Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) at the opening bell in New York City on October 19, 2026. Tech shares were on the upswing early October 19 as investors opened the week by taking advantage of last week's pullback in the Nasdaq. Last weeks 4.5 percent drop was due to various worries surrounding the artificial intelligence buildout, including over the impact of higher interest rates on debt taken out to finance the boom. ANGELA WEISS/Getty Images

Nvidia fell 9.3% on Thursday as the Nasdaq Composite dropped 5.5%, its worst day since April 2025, and the selling carried into Hong Kong on Friday, Nov. 6, when AI developers Z.AI and MiniMax lost 10.5% and 8.5%.

Nvidia closed at US$181.60. The Nasdaq ended at 24,315, down 1,422 points and in correction territory, more than 10% below its Oct. 6 record close, Fox Business reported. The S&P 500 fell 4.36% to 7,353.73. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1,833 points, or 3.44%, to 51,523.06. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 12.25%. The Nasdaq-100 shed about US$2.3 trillion in market value, according to Yahoo Finance.

Analysts tied the selloff to Democrats' midterm wins. Joe Maher, markets economist at Capital Economics, attributed the moves to fears that Democrats in Congress and in the states would regulate AI and restrict data-center construction, CBS News reported. Jakub Rochlitz, an analyst at eToro, said markets were "pricing in the midterm results" and that rising electricity prices had made data-center construction a political issue. Jed Ellerbroek of Argent Capital Management told Reuters the moves in data-center spending beneficiaries, especially chipmakers, looked like capitulation.

Hong Kong had closed Thursday before the U.S. session opened, with the Hang Seng Index up 3.67% at 24,796.98. On Friday it fell 315 points, or 1.27%, to 24,481.86, and the Hang Seng Tech Index lost 1.83% to 4,078, The Standard reported, on turnover of HK$247.4 billion. The paper said stocks tracked a global tech selloff that dragged down markets across Asia. Z.AI (2513), also known as Zhipu AI, fell 10.5% and MiniMax (0100) 8.5%. SMIC dropped 4%, Alibaba 3.8% and Tencent 2.5%.

Friday's drop erased about a third of Thursday's 877-point gain. The index still closed 562 points above its Wednesday close of 23,919.50.

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