Intel Heads for Worst Day Since 1974 as Amazon Sinks 12%

Intel heads for its worst day since 1974 on a weak Q4 outlook as Amazon sinks 12% on AI spending. KOSPI drops 3.5% and SanDisk falls despite an earnings beat.

TLDR

• Intel beat on Q3 but guided Q4 revenue to $15B to $16B against about $17B expected. The stock closed at $92.07 before the report and is down about 27%, on track for its worst day since 1974.
• Amazon fell about 12% after hours. AWS grew 39%, its fastest in nearly five years, but EPS missed and the company said 2027 spending will rise further.
• SanDisk beat its own forecast with $11.03B in revenue and announced an 8-for-1 stock split, yet the stock has fallen 11.36%.
• The selloff reached Asia. KOSPI closed down 3.48% at 5,730.74 and the Nikkei 225 fell 2.12% to 63,289.89. The Bank of Japan held rates at 1.25%.
• Anthropic pre-IPO trading is live on the CoinDCX app, and Nvidia is in talks to back a $45B Anthropic data center.

Market Regime

Wall Street has spent this week sorting AI spending into two piles: spending that is already earning money, and spending that is running ahead of it. Microsoft landed in the first pile on Wednesday. Alphabet, Amazon and now Intel landed in the second. Amazon is the clearest example. Its cloud business grew 39% with a $578B order backlog, and the stock still fell about 12% because spending on property and equipment hit $77.3B in one quarter and the company plans to spend even more in 2027.

Intel is a different story with the same result. Its quarter was fine, but its Q4 outlook was about 9% below what analysts expected, and the stock is down about 27%. The question for Friday’s US session, which opens at 7:00 PM IST, is whether this stays a repricing of a few Big Tech names or spreads into a wider exit from AI stocks. Asia’s morning, with KOSPI down 3.48% and SK Hynix down 7%, suggests traders are not waiting to find out.

Bullish Factors

• Cloud demand is accelerating. AWS grew 39% to $45.98B, and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy expects more than 40% growth in both 2027 and 2028.
• Memory makers are still printing records. SanDisk’s data center sales rose 61% in a quarter, and it guided Q2 revenue to $12.20B to $12.60B.
• Rivian rose 9% after beating estimates, raising its delivery forecast to 67K to 70K vehicles and cutting its 2026 spending plan.
• Bond yields eased. The US 10-year yield slipped to about 4.91%, from 5.044% on Wednesday.
• The US economy grew at a 3.4% annual rate in Q3, up from 2.2% in Q2.

Bearish Factors

• Weak outlooks. Intel’s Q4 adjusted EPS guide of $0.25 compares with $0.44 expected.
• Spending fears. Amazon, Alphabet and Intel have all fallen this week on worries that AI spending is running ahead of returns.
• Inflation picked up. The PCE price index rose 3.6% in the year to September, and core PCE rose to 3.1%.
• Nasdaq 100 futures were down about 2% this morning, after the Nasdaq Composite fell 1.4% on Thursday.
• Oil is high. Brent rose 1.3% to about $116 on reports the US may resume strikes on Iran.
• US midterm elections on 3 November add uncertainty into next week.

Asian Markets This Morning

Asia took the US tech selloff hard. KOSPI closed down 3.48% at 5,730.74 after falling more than 5% during the session, which triggered a brief pause in program selling. SK Hynix fell 7.08% and Samsung Electronics fell 3.02%, as traders worried that slower AI spending by US companies would hit chip orders.

The Nikkei 225 fell 2.12% to 63,289.89. Kioxia, the Japanese memory maker, dropped 7.14% and SoftBank fell 5.96%. The Bank of Japan held its policy rate at 1.25% in an 8-1 vote, with one member voting for a hike. It said underlying inflation has reached its 2% target for the first time and raised its core inflation forecast to 2.6%, which keeps a hike in play for December.

What Moved Wall Street Today

• The Nasdaq Composite fell 1.4% and the S&P 500 slipped 0.3% on Thursday, ending a three-day winning streak for the S&P 500.
• Alphabet fell 12.64% to $283.82, its biggest one-day drop on record, wiping out about $500B in market value.
• Intel reported Q3 revenue of $16.5B, up 21%, and adjusted EPS of $0.52, both above estimates. Its weak Q4 outlook sent shares down about 27%.
• Amazon reported revenue of $201.9B, up 12%, and EPS of $1.89, below the $1.97 expected. Shares fell about 12%.
• SanDisk closed at $1,330.05 before reporting a beat and an 8-for-1 stock split. Its latest move is down 11.36%.
• Rivian rose 9%. Nvidia slipped 0.8% to $213.66.

Assets in Focus

INTC (Intel)

Intel’s Q3 was solid: revenue rose 21% to $16.5B and its operating margin improved to 15.3% from 5% a year ago. The problem is the next quarter. Revenue guidance of $15B to $16B is about 9% below the roughly $17B analysts expected, and the stock had already fallen about 20% before the report. The $92.07 pre-earnings close and $73.50, where it traded early in the after-hours session, are reference points for context, not entry or exit signals.

AMZN (Amazon)

AWS grew 39% to $45.98B, beating the $45.29B estimate, and its order backlog more than doubled to $578B. But Amazon spent $77.3B on property and equipment in Q3, nearly $20B more than expected, and its free cash flow over the past year swung to a $42.4B outflow. Amazon also plans to start selling its Trainium AI chips outside AWS in late 2027, which Jassy expects to become a very significant business.

Anthropic (Pre-IPO)

Anthropic pre-IPO trading is live on the CoinDCX app, and its latest move is down 4.6%. The company has filed to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker ANT, with the listing reported for the week of 16 November. Separately, Nvidia is in talks to provide Nscale with credit guarantees that could exceed $5B to build a 460MW data center in West Virginia for Anthropic. Nscale holds a $45B contract with Anthropic for the site. The deal is not yet signed.

NVDA (Nvidia)

Nvidia slipped only 0.8% to $213.66 on Thursday while other AI names fell harder. The Anthropic data center talks would put Nvidia’s Vera Rubin chips in the facility, with Nvidia’s support covering power and construction rather than the chips themselves. Amazon’s plan to sell Trainium chips to outside customers is a longer-term competitive question to watch.

SNDK (SanDisk)

SanDisk’s revenue of $11.03B beat the top of its own forecast for a fifth straight quarter, and adjusted EPS of $49.51 topped the $44 to $46 it guided. Its gross margin reached 85.1%. An 8-for-1 stock split takes effect with split-adjusted trading expected from 20 November. Despite all that, the stock has fallen 11.36% as the memory trade cooled across Asia.

Index Levels to Watch

• S&P 500: down 0.3% on Thursday from Wednesday’s record close of 7,743.98. That record is the nearest reference point above.
• Nasdaq Composite: down 1.4% on Thursday from 26,549.85, with Nasdaq 100 futures down about 2% this morning.
• KOSPI: 5,730.74 (-3.48%), after a sidecar pause during the session.
• Nikkei 225: 63,289.89 (-2.12%), after the Bank of Japan held at 1.25%.
• US 10-year yield: about 4.91%, down from 5.044% on Wednesday.

Disclaimer

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