Intel shares fall 30% as tech sell-off drags Nasdaq 100 to three-month low

Intel's forecast sets off the sell-off

Shares of Intel fell by almost 30 percent in trading on 30 October 2026 after the chipmaker gave a weak outlook for the fourth quarter. Intel expects revenue of 15 to 16 billion US dollars in that quarter, a figure weighed down by weaker demand for PCs and a production outage in Israel. Its third-quarter results beat expectations, but the guidance disappointed investors, and Bank of America dropped its buy recommendation. Higher memory chip prices have reduced PC sales, and supply chain problems for data center chips add to the pressure. The company does not expect an improvement before mid-2027. ORF put the one-day loss in Intel's market value at 140 billion US dollars, while Der Standard estimated it at more than 137 billion.

Amazon and the AI spending question

Amazon shares fell as much as 6 percent to their lowest level since late July, according to ORF, although Handelsblatt reported an intraday drop of up to 8 percent that narrowed to about 2 percent. UBS blamed the loss on disappointing sales at AWS, the cloud division, which nevertheless grew 39 percent. Amazon reported trailing twelve-month free cash flow of minus 42.4 billion US dollars, while Alphabet posted minus 9.1 billion in the quarter. Meta's free cash flow turned negative for the first time since 2012, and SpaceX burned about 9.9 billion US dollars. Demand for data center capacity remains high, but the market is increasingly asking how long the AI boom can be financed as the free cash flow of the large cloud providers shrinks.

The Nasdaq and the Magnificent Seven

The Nasdaq 100 fell 3.7 percent about three hours before the close, reaching a three-month low, and was on course for a monthly loss of 6.8 percent. Reuters calculated that companies listed in the index had lost one trillion US dollars of market value on 30 October alone, and two trillion in October. Early in the session the Dow Jones was almost unchanged at 52,204 points, the S&P 500 about 1 percent lower at 7,628 points, and the Nasdaq Composite 2.5 percent lower at 25,522 points. The seven large tech stocks have been moving apart from one another. Their 60-day correlation peaked near 0.8, fell to 0.12 in mid-October and was 0.2 most recently, below the average of 0.49. Sören Hettler, an analyst at DZ Bank, said:

“The era of the 'Magnificent Seven' as a closed group of stock market high-flyers seems to be over.”

Ulrich Stephan, investment strategist at Deutsche Bank, explained the divergence this way:

“In my view, this is mainly because the market, four years after the release of ChatGPT, distinguishes more strongly between companies and assesses their respective AI strategies more closely.”

European markets close lower

The DAX closed below 26,000 points on 30 October. Handelsblatt reported a close of 25,808 points, down 0.9 percent, while n-tv had earlier put the index at 25,818 points, down 0.8 percent. Despite the decline, the index still gained 2.5 percent over the week and 2.5 percent in October. On 29 October it had risen 1.3 percent to 26,040 points, its highest close since early September. Siemens Energy fell 7.6 percent, Infineon 6.7 percent and ASML 6.3 percent in the Euro Stoxx 50, while Bayer rose 4.6 percent on hopes for an economic recovery in 2027. Matt Britzman, chief analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, described the mood as sell first and ask questions later. Euro zone growth slowed in the third quarter and the French economy shrank, while German import prices rose 2.1 percent month on month and 10.4 percent year on year. WTI crude, above 100 dollars, was on course for a gain of about 14 percent in October as the war between the United States and Iran kept energy prices high. LBBW warned that a renewed US military strike on Iran after the midterm elections would pour more oil on the fire.

Siemens Energy-7.6%

Infineon-6.7%

ASML-6.3%

Bayer4.6%

Siemens Energy

-7.6 %

Infineon

-6.7 %

ASML

-6.3 %

Bayer

4.6 %

Data from the article text

The week ahead

In the week of 2 November, markets face US midterm elections and a flood of earnings reports from Apple, AMD and Palantir. The US labour market report is due on 6 November. The Bank of England is expected to raise interest rates on Thursday, 5 November, for the first time in three years. Investors will test whether the AI trade can hold up after the sell-off that closed October.