After the US midterm elections, there was a sharp sell-off in the US stock markets in the technology sector. The main triggers were political shifts and regulatory debates surrounding the enormous energy demand of artificial intelligence data centers. On Thursday, November 5, 2026, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite posted its steepest daily loss in 19 months, falling 5.52 percent. The S&P 500 also dropped 4.4 percent. However, on Friday, November 6, 2026, a recovery in the affected chip stocks followed.
Political markets: Why midterm election results shocked the tech industry
The trigger for the sell-off was primarily rooted in political concerns. In the US midterm elections, Democrats made gains in Congress as well as in several gubernatorial races. In Texas, Democrat Gina Hinojosa won, having announced during the campaign an immediate moratorium on the construction of new AI data centers as well as the elimination of local tax incentives. According to estimates by Wells Fargo, around 27 percent of total US data center capacity is currently in Texas. In addition, politicians at the federal level called for strict requirements or even nationwide construction stoppages for energy-intensive data centers, as sharply rising electricity prices and grid overloads are causing public resentment.
Individual stocks in focus: Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom under volatility pressure
Leading manufacturers of semiconductors and AI hardware were hit especially hard by the sell-off. Nvidia shares (ISIN: US67066G1040) lost between 9.3 and 11.3 percent in value on Thursday, erasing around 400 billion US dollars in market capitalization in a single day. On Friday, the stock recovered by around 7.0 percent. AMD (ISIN: US0079031078) plunged by as much as 19.9 percent on Thursday, even though the company had delivered strong third-quarter results with a record 8.5 billion US dollars in data center revenue (+97 percent year over year). On Friday, AMD shares rose 13.0 percent. Networking specialists such as Broadcom (ISIN: US11135F1012) and memory chip makers such as Micron (ISIN: US5951121038) also saw double-digit declines followed by a rebound.
Impact on indexes and broadly diversified ETFs
For private investors, the event is highly relevant beyond individual stocks. The eleven largest companies in AI infrastructure together account for almost 30 percent of the total market capitalization of the S&P 500. Accordingly, the price losses had a strong impact on broadly diversified index ETFs. Global indexes such as the MSCI World also felt the pullback, as US tech giants carry a high weighting there. Analysts emphasize, however, that the sell-off was not due to a deterioration in current quarterly results, but to a decline in valuation multiples because of increased uncertainty about the pace of future infrastructure investment.
