Friday was a rough day for tech stocks in general. The Nasdaq Composite fell by nearly 3%. But two stocks in particular had days that will go down in history after issuing their latest earnings reports.
Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) fell by nearly 29% on Friday, erasing roughly $140 billion in market value. It was the chipmaker’s worst day since July 1974. Reddit (NYSE:RDDT) also fell by about 29% after its earnings report, its worst day since it went public in 2024.
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To be clear, neither company had a bad quarter. Intel beat its own forecast, and Reddit grew its revenue by more than half. Here’s what went wrong for each, and why the two problems are more connected than they might seem.
Intel had a good quarter and a bad forecast
Intel’s third-quarter revenue grew 21% year over year to $16.5 billion, and adjusted earnings per share of $0.52 came in well above the company’s own guidance. Its data center and AI segment was the standout, with revenue up 78% to $7.3 billion. CFO David Zinsner called it the company’s strongest data center growth in 15 years.
The problem was the outlook. Intel expects fourth-quarter revenue of $15 billion to $16 billion, well below the roughly $17 billion analysts expected. Management also expects adjusted EPS of just $0.25, while analysts were looking for about $0.43. Intel’s adjusted gross margin is expected to fall to about 38% from 44.1% in the third quarter.
The biggest culprit is the PC market. AI data centers are absorbing so many memory chips that laptop and desktop prices are rising, and Intel now expects PC shipments to fall about 12% this year and another 10% in 2027. An accident at its factory in Israel will also cost roughly $300 million of fourth-quarter revenue.
It’s also worth noting how much optimism was already priced in. Intel’s stock nearly quadrupled from the start of the year to its June high, and even after Friday it’s still up more than 70% in 2026.
Reddit grew fast, but its traffic is slipping
Reddit‘s third-quarter revenue rose 53% to $895 million, ahead of analysts’ estimates, and adjusted EBITDA jumped 70% to $402 million. By most measures, it was an excellent quarter.
However, management said search engine traffic fell meaningfully, and the decline accelerated as the quarter went on. According to CEO Steve Huffman, search referrals fell by more than 1 million per week on average in October, and Google’s AI Mode “does not drive traffic.” U.S. daily users slipped 2% to 50.7 million, and Reddit warned that total daily users could fall by a low-double-digit percentage this quarter. Its profit guidance also came in a bit below analysts’ estimates.
