AI Chip Stocks Plunge After Midterms

Investors wiped out roughly three trillion dollars on Thursday, dragging the Nasdaq down more than five percent. The plunge followed the Democrats' congressional sweep, sparking fears that 41 new ballot measures will choke AI data-center growth. Texas and Ohio alone host about a quarter of the planned gigawatts, and lawmakers there pushed moratoriums. Analysts now expect cap-ex to peak next year, with ten percent of the 800-1,000 AI centers likely scrapped. Chip stocks led the rout, with Nvidia off about eight to nine percent. Micron fell fourteen to fifteen percent and AMD slid around fourteen percent. Meta dropped three to three-point-four percent, Microsoft off 2.8 percent, and Snap plunged 13 percent. Neocloud player CoreWeave slid nine percent and is on track for an 18-percent two-day drop. The Dow fell about 1,800 points, the S&P slipped roughly four percent, and the Nasdaq dropped 5.2 percent. Dina Powell McCormick warned, "Building data centers in the U.S. is going to be harder," highlighting the regulatory headwinds.