'Tech carnage' hits Wall Street as Intel plunges 30% and the Nasdaq heads for a $2 trillion October wipeout
A Google DeepMind promotional screen introducing Gemini, the AI brand whose new Gemini 4 Carbon model Sundar Pichai unveiled just before Alphabet's earnings call as its shares tumbled over 10%.A two-week Alphabet share-price chart, sourced from Yahoo Finance, showing the plunge that wiped $500 billion from the company's value after profit collapsed 25% to $26.2 billion.
Alphabet's 12% collapse on Thursday — its worst single-day fall since its 2004 IPO — wiped out roughly $500 billion in market value and triggered a second consecutive day of steep losses on Friday. Intel suffered the heaviest blow in Friday's sell-off, tumbling more than 30% after finance chief David Zinsner warned that softness in the PC market would persist at least until mid-2026. Amazon fell over 3% after coming in below Wall Street's revenue and profit forecasts, even as it stood by its $220 billion capital expenditure projection for 2026.
Reddit and Roblox tumbled 30% and 20% respectively on Friday despite Reddit posting a strong earnings report.
Five tech giants — Meta, Alphabet, Oracle, Amazon and Microsoft — have between them committed $800.6 billion to AI spending in 2026 alone, stoking investor anxiety over whether returns will justify such enormous outlays.
The FTSE 100 edged up 0.2% to 10,744, but analysts warn millions of British pension and ISA holders face pain through their exposure to US tech stocks.
