Weekend Market Report-11/8/26-A 5.5% Nasdaq Crash, One Friday Bounce, And A Fed That Wants To Hike

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Good weekend, everyone.

If you spent last week wondering whether you forgot how to trade, relax. The market forgot first.

The Week the AI Trade Got Audited

Monday and Tuesday were the warm-up. Wednesday was the setup: Democrats swept the midterms and the Dow ripped 3%, more than 1,500 points, in what looked like a textbook post-election rally. Chips and data center names were quietly sliding underneath it, which in hindsight was the only thing on the screen worth reading.

Thursday delivered the bill. The S&P 500 and Russell each lost 4.4%, the Nasdaq lost 5.5%, and the Dow handed back all of Wednesday and then some. It was the worst day for the major averages since the tariff shock of April 2025.

The catalyst was specific. The market decided the election results, the Texas governor’s race especially, raise the odds of data center moratoriums and a slower AI buildout. Citrini Research added fuel by declaring the end of the AI trade as we know it. The Philadelphia Semiconductor index fell more than 12%, its biggest one-day drop in over six years. Micron and AMD each lost about 17%, and Nvidia dropped more than 9% and went negative on the year. The Nasdaq closed nearly 12% below its October 6 record, so we can officially call it a correction.

Friday’s Bounce: Enjoy It, Then Read the Fine Print

Friday gave us something to work with. October payrolls came in at 165,000 against forecasts near 60,000, unemployment slipped to 4.1%, and chips finally caught a bid. AMD gained 11%, Micron 5%, Nvidia almost 3%, and the semiconductor ETFs about 3.5%. Good earnings got paid in full: JFrog +35%, IonQ +23%, Airbnb +12%, Cloudflare +10%. Bad earnings got taken out back: DraftKings -21%, Axon -18%, Atlassian -16%.

Now the fine print. The Dow fell, the equal-weight S&P fell, and decliners beat advancers inside the S&P 500. Micron recovered only about a quarter of Thursday’s loss, and QQQ only about a fifth. That was a relief bounce in the most beaten-up corner of the market, and it has yet to prove it’s anything more.

The Other Problem: Hikes

That strong jobs number has a catch. Futures now put the odds of a quarter-point rate hike at the December 8-9 Fed meeting near 80%. Yes, hike. The 10-year ended the week around 4.86% and the 2-year around 4.51%. So the market is trying to digest an AI repricing and a Fed leaning the wrong way at the same time. Meanwhile, the money hiding out went to health care, which claimed five of the eight S&P 500 names sitting at 52-week highs Friday. Energy was the worst sector of the week as crude collapsed.

What to Expect Next Week

Tuesday morning’s October CPI is the main event, with consensus at +0.3% headline and +0.2% core after September’s +0.6% headline. Thanks to the data hole from the 2025 shutdown, the usual year-over-year figure may not even be published. A hot number with hike odds this high would be unpleasant.

Tuesday after the close is CoreWeave, and for this tape that’s the most important report of the week because it sits at the center of the question about who’s financing all this. Nebius reports Thursday morning, then Cisco, Applied Materials and Cerebras that night. PPI lands Friday, about ten Fed speakers fill the gaps, and the bond market takes Wednesday off for Veterans Day while stocks stay open. Nvidia waits on deck for November 17.

On the charts, the S&P has support near 7,314 and then its 52-week average near 7,220. The Nasdaq closed just under its 52-week average around 24,680, and getting back above it is job one. Air pockets this size rarely heal in a straight line, so a retest of Thursday’s lows wouldn’t surprise me. I’d keep size light, let the leaders show themselves, and let CPI and CoreWeave do the talking before getting brave.

Many AI stocks are being “revalued.” As a result, winners and losers will emerge as we go forward. Not all will make it as the playing field gets harder. Names that aren’t going away that you can nibble on at a discount are NVDA, GOOGL, AMZN, META, MSFT.

Regarding metals, I didn’t play that massive move about a year ago when gold and especially silver went parabolic, but many of these names have pulled back in a big way, have bounced, and now look decent. Here are 4 in the gold space that seem to be emerging from bullish falling wedges.

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