Nasdaq falls 5.5% into correction; Mag7 loses $1 trillion

Chip and AI-infrastructure names led the drop. Fox Business said Nvidia closed down 9.26% at $181.60 and that the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index plunged more than 12%. CNBC said the "Magnificent 7" lost more than $1 trillion in aggregate market value, with Nvidia alone shedding more than $440 billion, and that Nvidia turned negative on the year (down about 2.6% year to date). Investing.com said AMD fell 16.03%, Western Digital 16.04% and Seagate 15.66%. Fox said data-center operators IREN, Applied Digital and Nebius each fell more than 14%, while Tesla dropped about 10.77% and SpaceX about 9.05%.

Investors tied the move to Democrats' midterm sweep and to doubts about AI spending. Numerous Democrats who won governor, attorney general, Senate and House races have pledged to slow or halt AI data-center construction, NBC reported, with Texas, Ohio, Michigan and Georgia cited as large data-center markets. The New York Post said voters rejected data-center measures in at least 46 of about 50 related referendums. Fox Business quoted eToro analyst Jakub Rochlitz saying markets are pricing midterm results and that "the AI infrastructure buildout will become slower and more expensive." Yorkville analyst Dan Ives wrote that growth into 2028 "will clearly moderate significantly" given the political map, especially in Texas, the Post reported.

What the evidence shows: Midterm politics around data centers are a real driver, but they are not the whole story. NBC flagged weak Qualcomm and Arm results after the close Wednesday as the immediate spark for Thursday's open. Treating the selloff as only a blue-wave story, or only an AI-bubble story, overstates either single cause.

Same-day response — original layer: While indexes fell, OpenAI published a "National Community Compact" and Compute Campus Policy Blueprint for future company-owned data centers. The company said it will solicit community input, publish construction plans, pay the full cost of electricity and related infrastructure, protect ratepayers, and stop using non-disclosure agreements with public officials except for narrow security and trade-secret cases, according to OpenAI's post and CNBC. Meta President Dina Powell McCormick said at a Wall Street Journal tech conference that data-center buildouts are "going to be harder" and that hyperscalers are weighing building outside the United States, the New York Post reported.

Index closes from Fox Business's Nov. 5 closing table (Nasdaq Composite −5.52% to 24,314.997; S&P 500 −4.36% to 7,353.73; Dow −3.44% / −1,833.06 to 51,523.06). Nvidia close from the same Fox table (−9.26% to $181.60). Magnificent 7 aggregate loss and Nvidia's >$440 billion single-day market-cap drop from CNBC's Nov. 5 stats roundup. Investing.com reported slightly different rounded closes (−5.42% / −4.29% / −3.45%); we use Fox's tick-level print. Correction = ≥10% below the Oct. 6 record close.