Wall Street’s biggest technology companies lost more than $1 trillion in market value Thursday as fears about a slowdown in artificial intelligence infrastructure spending triggered a sweeping sell-off.
The retreat extended far beyond chipmakers and data center companies. Every S&P 500 sector finished lower, the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed more than 1,800 points and hundreds of stocks ended the session deep below their recent highs.
The Magnificent Seven, comprising Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta Platforms and Tesla, collectively surrendered more than $1 trillion in market capitalization. Nvidia alone accounted for more than $440 billion of that decline, underscoring how heavily the market’s fortunes remain tied to the AI chipmaker.
Nvidia shares dropped more than 9%, wiping out their remaining gains for 2026. The stock finished Thursday down 2.6% for the year, a sharp reversal for a company whose processors have become central to the AI investment boom.
The Nasdaq Composite fell more than 5%, while the S&P 500 declined more than 4% and the Dow lost more than 3%. All three recorded their worst sessions since April 4, 2025, when tariff-related turmoil sent the Nasdaq down 5.82%, the S&P 500 down 5.97% and the Dow lower by roughly 5.5%.
Both the Nasdaq and the small-cap Russell 2000 finished in correction territory, generally defined as a decline of at least 10% from a recent closing high. The S&P 500 information technology sector plunged 7.30%, its worst daily performance since March 16, 2020, during the pandemic market collapse. That day, the sector dropped 13.92%.
The Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund, which trades under the ticker XLK, fell 8.04%, also its steepest daily decline since March 16, 2020. More than 33 million shares changed hands, exceeding three times its 30-day average volume of 9.2 million.
The S&P 500 industrials sector declined 4.12%, its worst session since April 4, 2025. The breadth of the selling illustrated the damage. On the New York Stock Exchange, 2,344 stocks declined while just 416 advanced, a ratio approaching six losers for every winner. On the Nasdaq, declining stocks outnumbered advancers 4,166 to 855, nearly five to one.
Meanwhile, the Cboe Volatility Index, commonly called Wall Street’s fear gauge, jumped 11.57 points and reached its highest level since March 31. It was the index’s biggest point increase since April 4, 2025, when it rose 15.29 points. Thursday’s losses also exposed how many individual stocks had already suffered substantial setbacks beneath the headline indexes.
