Big Tech's earnings week broke the one-year-old pattern of "AI capex up, everything else down." The Nasdaq fell 2.0% while the Russell 2000 rose 1.3% and 66.7% of the 330 US companies we track above $3 billion closed higher. Energy was the other winner: natural gas jumped 9.8% on supply risk tied to the Iran conflict, and Cheniere Energy gained 10.6%. Precious metals did the opposite — silver fell 8.6% and platinum 7.5%.
Three events that drove the tape
1. Big Tech earnings split the market. Intel fell 24.4% after earnings, the single worst week in our coverage universe, and the drop cut the value of the US government's equity stake by roughly $10 billion according to press reports. ServiceNow lost 33.9% and Alphabet 12.6% — both among the ten largest companies we track. Nvidia slipped 3.0% and Microsoft 0.5%, while Micron added 0.8%.
2. The Iran conflict repriced energy. Natural gas rose 9.8% and both crude benchmarks closed higher (WTI +0.8%, Brent +0.8%) — a modest move in price but a large one in shape: the front of the curve steepened while equities did not follow through evenly. Cheniere Energy (+10.6%) and Exxon Mobil (+2.2%) gained; EQT (-0.5%) and Occidental (-0.3%) did not.
3. Precious metals corrected. Gold fell 2.7% to $3,898.9/oz, silver 8.6% and platinum 7.5%. The miners tracked the metal: Agnico Eagle -5.2%, Barrick -3.0%. This looks like position unwinding after a strong run rather than a change in the rate story — see the valuation section below for what would confirm that.
The week in numbers
| Index | Close (Oct 30) | Week |
|---|---|---|
| S&P 500 | 7,580.07 | -0.57% |
| Nasdaq Composite | 25,437.00 | -2.00% |
| Dow Jones | 51,770.31 | -0.85% |
| Russell 2000 | 2,811.84 | +1.29% |
| SSE Composite | 3,599.02 | -2.48% |
| SZSE Component | 10,833.78 | -7.20% |
| Hang Seng | 23,294.42 | +0.87% |
| TAIEX | 45,211.83 | -1.80% |
| Nikkei 225 | 63,290.11 | +0.95% |
| DAX | 25,818.21 | +2.53% |
| CAC 40 | 7,969.42 | +2.40% |
| Euro Stoxx 50 | 6,131.31 | +1.04% |
| FTSE 100 | 10,729.80 | +0.37% |
| KOSPI | 5,730.74 | +3.25% |
| Nifty 50 | 23,053.10 | +2.00% |
The dispersion is the story: the gap between the best and worst major index this week was 10.5 percentage points, versus 3.1 points the week before. This is a market picking winners at the sector level rather than repricing the whole risk premium.
Where the damage was concentrated
Three names explain most of the Nasdaq's decline. ServiceNow fell 33.9% to a $148.8 billion market cap, Alphabet lost 12.6% while still the third-largest company in our database at $4.12 trillion, and Intel shed 24.4% to $347.6 billion. Every other mega-cap we track finished within 3.1% of flat — Amazon -3.1%, Nvidia -3.0%, Apple -0.9%, Microsoft -0.5%. The median US company above $3 billion actually gained 1.7%.
That combination — index down, breadth up — is what a rotation looks like in the data, not a de-rating. On our listed companies board the advance-decline line for US names was 220 up versus 110 down.
What held up: energy, Europe, small caps
Energy outperformed on both sides of the Atlantic. Cheniere Energy (+10.6%) is the cleanest expression of the LNG bid, and Exxon Mobil (+2.2%) and Chevron (+1.0%) followed the crude curve. The read-through sits on the natural gas page: Henry Hub at $2.90 is still near the bottom of its five-year range, which is why the 9.8% weekly move matters more for sentiment than for cash flow.
Europe was the week's quiet winner. The DAX added 2.5% and the CAC 2.4%, and 82.2% of German companies above $3 billion rose (median +1.9%). Korea's KOSPI (+3.3%) and India's Nifty (+2.0%) extended the pattern of capital looking for markets without a mega-cap AI earnings cycle in the middle of it.
China: the divergence got wider
The SZSE Component fell 7.2% against the SSE Composite's 2.5% — a 4.7-point gap between growth and value inside the same market. Our A-share sample (185 companies above $3 billion) had 44.9% advancers and a median return of -0.9%, so the damage was concentrated in growth and small caps rather than broad.
The exceptions were industrial cyclicals tied to the same energy story: PetroChina rose 12.7% to a $232.9 billion market cap after Q3 profit rose 21.6% year on year on higher oil and gas realizations, and COSCO Shipping Holdings added 12.6%. On the losing side, Hengtong Group (-18.9%) and Han's CNC (-18.0%) were hit by the growth de-rating.
What would confirm or break this
This section gives conditions and ranges, not price targets.
If rotation is real: the Russell 2000 holds above its 50-day average while the Nasdaq consolidates, and equal-weight breadth stays above 55% for a second week. In that case the S&P 500 trades in a 7,450–7,750 range while sector dispersion stays elevated.
If it is a one-week squeeze: natural gas gives back more than half of this week's 9.8% gain and Treasury yields rise together with the dollar — that combination would pull small caps back under the index and re-concentrate returns in mega-cap quality.
The signal to watch for metals: gold holding $3,800/oz while the dollar index is flat would confirm the correction was positioning, not a change in real rates. A break of $3,700 with a rising dollar would say the opposite.
Data appendix
Commodities (week): natural gas +9.77%, uranium +2.14%, aluminium +1.28%, WTI +0.82%, Brent +0.79%, copper -0.27%, corn -1.81%, gold -2.72%, soybeans -2.73%, wheat -3.44%, platinum -7.48%, silver -8.59%.
Currencies (USD vs): BRL +6.63%, KRW +0.90%, JPY +0.84%, HKD +0.12%, CNY -0.25%, TWD -0.09%. Full table on the currencies page.
Method: index closes from exchange data; company returns computed on primary listings from Oct 23 to Oct 30 close; breadth covers companies with market cap above $3 billion. Historical series on Markets.
This is research and commentary, not investment advice. Figures are as of the Oct 30, 2026 close and may be revised.