Stock Market Today: AI and Chip Stocks Made Up 90% of the Net Value the Nasdaq-100 Lost
The Nasdaq Composite closed down 2.60% on Thursday, October 22, 2026, its biggest one-day fall since June 5. By our count from Nasdaq’s data, 26 AI and chip companies made up 90% of the net $1.32 trillion in market value the Nasdaq-100’s members lost on the day. Meanwhile 49 of its 100 companies rose.
The short answer. Thursday’s Nasdaq slide was a selloff in chipmakers and the giants building AI data centers, and most other big Nasdaq companies held up or gained. Someone with no shares at all still meets the other part of the day at the pump. Brent crude rose almost 4% to about $113 a barrel by 4:07 p.m. ET, on worries about the war with Iran. We measured who fell, then read the filings Meta and Tesla published on Wednesday evening. Meta’s signed leases and contracts still to pay reached about $810 billion, and Tesla lowered the floor of its 2026 spending plan.
The Nasdaq's fall on October 22, 2026, in three numbers
What we calculated
- 90% of the Nasdaq-100’s net loss in market value at the close came from 26 chip and AI companies, and 78% of the gross losses: each member’s change on Nasdaq’s quotes, grouped by industry
- A gain of about $70 billion for the 73 other members once SpaceX is set aside, and Nvidia’s loss of about $235 billion: the same quotes
- About $810 billion of signed leases and contracts Meta still has to pay, up about $182 billion in three months: two lines of each quarterly report, added
- The Nasdaq Composite’s close 5.8% below its October 6 record and 11.9% above its last close of 2025, its 10th close of 2026 down 2% or more and the biggest fall since June 5: Nasdaq’s own daily history
On this page
Why is the Nasdaq down today?
The stocks dragging the Nasdaq down are chipmakers and the four giants building AI data centers. The rest of the Nasdaq-100 dipped less than 1% at the close, and most of it was up.
We took Nasdaq’s own list of the 100 companies in the Nasdaq-100, with each one’s market value, and each one’s 4 p.m. close from Nasdaq’s quotes. Together they ended Thursday worth about $1.32 trillion less than at Wednesday’s close.
Two groups did nearly all of that. The 22 makers of chips, chipmaking machines and data storage gear lost about $726 billion, and every one of them fell. Meta, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet, the four giants building AI data centers, lost about $471 billion more.
Meta fell the most of the four, 6.98%, against 4.57% for Amazon, 3.15% for Alphabet and 2.23% for Microsoft at the close.
That is 90% of the net fall from just 26 companies. Counted against the gross losses of every company that fell, before the gains of those that rose, the same 26 made up 78%.
Show the data
| Part | Value | Squares |
|---|---|---|
| Chip and data storage makers (22) | 55% | 55 |
| Meta, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet | 35% | 35 |
| The other 74 companies | 10% | 10 |
The rest of the index tells the other half of the story. The other 74 companies lost about $128 billion together, less than SpaceX lost on its own, about $198 billion after a 9.14% fall. SpaceX sits outside both groups because its industry is listed as aerospace, though its AI business brought in more than Starlink last quarter, as we reported on Tuesday. Without SpaceX, the remaining 73 gained about $70 billion, by our calculation.
Apple and Walmart added the most value of any member.
Nvidia, the largest company on the list by market value, lost the most, about $235 billion on the day by our calculation. Lam Research, whose machines help make chips, had the biggest percentage fall among the chip stocks, 11.76%.
So who fell is clear from the numbers. Why they fell is a separate question. The companies did not say, so the Meta, chip and oil sections below set out what changed overnight: the filings Meta and Tesla published on Wednesday evening, and the rise in oil.
How we counted
Market value lost is a company’s value at Thursday’s close minus its value at Wednesday’s close, worked back from Nasdaq’s market value and each company’s closing percentage change. It is not the same as each company’s share of the index’s points, which Nasdaq calculates with its own index weights.
How much is the Nasdaq down today?
The Nasdaq Composite closed down 2.60% on Thursday. Only one day of 2026 saw a bigger fall.
The Nasdaq Composite closed at 26,008.86, down 694.00 points from Wednesday’s close. The Nasdaq-100 closed down 2.90%.
Falls of 2% or more have now come 10 times this year. In Nasdaq’s daily history, the Composite closed down that much on 10 of the 203 trading days of 2026 through Thursday, twice in October. Only June 5, when it fell 4.18%, was worse.
The index set its record close of 27,599.89 on October 6. Thursday’s close left it 5.8% below that, by our calculation. A fall of 10% from a peak is the common rule of thumb for what traders call a correction.
The year as a whole is still well ahead. The Composite closed 11.9% above its last close of 2025, by our calculation from the same history.
Show the data
| Day in 2026 | Nasdaq Composite close | Change on the day |
|---|---|---|
| January 20 | 22,954.32 | -2.39% |
| February 12 | 22,597.15 | -2.03% |
| March 20 | 21,647.61 | -2.01% |
| March 26 | 21,408.08 | -2.38% |
| March 27 | 20,948.36 | -2.15% |
| June 5 | 25,709.43 | -4.18% |
| June 23 | 25,587.04 | -2.21% |
| July 23 | 25,137.69 | -2.15% |
| October 16 | 26,140.03 | -2.15% |
| October 22 | 26,008.86 | -2.60% |
Source: Nasdaq Composite daily closes, Nasdaq historical data, January 2 to October 21, 2026, and Nasdaq’s quote for the October 22 close; changes are our calculation from consecutive closes.
Why is Meta stock down today?
Meta closed down 6.98%. Its new filings show spending above the cash its business brings in, and signed future bills still growing. By our reading, that is what changed overnight.
Meta reported its third quarter after Wednesday’s close (Meta’s results release). It spent $34.91 billion on data centers and equipment, a figure that counts payments on leased gear. Its business brought in $32.79 billion of cash.
The bigger number sits in the quarterly report Meta filed the same evening (Meta 10-Q, quarter ended September 30, 2026). Its note on commitments lists two kinds of future bills.
Leases that have not yet started come to $355.73 billion, for “data centers, energy-related infrastructure, colocations, and certain network infrastructure”, colocations being space rented inside other companies’ data centers. Meta also lists $454.52 billion of what it calls non-cancelable contractual commitments, which it says “mostly relate to third-party cloud capacity arrangements and investments in servers and network infrastructure”. Energy deals for data centers and hardware for Reality Labs, its headset and glasses unit, are in there too.
Added together, that is about $810 billion still to pay, by our sum. Three months earlier the same two lines came to about $628 billion (Meta 10-Q, quarter ended June 30, 2026). Part of the rise was already public, since that report said Meta had signed about $68 billion of new data center leases in July. Some of it is not AI, since Reality Labs hardware is in the total.
Show the data
| Category | Leases not yet commenced | Non-cancelable contractual commitments |
|---|---|---|
| June 30, 2026 | $279B | $349B |
| September 30, 2026 | $356B | $455B |
The payments stretch far out, with leases running as long as 30 years. The contracts due in 2027 alone rose to $121.41 billion from $81.65 billion, more than the $82.45 billion of cash and marketable securities Meta held at the end of September. None of this says Meta cannot pay, since its business brought in $32.79 billion of cash in the third quarter alone.
Its advertising sales also grew 26% from a year earlier, according to the release. Our full look at Meta’s quarter covers how it is paying, including its new Class C shares.
Why are chip stocks down today?
Every one of the 22 chip and storage makers in the Nasdaq-100 closed lower on Thursday. Their sales depend on how much a few data center builders spend, and two of those spenders filed new plans on Wednesday.
Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom and Micron sell the chips that fill AI data centers. Lam Research, KLA, Applied Materials and ASML sell the machines that chip factories use to make them. Either way, much of the demand traces back to companies building data centers, Meta among them.
Wednesday evening brought two filings that pointed in opposite directions: Meta’s, set out above, and Tesla’s, which showed a smaller plan.
In the quarterly report it filed in July, Tesla said it expected 2026 capital spending “in excess of $25 billion”, capital spending being the money for factories, equipment and computers (Tesla 10-Q, quarter ended June 30).
The report it filed on Wednesday says “in excess of $20 billion”, driven by its “SI initiatives, including investments in compute infrastructure and data centers” (Tesla 10-Q, quarter ended September 30). SI is Tesla’s name for its AI work, as our Tesla earnings article explains.
By our reading, chip sellers can lose on either kind of news. A buyer whose spending runs past its cash raises the question of how long that pace lasts. A buyer that lowers its floor raises questions about the timing and mix of its purchases, which Tesla’s filing does not break down.
Neither company tied its figures to Thursday’s trading, so that link is ours. Tesla’s own shares closed down 3.08%. On the selling side, Nvidia has $279 billion of supplier commitments riding on AI demand, as we laid out in Nvidia’s $279 billion bet on AI.
Why is oil up today?
Oil rose almost 4%, and the AP tied the rise to worries about the war with Iran. The two oil and gas companies in the Nasdaq-100 fell anyway.
The December contract for Brent crude was at $113.09 a barrel at 4:07 p.m. ET on CME Group’s delayed quotes. Brent is the world benchmark, and it was up 3.92% from Wednesday’s settlement price, the exchange’s official end of day price.
U.S. crude rose less. The West Texas Intermediate contract was up 2.22% to $99.31 at the same time, after briefly topping $100 during the day.
The Associated Press reported on Thursday that oil prices climbed “on worries about the war with Iran”. It described uncertainty about when the war will let energy markets return to normal.
Higher fuel prices raise costs for airlines, truckers and households. Yet the producer Diamondback Energy closed down 1.89%, and the oilfield services company Baker Hughes closed down 4.25%.
Refiners reported large third quarter profits. Valero, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, reported third quarter net income of $6.8 billion on Thursday morning. Its refining business reported operating income of $8.78 billion, against $1.61 billion a year earlier (Valero’s release). Our Valero article explains how much it keeps on each barrel.
The split shows where the losses landed. It cannot separate how much of the selling came from the filings, from the cost of the AI build or from higher oil. The companies themselves have not said.
What to watch
- Whether Microsoft’s spending and commitments grew as Meta’s did: its results come after the market close on October 28, per Microsoft’s date announcement
- The same question for Amazon: its call on third quarter results is on October 29 at 5 p.m. ET, per Amazon’s announcement
- How the Federal Reserve, the central bank, weighs higher oil in setting interest rates: its statement at the end of its October 27 to 28 meeting will say, with the date on the Fed’s meeting calendar
How we counted
The split uses Nasdaq’s Nasdaq-100 member list, read at 4:18 p.m. ET on October 22, 2026, for each member’s market value, and Nasdaq’s quote for each member’s 4 p.m. close and its percentage change from Wednesday’s close. We set each market value at the 4 p.m. close price, worked back its value at Wednesday’s close and took the difference. Alphabet appears twice, once per share class, with the whole company’s value on each line, so we counted it once. That leaves 100 companies.
We grouped them by the industry in StockTitan’s company data. Chips and data storage are the 22 companies listed under semiconductors, semiconductor equipment and computer hardware: Nvidia, Broadcom, AMD, Micron, Lam Research, ASML, Intel, Applied Materials, KLA, Marvell, Arm, Seagate, SanDisk, Western Digital, Analog Devices, Monolithic Power, Teradyne, Astera Labs, Microchip, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm and NXP. The four AI giants are Meta, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet. Industry is a label, not a measure of each company’s exposure to AI.
The 90% is measured against the net change of all 100 companies, a fall of $1,324.4 billion. Against the gross losses of the 51 companies that fell, $1,542.0 billion before the $217.6 billion the 49 risers added, the same 26 made up 78%. Market value is not index points, since Nasdaq weights the index by its own rules.
The closing index levels come from Nasdaq’s quote service after the close, and the record close and the earlier 2% days from its daily history, January 2 to October 21, 2026. Meta’s total adds the leases not yet commenced and the non-cancelable contractual commitments in Note 10 of each 10-Q. It leaves out the $14.72 billion of possible cloud purchases Meta lists separately. Oil prices are CME Group’s delayed quotes for the December 2026 contracts at 4:07 p.m. ET; CME posts its final settlement prices later in the evening.
Frequently asked questions
Why is the stock market down today?
On the Nasdaq, the Composite closed down 2.60% on October 22, 2026. By our count, chip and data storage makers and four AI giants made up 90% of the Nasdaq-100’s net loss in market value. Meanwhile 49 of its 100 companies rose. Oil climbed on worries about the war with Iran, the AP reported.
Is the Nasdaq in a correction?
No. A correction usually means a fall of 10% from a peak. The Nasdaq Composite closed on October 22, 2026, 5.8% below its record close of 27,599.89, set on October 6.
Why are chip stocks falling today?
All 22 chip and data storage makers in the Nasdaq-100 closed lower on October 22. Two big buyers of computing filed new plans on Wednesday. Meta’s spending passed the cash its business brought in, and Tesla lowered its 2026 spending floor to more than $20 billion. By our reading, that news is what changed overnight for chip sellers.
Why is Meta stock down after earnings?
Meta did not say. Its filings show it spent $34.91 billion on data centers and equipment in the third quarter, more than the $32.79 billion of cash its business brought in. By our reading, that and its growing signed bills are what changed overnight.
What time does the stock market close today?
The regular session on the Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange ends at 4 p.m. ET. Nasdaq publishes the Composite’s official closing value after that.
Sources
- StockTitan: Meta Q3 2026 earnings
- StockTitan: Tesla Q3 2026 earnings
- StockTitan: Valero Q3 2026 earnings
- StockTitan: Nvidia’s $279 billion bet on AI
- StockTitan: SpaceX Q3 2026 results
- StockTitan: Meta Reports Third Quarter 2026 Results
- StockTitan: Valero Energy Reports Third Quarter 2026 Results
- StockTitan: Meta Platforms (META) overview
- StockTitan: Meta Platforms financials
- Nasdaq: Nasdaq Composite Index (COMP)
- Nasdaq: Nasdaq Composite historical data
- Nasdaq: Nasdaq-100 Index members
- Meta Form 10-Q, quarter ended September 30, 2026 (SEC)
- Meta Form 10-Q, quarter ended June 30, 2026 (SEC)
- Meta Q3 2026 results, Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1 (SEC)
- Tesla Form 10-Q, quarter ended September 30, 2026 (SEC)
- Tesla Form 10-Q, quarter ended June 30, 2026 (SEC)
- CME Group: Brent Last Day Financial futures
- CME Group: Light Sweet Crude Oil (WTI) futures
- Federal Reserve: FOMC meeting calendar
The information provided in this article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice, investment recommendation, or an endorsement of any particular investment strategy. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Investors should conduct their own research and consult with a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions.