStreet called it Intel's worst day since 1974. We covered the forecast itself in our story on Intel's after-hours plunge.

Reddit (RDDT) fell 29.22% to $91.73 after giving weak fourth-quarter revenue guidance and warning that changes in Google search referrals could reduce its daily active users. Roblox dropped about 18%.

The pain spread across chip stocks. The iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX), a fund that holds dozens of chipmakers, fell 8.24%. Qualcomm lost 11.12%, AMD lost 10.88% and Nvidia slipped 4.22%. Amazon (AMZN), which reported a profit miss and negative free cash flow on Thursday, closed about 1.4% lower.