AMD grows. Chip stocks plunge.

AMD reported a record $13.38 billion in revenue on Tuesday. The stock still closed higher on Wednesday. On Thursday it fell 17.3 percent. Data center sales are growing, yet investors are paying substantially less for the suppliers’ shares. The Nasdaq Composite ended Thursday at 24,315, down 5.52 percent on the day.

Democrats won control of the House and Senate in the November 3 midterms, according to the reported results. Major US indexes rose on Wednesday before Thursday’s selloff. Taken together, those two sessions make it hard to explain the move with the election result alone. Donald Trump remains president. The new majorities can shape committee agendas and hearings, but an election victory does not itself change the law.

Gina Hinojosa won the Texas governor’s race after campaigning for a longer pause on new data center approvals. The practical questions are who pays for grid upgrades, how much water is available, and which sites can get a power connection. Those decisions can shift orders for chips, servers and optical components. They do not imply a nationwide construction freeze. A change to a real project timeline or an operator’s spending outlook would be stronger evidence.

On Thursday OpenAI said it would pay for the power and infrastructure needed for future data centers it owns and operates. Each site is to have an agreement with its host community, and the company plans to disclose site-level electricity and water use. These are OpenAI’s commitments, not rules already in force across the industry. For suppliers, the next question is whether construction schedules or order volumes actually change.

The S&P 500 fell 4.36 percent, the Dow 3.44 percent and the Russell 2000 about 4.4 percent on Thursday. Smaller companies were caught in the selling too. The VIX, which derives expected S&P 500 volatility from option prices, climbed from 16.61 to 28.18. QQQ closed at $647.05 in Atlas, the low of its daily candle, on more than twice Wednesday’s volume.

All eleven US sector ETFs in our comparison declined on Thursday. Communication services, utilities and consumer staples each lost less than one percent, while technology fell 8.0 percent. From the prior Friday’s close, communication services were still up 4.44 percent and technology was down 9.54 percent. Those are ETF price changes, not counts of the individual stocks that rose in each sector.

The SMH semiconductor ETF fell 11.21 percent on Thursday and 14.31 percent from the October 30 close. Nvidia lost 9.26 percent and AMD 17.26 percent. The decline reached companies that had no earnings release of their own on Thursday. Compare SMH with QQQ next week. If the Nasdaq bounces and the semiconductor ETF does not, the rebound has yet to reach chips.

AMD’s third-quarter revenue rose 45 percent. Data center sales grew 97 percent to about $8.5 billion. Management expects about $17 billion in total revenue this quarter, plus or minus three percent. That is company guidance. Thursday’s $404.40 close was below its 200-session moving average of about $415. The stronger outlook did not keep the stock above that level.

Qualcomm posted fiscal fourth-quarter adjusted earnings of $2.17 per share, down from $3.00 a year earlier. It also announced a multi-generation collaboration with Amazon on AI data centers. The prospect of another source of revenue did little for the shares on Thursday. QCOM lost 9.49 percent. It recovered from $148.25 to close at $156.75, still well below Wednesday’s close.

Marvell announced on Monday that it would acquire Lumentum in an all-stock deal, offering 4.5 Marvell shares for each Lumentum share. The roughly $115 billion quoted at announcement was the implied enterprise value then, not a fixed cash payment. At Marvell’s $133.55 Thursday close, the exchange ratio implied about $601 per Lumentum share. Lumentum closed at $509.70. That spread is not a guaranteed return: the buyer’s share price moves and the deal has yet to close. Lumentum separately reported $1.26 billion in quarterly revenue on Monday.

AppLovin reported $2.185 billion in revenue, up 55 percent from a year earlier. Net income rose 72 percent to $1.44 billion. APP opened the next morning at $349.83, up from $271.75 at the previous close. It held the gap and finished at $356.10. That is what relative strength looked like on Thursday. A fresh setup would still need a narrower range to develop, and the shares remain below their 200-session average.

Airbnb reported $4.9 billion in quarterly revenue on Thursday, up 19 percent year over year. Nights and seats booked increased 16 percent. The company raised its full-year outlook for revenue growth and adjusted EBITDA margin. The release came after the regular session, so Thursday’s closing price does not tell us how investors reacted to it.

The Bank of England raised its policy rate by 0.25 percentage points to 4.0 percent. UK inflation was 3.5 percent in September. The bank’s projection puts it near five percent by mid-2027 under its current assumptions, chiefly because of energy costs. Australia’s central bank also raised its rate, to 4.85 percent. Eurostat’s flash estimate put euro area inflation at 4.0 percent, up from 3.8 percent. That was an inflation release, not a new ECB decision.

The ten-year US Treasury yield fell from 4.90 to 4.84 percent. The two-year yield moved from 4.58 to 4.46 percent. These are Treasury observations, not intraday highs or lows. Falling yields alongside falling technology shares are hard to square with rising US rates as the sole explanation for Thursday. Friday’s employment report may change the direction of the move again.

Brent futures rose 3.88 percent on Thursday to $98.29 a barrel. WTI rose 2.72 percent to $90.52. New tanker attacks brought shipping risks back into focus. Energy equities did not follow crude higher: XLE lost nearly three percent. For US natural gas, the EIA reported a 77 billion cubic foot storage build for the week ended October 30. Inventories were 1.4 percent above their five-year average but below a year earlier.

On Coinbase, BTC/USD fell from roughly $80,428 at Wednesday’s UTC close to $75,969 at the end of Thursday, down about 5.55 percent. COIN lost 9.69 percent in the regular US equity session. The two windows end at different times. Both still show that crypto and listed crypto companies had a weak Thursday. The area around $80,000 is a useful reference after the drop, not a forecast.

Three names from the previous issue show why the comparison window matters. CareDx fell 11.10 percent on Thursday and Okta fell 9.92 percent. Moderna declined that day too, but was still up 8.90 percent from the October 30 close. None of the three ended Thursday higher. Moderna’s multi-session lead is the reason it remains a chart to follow.

APP stays on my study list because it held its earnings gap. I want to see whether it can build a tighter range above Thursday’s $338.88 low. AMD and Nvidia are benchmarks for the group, not long setups for now: both closed below their 200-session moving averages. I’m leaving Lumentum off the standalone setup list as well. The exchange ratio ties it to Marvell and makes the chart harder to judge on its own.

October US consumer prices are due on Tuesday, November 10. Cisco has scheduled its results for Thursday, November 12, after the US close. US producer prices follow on Friday. Start Monday with the price action. Does SMH regain ground against QQQ? Can APP keep its earnings gap even if the rest of the market starts to rise? Those are separate questions, and both can be checked on the charts.