Wall Street’s worst day since early June came on Thursday 22 October, when the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.60% to 26,008.86 and the Philadelphia semiconductor index dropped 6.7%, its biggest one-day loss since 23 June, according to Reuters. The trigger was a run of AI-related earnings: Meta beat expectations but fell 7.0% after reporting its first cash outflow in more than a decade, tied to AI spending, and announcing plans to issue non-voting shares in a two-for-one split to raise capital. Bitcoin fell 3.2% the same day, from $84,024.67 to $81,307.16 on Coinbase, its worst daily drop since 15 September in the Yahoo Finance series. It entered Sunday’s late session near $80,400, with the Federal Reserve, a key inflation report and Strategy’s quarterly results all due in the next four days.
What happened on Wall Street
| Date | S&P 500 | Nasdaq Composite | Dow | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thu 22 Oct | −1.21% to 7,663.43 | −2.60% to 26,008.86 | +0.02% to 52,867.98 | Reuters via Star-Advertiser |
| Fri 23 Oct | −0.52% to 7,623.68 | −0.21% to 25,955.34 | −1.23% to 52,215.16 | Reuters via Star-Advertiser |
| Week 19–23 Oct | −0.5% | −0.7% | +0.4% (third weekly gain) | Reuters via Star-Advertiser |
The damage was concentrated. Intel, AMD, Sandisk and Marvell each lost more than 8% on Thursday, Tesla fell 3.1% even though its free cash flow was unexpectedly positive and it cut its 2026 capital-spending plan, and Paul Nolte of Murphy & Sylvest told Reuters that “investors are starting to realize that there are some holes in the AI story.” On Friday the Dow dropped 652.82 points while energy shares rose 2.5% to a record, and telecom stocks slid after a report that SpaceX was seeking thousands of cell sites for a fourth wireless carrier (AT&T and T-Mobile each fell nearly 8%). Reuters also noted that University of Michigan consumer sentiment edged down toward a record low in October and that S&P 500 companies are on track for more than 32% earnings growth in the third quarter, per LSEG IBES.
Oil and gold moved too
Brent crude settled at $116.72 on Friday, up $3.55 (3.14%) and its highest settlement since 29 April, after Iran-backed Houthi forces carried out a series of attacks across Saudi Arabia, including on energy infrastructure, and Saudi Aramco ordered the evacuation of its Dhahran headquarters on Thursday, Reuters reported (as relayed by FinanceFeeds). Brent rose about 6% on the week and WTI closed at $103.27. One caution on the data: Yahoo Finance’s front-month Brent series (BZ=F) shows $113.17 on Thursday, which matches the implied Thursday settlement, but $111.70 for Friday, which does not match Reuters’ $116.72; we use Reuters’ settlement and treat the Yahoo Friday print as unreconciled. Gold went the other way: COMEX gold futures fell from $4,181.10 on 16 October to $4,007.90 on 23 October, a loss of 4.1% (Yahoo Finance), after a 2.2% drop on Thursday alone.
For bitcoin holders, this combination is awkward: oil at five-month highs pushes inflation and rate-hike expectations up, while an AI-led equity selloff removes the risk appetite that has supported prices. Markets are pricing roughly a 25-basis-point Fed hike before year-end, Reuters said, and Babypips’ week-ahead notes put the odds of a hold at this week’s meeting near 90%. Our earlier tests found bitcoin has tended to lose ground on days oil jumped 2% or more (an average of −0.46% across 67 days; see our oil analysis) and to share risk-off pain with the Nasdaq (see the correlation study).
Bitcoin: the numbers
| Date (UTC day) | Coinbase close | Daily change | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wed 21 Oct | $84,024.67 | +1.31% | Intraday high $84,856.07 |
| Thu 22 Oct | $81,307.16 | −3.23% | Low $80,789.61; Nasdaq −2.60% |
| Fri 23 Oct | $81,078.04 | −0.28% | Week from 16 Oct close ($81,500.04): −0.52% |
| Sat 24 Oct | $80,769.67 | −0.38% | Low $79,107.00, below the 15 Oct low of $79,676.02 |
| Sun 25 Oct | about $80,400 at 20:30 UTC | — | Candle still open |
The 24 October low of $79,107 sits 6.8% below Wednesday’s high of $84,856. Over the full week bitcoin ended almost flat (−0.52% Friday to Friday) against a Nasdaq loss of 0.7% and a gold loss of 4.1%, which tells you the drama was mostly in one session. US spot bitcoin ETFs mirrored it: Farside data shows a $635.6 million outflow on Thursday and a preliminary $137.9 million outflow on Friday, leaving a provisional weekly net of +$301.2 million (see our flows update). Strategy shares closed Friday at $146.01 and Meta at $642.62 (Yahoo Finance).
The calendar that decides the next few days
- Tuesday 27 October: US consumer confidence (forecast 80.0, down from 81.9) and the Israeli election, which Babypips says may affect how soon fighting with Iran restarts.
- Wednesday 28 October, 18:00 GMT: the Fed decision, expected to hold at 3.75%–4.00%, with Chair Kevin Warsh’s press conference at 18:30 GMT. Microsoft and Alphabet report after the close. See our guide to reading rate-hike probabilities.
- Thursday 29 October, 12:30 GMT: September PCE inflation and the first estimate of third-quarter GDP (consensus 3.1% annualised per Babypips); Amazon reports after the close.
- Thursday 29 October, after the US close: Strategy reports third-quarter results with a webinar at 5:00 p.m. ET (company announcement of 8 October). In early October Strategy said it expected a $20.91 billion digital-asset gain for the quarter and held 848,000 bitcoin (Stocktwits, 5 October); see our guide to business-versus-bitcoin-fund checks.
- Friday 30 October: Bank of Japan decision.
One data conflict worth knowing before Thursday: forecasts for core PCE differ by source, with Babypips expecting +0.2% month on month and CMC Markets +0.3%. We cover how to read that gap in our new guide to the PCE report, published today.
The video above is dated 20 October and discusses the previous days’ flows; it is background, not a description of Thursday’s selloff.
What this means
The straightforward reading is that bitcoin is still trading as a high-beta risk asset when equities wobble, and that the next few days offer three separate shocks (rates, inflation, Strategy’s quarter) rather than one. The mainstream-news hook is Meta’s cash outflow, but the market-structure hook is financing: the same worry about paying for AI that drove the Nasdaq down 4.5% the week before (see our 17 October report) is now showing up in a profitable company’s cash flow. Whether bitcoin keeps trading with that story depends on the Fed: a hawkish tone on December would hit both equities and crypto, while a hold with a patient message could let the correlation fade. None of this is a forecast, and the opposite can happen.
Sources:Reuters via Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 22 Oct; Reuters via Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 23 Oct; FinanceFeeds Brent report (Reuters-sourced), 24 Oct; Babypips week-ahead; CMC Markets week-ahead, 23 Oct; Strategy earnings-date release; Stocktwits, 5 Oct; NewsBTC/Farside, 25 Oct.
Method: bitcoin prices, highs, lows and closes are Coinbase Exchange candles (UTC day) pulled by Bitcoin Mastery at about 20:30 UTC on Sunday 25 October 2026; the 25 October candle is still open at that time, so any closing figure quoted is the 24 October close unless stated. Index, stock, gold and oil figures are Yahoo Finance daily data (US closes of Friday 23 October) or the news sources cited. Other third-party figures are attributed to their source and date. Gold futures (GC=F) and equity figures not attributed to Reuters are Yahoo Finance closes; percentage changes for bitcoin and gold are our own calculations.
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.