Nvidia tumbled as much as 9% on Thursday to erase all of its 2026 gains, trading down about 2% for the year in its steepest single-day drop since April 2025. The broader semiconductor rout pulled the Nasdaq Composite down 5.4%—more than 11% below its Oct 6 record high and into a correction—while the Nasdaq 100 sank over 6%, the S&P 500 fell 4.1% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost more than 1,100 points, or 3.2%. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped nearly 10% as AMD fell 16%, Micron slid 15% and SanDisk lost 20%.
Morgan Stanley estimated that leveraged ETF rebalancing alone could force $52 billion in additional equity selling by Thursday’s close, the second-largest such unwind since 2020, including $21 billion in semiconductors and $15 billion tied to the Nasdaq 100. At Goldman Sachs, head of Americas equities execution services John Flood wrote to clients that long-only investors were frozen while hedge funds dumped the hyperscaler shares they had bought during Wednesday’s post-election rally, adding that the desk’s phones were “exploding with asks for color.”