Wall Street ended October with its sharpest tech selloff in months. On Friday 30 October the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.86% to 25,437.00, the S&P 500 lost 1.82% to 7,580.07 and the Dow dropped 1.09% to 51,770.31, while the VIX volatility index jumped 12.9% to 19.42 (Yahoo Finance). It was the Nasdaq’s largest one-day decline since 5 June, by our calculation from Yahoo closing prices, and it left the index down about 5.3% for October, its worst month since March 2025 according to Yahoo Finance. The triggers were two earnings reports: Intel lost 28.6% after a weak forecast, and Amazon missed on revenue and earnings while showing a deep free-cash-flow hole. Bitcoin, which had its own shock from the Binance incident the night before, fell far less than stocks on the day, but it still ended the month 7.6% lower.
The numbers from Friday’s close
| Asset (30 October 2026) | Close | Day change | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nasdaq Composite | 25,437.00 | −2.86% (−747.73) | Yahoo Finance |
| S&P 500 | 7,580.07 | −1.82% (−140.32) | Yahoo Finance |
| Dow Jones Industrial Average | 51,770.31 | −1.09% (−572.25) | Yahoo Finance |
| Russell 2000 | 2,811.84 | −1.66% | Yahoo Finance |
| VIX | 19.42 | +12.91% | Yahoo Finance |
| Intel (INTC) | $65.76 | −28.6% (−$26.31) | Motley Fool |
| Amazon (AMZN) | $240.35 | −1.41% | Yahoo Finance / Motley Fool |
| Gold futures (our calculation) | about $3,899 | −3.3% | Yahoo Finance daily data |
| Bitcoin (Coinbase, UTC day) | 77,180.42 | −0.77% | Coinbase Exchange |
Two details matter before reading anything into that table. First, Amazon’s shares opened roughly 5% lower and recovered most of the loss during the session, closing down 1.41% (Yahoo Finance, citing Motley Fool); the damage to the Nasdaq came more from Intel, chip names and the broad “AI payoff” worry than from Amazon itself. Second, the bitcoin figure is a UTC-day candle that starts at 00:00 UTC, about four hours after Binance’s hot wallets were drained, so it mixes the stock-market move with the exchange shock.
Intel: a good quarter and the worst day since 1974
Intel reported third-quarter revenue up 21% to $16.5 billion, with data-center and AI sales up 78% to $7.3 billion and adjusted earnings per share up 126% to $0.52 (Motley Fool). The stock fell anyway because of the outlook: fourth-quarter revenue guidance of $15 billion to $16 billion against a Wall Street estimate of $17.1 billion, and adjusted earnings of $0.25 a share against $0.43 expected. A factory accident in Israel will extend a shutdown and reduce server-chip shipments, and CFO David Zinsner said the PC slowdown should continue at least through the first half of next year, with memory-chip shortages as a headwind. Intel closed at $65.76, down $26.31, a drop Benzinga described as heading for its worst day since 1974 (Benzinga). Reddit, which warned that daily visitors could fall by a low double-digit percentage in the fourth quarter, was down 19.5% in premarket trading and AMD was down 8.7% in premarket trading (Reuters via Yahoo Finance).
Amazon: strong cloud growth, negative free cash flow
Amazon posted third-quarter revenue of $201.9 billion and earnings of $1.89 a share, both below analyst consensus, with net sales up 12% and AWS sales up 39% (Motley Fool via Yahoo Finance). The number that unsettled investors was cash: free cash flow over the trailing twelve months was an outflow of $42.4 billion, while the company held its 2026 capital-spending goal at $220 billion. Reuters reported that Meta also showed cash burn in the September quarter, that Microsoft posted a strong cash-flow beat while raising $25 billion in a debt sale, and quoted Swissquote Bank’s Ipek Ozkardeskaya saying Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta spent more than $200 billion in the third quarter alone and that higher financing costs could absorb more of the cash they generate (Reuters via Yahoo Finance). We covered the first signs of this theme in our report on Meta’s $37.5 billion bond sale.
The Bitcoin angle: it held up on the day, not over the month
Over the full month the picture is less flattering. Using Yahoo Finance closes from 30 September to 30 October, bitcoin fell 7.6% (83,553.85 to 77,198.21), more than the Nasdaq’s 5.3%. On Friday itself, though, bitcoin’s 0.77% decline on the Coinbase UTC-day candle was far smaller than the Nasdaq’s 2.86% or gold’s roughly 3.3%, even with a record exchange hack in the same candle. In our dataset of Nasdaq days that fell 2.5% or more since 2014, bitcoin’s same-day move on Friday was milder than on 72 of the 108 earlier such days. That is a statistic about one day and one coincidence of events, not evidence that bitcoin has become a safe haven: gold fell harder than bitcoin on a day when stocks fell, and the 30-day correlation between bitcoin and the Nasdaq stood at 0.60 earlier this month (see our correlation analysis).
Intraday, Coinbase data show bitcoin traded between a high of 78,634.80 and a low of 76,141.02 on the 30 October UTC day and was at 77,236.32 at 07:04 UTC on Saturday. CoinCodex put it at about $77,270, down 1.63% over 24 hours, at 06:00 UTC, with total crypto market capitalization near $2.60 trillion (CoinCodex). For the longer view on what a month like this has meant for bitcoin afterwards, read today’s companion study: What does bitcoin do the month after the Nasdaq falls 4% or more?
Video: Bloomberg Television’s coverage of the Intel and Amazon earnings selloff, published 30 October 2026.
Video: Schwab Network on the tech decline and the Binance hack, published 30 October 2026.
What to watch in the next few days
- Sunday 1 November: Binance said it aimed to resume withdrawals within about 40 hours of co-CEO Richard Teng’s Friday update (Winbuzzer), and to publish a full proof-of-reserves report by Monday 2 November (Cointelegraph). Our Field Guide #71 lists five checks to apply to that report.
- Monday 2 November: the new trading week opens with the Nasdaq about 5% below its 30 September close, so the first Asian and European reaction to Friday’s selloff is the next test of whether bitcoin keeps its relative resilience.
- Tuesday 3 November: US midterm elections, a scheduled event risk for all markets.
- Wednesday 11 November: MSCI’s decision affecting Strategy, covered in Field Guide #60 on Strategy and the MSCI rule.
Sources: Yahoo Finance live market blog, Motley Fool on Intel, Yahoo Finance / Motley Fool on Amazon, Reuters via Yahoo Finance, Benzinga, CoinCodex. Bitcoin figures: Coinbase Exchange.
Method: bitcoin prices, highs, lows and closes are Coinbase Exchange candles (UTC day or UTC hour) pulled by Bitcoin Mastery at about 07:05 UTC on Saturday 31 October 2026; the 31 October candle is still open at that time, so any daily close quoted is the 30 October close (77,180.42) unless stated. Index, gold and monthly figures are Yahoo Finance daily closes (US cash-session closes for the Nasdaq Composite, Friday 30 October). Third-party figures are attributed to their source and date. Our “Nasdaq days of 2.5% or more” comparison covers 109 days since September 2014 using Yahoo Finance daily closes, with bitcoin measured on the same calendar date (UTC-day close), and so mixes slightly different trading hours.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are volatile and you can lose some or all of the money you put in. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold bitcoin, any exchange-traded fund, any listed security or any other asset, and the technical levels, probabilities and scenarios discussed are descriptions of published data, not forecasts. Do your own research and consult a licensed financial advisor before making investment decisions.