The S&P 500 fell 2.68% to 7,376.86 this week, the Nasdaq Composite lost 3.37% to 24,579.42 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.94% to 51,285.73, a sequence that began with a 3.03% Dow rally on the day after the midterms and ended with a 4.4% single-session drop in the S&P on Thursday. Brent crude fell 16.9% to $97.76 a barrel and WTI dropped 13.23% to $90.34, while gold rose 4.63% to $4,079.50 an ounce. The Russell 2000 gave back 2.05% to 2,754.11. Breadth across our US coverage of 327 companies ended the week at 50.5% advancers with a median move of +0.07%, a flat aggregate that hides the widest intraweek dispersion of the year.
Day by day
11-02 · Waiting for the vote
The S&P fell 0.5%, the Nasdaq 1.1% and the Russell 2000 0.2%, while the Dow added 0.4% and breadth held at 69.5% of 420 US companies above $3B with a median gain of +1.2%. The damage was concentrated in networking and chip names: Ciena fell 11.3%, Intel 8.8%, Oracle 8.8% and CoreWeave 8.6%, against IDEXX Laboratories at +21.9% and Howmet Aerospace at +6.9%. The equal-weight tape opened +0.6% against the prior close and faded to +0.1% by the close, with the session low at 15:45 ET and the largest 15-minute drop only -0.2% (10:30 to 10:45 ET), led by Amphenol, Lam Research and Advanced Micro Devices at -1.3% each. CNBC reported at 09:27Z that "Treasury yields are mixed as oil prices tumble ahead of the midterms," and Yahoo Finance's midday note read "Stocks Rally as Oil Prices Tumble on Diplomatic Hopes." The read that this was pre-election de-risking rather than a growth signal would have been falsified by a broad-based advance in cyclicals, which did not appear.
11-03 · The index split
The Nasdaq rose 0.8% and the S&P 0.4% while the Dow fell 0.4%, and breadth collapsed to 36.3% of 419 companies above $3B with a median of -0.7% — the average stock did worse than the tape. Sysco fell 9.3%, Ball 7.1% and Archer-Daniels-Midland 6.8%, against Regal Rexnord at +11.8% and Grab Holdings at +9.1%. The equal-weight basket never moved more than +0.4% and closed at -0.0%, its low of -0.1% at 15:30 ET. Reuters wrote "Nasdaq ends higher as AI heavyweights rebound ahead of midterm results," while MarketWatch reported "Nasdaq-100 tumbles into its third correction this year as AI worries mount" and Yahoo Finance noted "Nasdaq-100 in correction again as AI earnings 'not good enough'." Traders read the split as index-level support from a handful of mega-caps rather than a turn in sentiment; a close above the day's 10:45 ET high of +0.41% on the equal-weight basket would have argued otherwise.
11-04 · The relief rally
The Dow jumped 3.0%, the S&P 1.6%, the Nasdaq 1.4% and the Russell 2000 1.6%, with breadth at 74.7% of 419 companies above $3B and a median of +3.1% — the median beat the cap-weighted index, the signature of a genuine broadening. Duolingo rose 26.0%, Mosaic 17.4% and Trex 14.3%, while Trimble fell 17.3%, Vertiv 12.9%, CVS Health 12.5% and CoreWeave 9.9%. The equal-weight tape opened +1.7%, dipped to a session low of +1.4% at 10:15 ET and finished +1.8%; the largest 15-minute drop was -0.2% at the open, led by Capital One at -4.3%, Citigroup at -3.0% and Goldman Sachs at -2.9%. The New York Times reported "Stocks Rise as Democrats Flip Control of Congress," and Bloomberg ran "AI Data Center Boom Is Set for Upheaval After US Election Rout." The reading that the move was a policy-gridlock trade rather than a growth trade would have been falsified by financials leading the tape, which they did intraday even as they lagged the close.
11-05 · The chip unwind
The S&P fell 4.4%, the Nasdaq 5.5%, the Dow 3.4% and the Russell 2000 4.5%, with breadth at 14.3% of 419 companies above $3B and a median of -2.8%. Micron fell 17.5%, AMD 17.3%, Lam Research 16.4% and Ciena 15.2%, against Toyota at +9.3% and Rayonier at +8.6%. The equal-weight basket opened -0.7% and slid to -3.6% at the close, its low of the session at 15:45 ET, with the largest 15-minute drop of -0.4% (14:45 to 15:00 ET) led by Micron at -2.3%, Texas Instruments at -2.1% and Dell at -1.9%. Yahoo Finance reported "Nasdaq Plunges 5%, Dow Drops 1,600 Points to Wipe Out Post-Election Gains as Chip Stocks Sink," and The Guardian wrote "Nasdaq sees worst day in 18 months as investors bet on AI slowdown after Democrats' election triumph." The drop came in the same window as the AI-capex reassessment; a stabilisation in memory and semicap names by the close would have falsified the read, and none came.
11-06 · A partial bounce
The Nasdaq rose 1.1% and the S&P 0.3% while the Dow fell 0.5%, and breadth recovered to 42.1% of 416 companies above $3B with a median of -0.4% — the index gain again narrower than the average stock. Rocket Lab rose 15.4%, Coherent 13.6% and MKS Instruments 8.7%, while Charter fell 6.2%, Insulet 6.2%, Dexcom 6.0% and Centene 6.0%. The equal-weight basket opened +1.9% and closed +1.5%, its low of +1.4% at 13:00 ET, with the largest 15-minute drop of -0.4% (12:30 to 12:45 ET) led by Micron at -1.6%, SK hynix at -1.4% and SpaceX at -1.1%. Yahoo Finance reported "Stocks Just Had Their Worst Second Day After a Midterm in Nearly a Century," and later "Nasdaq futures rebound after brutal sell-off, Dow and S&P 500 wobble as US adds 165K jobs." Traders read the bounce as short covering rather than a change in the AI narrative; a close above the 12:00 ET high of +1.96% would have suggested otherwise.
The event window: a two-day round trip
| Index | Close 2026-10-30 | Close 2026-11-06 | Weekly change |
|---|---|---|---|
| S&P 500 | 7,580.07 | 7,376.86 | -2.68% |
| Nasdaq Composite | 25,437 | 24,579.42 | -3.37% |
| Dow Jones Industrial Average | 51,770.31 | 51,285.73 | -0.94% |
| Russell 2000 | 2,811.84 | 2,754.11 | -2.05% |
| Euro Stoxx 50 | 6,131.31 | 6,170.49 | +0.64% |
| Nikkei 225 | 63,290.11 | 57,329.13 | -9.42% |
| Hang Seng | 23,294.42 | 24,522.95 | +5.27% |
The event was the US midterm election of November 3: Democrats took both the Senate and the House, and President Trump said he accepted the result and would work with the opposition. The first transmission was mechanical — a divided government was priced as legislative gridlock, and the Dow's 3.03% gain on November 4 was the largest single-day move of the week. The second transmission was sectoral: the market began pricing a Democratic shift on energy and healthcare policy, and renewable and managed-care names firmed while the Texas governor's race result was read as a constraint on data-centre expansion, sending related stocks lower. The third was the reversal. On November 5 the Nasdaq fell 5.5% and the S&P 4.4%, erasing the post-election gain entirely, with chip and data-centre names at the centre of the selling. The fourth was the oil move: crude fell hard on November 5, with the election result read alongside expectations of a Middle East ceasefire, and energy was the worst-performing post-election sector. The macro backdrop did not cooperate with either narrative: October ISM services came in at 54.5 against a 54.7 consensus and a prior 54.9, S&P Global's composite PMI fell to 55.9 from 58.4, and ADP private payrolls rose 86,000 against a 70,000 consensus — slower momentum, stable labour. What we do not know is whether the chip selloff was a policy repricing or an AI-capex repricing that would have happened anyway; the two are observationally identical this week.
United States: the median tells a different story
The headline indices lost ground, but the internals were stranger than the index prints. The S&P's -2.68% week contained a +1.6% day and a -4.4% day, and the equal-weight basket's intraday path on November 5 — from -0.7% at the open to -3.6% at the close, with no bounce above -0.7% at any point — describes a market that sold steadily rather than in a panic spike. The Dow's -0.94% weekly loss was the mildest of the four main US indices, and its 3.03% gain on November 4 was the week's single largest index move. The Russell 2000's -2.05% put small caps between the Dow and the S&P, which is unusual for a week in which the AI complex led the decline; normally small caps underperform in a tech-led selloff. The 10-year Treasury yield fell 8bp to 4.86% and the 2-year fell 5bp to 4.51%, leaving the 10Y-2Y spread at 35bp — a modest bull-steepening that is more consistent with a growth scare than with an inflation scare. The 30-year fell 5bp to 5.26% and the 3-month rose 3bp to 4.19%, so the front end moved against the long end. Our US breadth sample of 327 companies ended at 50.5% advancers with a median of +0.07%: an exactly flat week for the typical stock, which means the index loss was a large-cap and specifically a semiconductor story.
Europe: the quiet beneficiary
The Euro Stoxx 50 rose 0.64% to 6,170.49, the CAC 40 added 2.13% to 8,139 and the IBEX 35 gained 3.84% to 19,369.5, while the DAX was effectively unchanged at 25,820.36 (+0.01%) and the FTSE 100 slipped 0.52% to 10,673.94. Our European coverage of 220 companies showed 61.4% advancers and a median of +1.13%, with Germany at 55.6% advancers and a median of +0.62% and France at 73.7% advancers and a median of +2.44%. The dispersion was in single names: Deutsche Lufthansa rose 17.71% to a $9.7B market cap, Heidelberg Materials 15.52%, Fresenius 9.8% and Bayer 9.21%, while Alstom fell 29.6% to $6.3B, OHB 14.64%, BP 11.63% and Renishaw 11.59%. The BP move is the cleanest read-through from the US election and the oil collapse: a $116.6B integrated major down 11.63% in a week when Brent fell 16.9% is an oil-price story, not a European story. The UK 10-year gilt yield stood at 5.16% as of November 6, up 1bp on the day, down 28bp on the month and up 69bp on the year — note those are day, month and year changes, not weekly. The German 10-year was 3.47% as of September 30, up 1bp on the day, down 23bp on the month and up 59bp on the year, on the same basis. Europe's relative resilience is best explained by sector mix: less semiconductor weight, more banks and industrials, and a luxury complex that rallied — LVMH +6.24%, Kering +6.13%, Hermès +6.11%.
Asia: the epicentre
The damage was in North Asia. The TAIEX fell 14.82% to 38,513.33 and the KOSPI fell 12.94% to 4,988.98; the Nikkei 225 lost 9.42% to 57,329.13. Our Japanese coverage of 92 companies showed 20.7% advancers and a median of -6.44%, and our Taiwanese coverage of 6 companies showed 16.7% advancers and a median of -8.55%. The single-name damage was severe: SCREEN Holdings fell 31.99% to $13.4B, Murata 23.66%, MARUWA 23.06%, Tokyo Ohka Kogyo 20.38%, Resonac 19.81% and Advantest 19.54% to $161.8B. In Taiwan, Chroma ATE fell 31.34%, YAGEO 25.5%, Delta Electronics 20.97% and Hon Hai 8.55%. The counterweight was autos and consumer: Toyota rose 10.46% to $254.6B, Nippon Paint 7.6%, Sony 6.72%, Honda 5.36%. The yen weakened 0.39% to 158.425 per dollar, the won weakened 1.92% to 1,363.65 and the Taiwan dollar weakened 0.61% to 32.765 — currency moves that flatter exporters but did not rescue the semiconductor supply chain. India was the outlier: the Nifty 50 rose 6.44% to 24,536.6 and the rupee strengthened 1.32% to 93.895. The Japanese 10-year was 2.82% as of October 30; the day, month and year changes were not available in our data and we do not infer them.
China: the decoupling trade
China was the week's clearest winner. The CSI 300 rose 3.21% to 4,113.41, the SSE Composite 0.82% to 3,628.44, the SZSE Component 3.26% to 11,186.88 and the ChiNext 2.14% to 2,465.23; Hong Kong did better still, with the Hang Seng up 5.27% to 24,522.95 and the Hang Seng China Enterprises up 5.42% to 8,288.52. Our mainland coverage of 183 companies showed 80.9% advancers and a median of +3.91% — the strongest breadth of any market we track this week. The leadership was power equipment and automation: Sungrow rose 25.55% to $26.1B, Roborock 24.63%, China Southern Power Grid Technology 22.1%, Neway Valve 20.44%, NAURA 16.97% to $67.9B and Hangzhou GreatStar 16.13%. The laggards were biotech and the Taiwan-centred hardware chain: GenScript fell 13.25%, Wistron 12.81%, Pegatron 9.37%, Quanta 8.65%, Lenovo 8.54% and Chaozhou Three-Circle 8.0%. The Chinese 10-year yield was 1.59% as of November 6, down 1bp on the day, down 11bp on the month and down 18bp on the year — again day, month and year changes, not weekly. The renminbi was essentially flat at 6.6648 per dollar (+0.06%). The pattern — domestic power equipment and automation strong, export hardware weak — is consistent with a market pricing US policy risk into the supply chain while buying the domestic policy beneficiaries; whether that survives a week in which the US AI complex stabilises is the open question.
Winners and losers
The US winners were idiosyncratic rather than thematic. IDEXX Laboratories rose 22.65% to a $43.5B market cap, Duolingo 21.91% to $6.5B, Mosaic 21.59% to $5.9B, Tapestry 14.2% to $23.1B and Clorox 13.59% to $10.6B. The losers were the AI infrastructure complex: Ciena fell 24.11% to $45.5B, Dell 22.57% to $209B, Micron 22.01% to $780.3B, Vertiv 21.35% to $89.5B, AMD 19.89% to $223.6B and Cleveland-Cliffs 19.58% to $8.1B. In Europe, Lufthansa's 17.71% gain and Alstom's 29.6% decline to $6.3B were the extremes, with BP's 11.63% fall to $116.6B the largest single oil-linked loss. In Japan, Toyota's 10.46% gain to $254.6B against SCREEN's 31.99% fall to $13.4B captures the rotation from semiconductor equipment to autos. In China, Sungrow's 25.55% gain to $26.1B against GenScript's 13.25% fall to $9.9B is the domestic-policy-versus-export-risk split in two names.
Cross-market: oil breaks, gold catches
Brent's 16.9% fall to $97.76 and WTI's 13.23% fall to $90.34 were the largest moves in the commodity complex and the direct read-through to BP, TotalEnergies (-2.66% to $197.3B) and the energy sector's underperformance after the election. Gold rose 4.63% to $4,079.50 an ounce, silver 5.84% to $51.97 and platinum 6.88% to $1,537 — a haven bid alongside the equity selloff. Industrial metals went the other way: copper fell 3.07% to $6.26 a pound, aluminium 3.34% to $3,200, zinc 5.05% to $3,818. Natural gas rose 3.62% to $3.00 per MMBtu and coal 3.54% to $152.30 a tonne, while uranium was unchanged at $91.55 a pound. Potash fell 2.72% to $357.50 despite Mosaic's 21.59% equity gain, a divergence worth noting. In currencies, the dollar was mixed: USD/BRL rose 2.06% to 5.4959, USD/KRW 1.92% to 1,363.65, USD/TWD 0.61% to 32.765 and USD/JPY 0.39% to 158.425, while USD/INR fell 1.32% to 93.895 and USD/HKD slipped 0.08% to 7.8396. The 10-year Treasury at 4.86%, down 8bp on the week, matters for the valuation story: with the 2-year at 4.51% and the spread at 35bp, the long end is not pricing a reacceleration, which makes the equity de-rating in AI names a discount-rate-neutral, earnings-expectation event. If the 10-year had risen through 5.00% while the Nasdaq fell 5.5%, the story would be a rate shock; it did not.
What to watch: conditions, not targets
Three conditions frame next week. First, whether the equal-weight basket holds above its November 5 close: the -3.6% print was the week's low and a second consecutive close below it would confirm the AI de-rating is broadening beyond semiconductors. Second, whether Brent holds above $95; a further leg lower would keep pressure on BP, TotalEnergies and the integrated majors, while a stabilisation would remove the sector's clearest headwind. Third, whether the 10-year stays below 5.00%: the 8bp weekly decline to 4.86% is the single most supportive input for equity multiples, and a reversal through 5.00% would change the character of any AI rebound. On the China side, watch whether the CSI 300 holds above 4,100 and whether Hong Kong's 5.27% weekly gain survives a US tech bounce — the two have been inversely correlated this week. In Japan, the Nikkei at 57,329 is 9.42% below its prior close; the question is whether the semiconductor equipment complex (SCREEN, Advantest, Tokyo Ohka) stabilises or continues to lead the index lower. Ranges, not targets: the S&P's weekly range was 7,376.86 to roughly 7,700 intraweek, and the Nasdaq's 5.5% single-day drop sets the volatility floor for next week's sessions.
Data appendix
| Item | Level | Change | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| S&P 500 | 7,376.86 | -2.68% | weekly |
| Nasdaq Composite | 24,579.42 | -3.37% | weekly |
| Dow Jones | 51,285.73 | -0.94% | weekly |
| Russell 2000 | 2,754.11 | -2.05% | weekly |
| Euro Stoxx 50 | 6,170.49 | +0.64% | weekly |
| DAX | 25,820.36 | +0.01% | weekly |
| CAC 40 | 8,139 | +2.13% | weekly |
| FTSE 100 | 10,673.94 | -0.52% | weekly |
| Nikkei 225 | 57,329.13 | -9.42% | weekly |
| TAIEX | 38,513.33 | -14.82% | weekly |
| KOSPI | 4,988.98 | -12.94% | weekly |
| Hang Seng | 24,522.95 | +5.27% | weekly |
| CSI 300 | 4,113.41 | +3.21% | weekly |
| Nifty 50 | 24,536.6 | +6.44% | weekly |
| US 10Y | 4.86% | -8bp | weekly |
| US 2Y | 4.51% | -5bp | weekly |
| US 30Y | 5.26% | -5bp | weekly |
| 10Y-2Y spread | 35bp | — | level |
| GB 10Y | 5.16% | +1bp day / -28bp month / +69bp year | not weekly |
| DE 10Y | 3.47% | +1bp day / -23bp month / +59bp year | not weekly |
| CN 10Y | 1.59% | -1bp day / -11bp month / -18bp year | not weekly |
| Brent | $97.76 | -16.9% | weekly |
| WTI | $90.34 | -13.23% | weekly |
| Gold | $4,079.50 | +4.63% | weekly |
| Copper | $6.26/lb | -3.07% | weekly |
| USD/JPY | 158.425 | +0.39% | weekly |
| USD/CNY | 6.6648 | +0.06% | weekly |
| USD/KRW | 1,363.65 | +1.92% | weekly |
| US breadth (n=327) | 50.5% advancers | median +0.07% | weekly |
| CN breadth (n=183) | 80.9% advancers | median +3.91% | weekly |
| JP breadth (n=92) | 20.7% advancers | median -6.44% | weekly |
This column is research and market commentary, not investment advice. Figures are as reported in our data log for the week of 2026-11-02 to 2026-11-06; day, month and year changes for non-US 10-year yields are labelled as such and are not weekly changes. Past moves are not indicative of future returns.