Wall Street's Worst Day Since April 2025: AI Stocks Plunge, the S&P 500 Falls 4.4%, and Data Centers Sit at the Center of the Fear

The rally lasted one day. A brutal sell-off swept through Wall Street on Thursday, led by stocks tied to the buildout of AI data centers, and it more than erased the U.S. stock market's gain from the day before — which had been its best in three months. The S&P 500 fell 4.4% to 7,353.73, down 334.89 points, for its worst day since President Donald Trump shook markets worldwide in April 2025 with his 'Liberation Day' tariffs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 1,833.06 points, or 3.4%, to 51,523.06, and the Nasdaq composite tumbled 5.5% to 24,315.00 — leaving it 11.9% below the all-time high it set last month, past the 10% line stock watchers call a correction.

The damage started with the biggest names in artificial intelligence. Nvidia, the chip company that has become the face of the AI boom, fell 9.3% and was by far the heaviest weight on the S&P 500; it is now down 2.6% for the year after annual gains of roughly 39%, 171% and 239% in the last three years. Advanced Micro Devices tumbled 17.3%. CoreWeave, which rents access to AI chips over the cloud, fell 9.8%, and GE Vernova, which helps power data centers, sank 7.5%. Reuters put the day's Nasdaq market-cap loss at about $2 trillion, with all 11 sectors of the S&P 500 falling and the Philadelphia chip index down about 12%. The selling was not contained to New York: South Korea's Kospi index tumbled 5.3% and Japan's Nikkei 225 sank 1.8%.

The AP file ties the fear to three threads, and each one runs through Texas. Stocks tied to AI have been swinging for months on worries that construction of further data centers may slow because borrowing money has become so expensive, and critics have said AI stock prices shot too high and were in a bubble. Tuesday's midterm elections added a third: nationwide victories for Democrats raised the possibility that governments could force pauses in construction of more data centers, at a moment when voters across political parties say they are wary of AI and do not like the increases to power bills caused by data centers. Any slowdown in that construction would mean fewer purchases of AI chips — not to mention the electricity and other products and services the buildout has been vacuuming up, in an expansion the AP notes is driving much of the U.S. economy's growth. North Texas, one of the country's great data-center corridors, feels both sides of that trade: the construction and power demand when the money is flowing, and the exposure when it stops.

Not everything fell, and not every signal pointed down. AppLovin jumped 31% after reporting revenue and profit that topped analysts' expectations, and Tapestry, the company behind Coach and Kate Spade, rallied 7.1% on a stronger profit and raised forecasts. Brent crude rose 3.9% to $98.29 a barrel, recovering a chunk of the day before's nearly 9% drop, while uncertainty remained about the war with Iran. In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.84% from 4.90% late Wednesday — it had been 4.95% on election night and above 5.30% last month — a move the AP reads as investors herding into Treasuries in search of something safer as stock prices tumble. The economic reports underneath were encouraging: fewer U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week, and a separate report suggested worker productivity improved more during the summer than economists expected. For Dallas–Fort Worth savers watching a 401(k) statement tonight, the honest summary is the AP's own closing caution: over the long term, stock prices tend to follow corporate profits and interest rates far more than who controls what in Washington.