The US stock market crash of 5 November 2026: what happened, in numbers

Yahoo Finance's market page, captured with about an hour and fifty minutes of the session left, showed the S&P 500 at 7,378.96, down 4.03%; the Dow Jones Industrial Average at 51,669.33, down 3.16%; the Nasdaq Composite at 24,413.25, down 5.14%; and the small-cap Russell 2000 down 4.45%. CNBC's live blog, updated mid-afternoon, had the Nasdaq down 5.3% at its low, the S&P 500 down as much as 4.2% and the Dow down 1,765 points, or 3.3%. Earlier readings were milder, which is why articles from the same morning disagree.

HuggingNews calls it the S&P 500's worst day since April 2025 and says 118 stocks in the S&P 1500 fell at least 10%, up from 50 the day before. Yahoo Finance's Jared Blikre called it the Dow's worst second session after a midterm election since 1896. The sell-off wiped out the whole of Wednesday's gain: the S&P 500 had risen about 1.6% to 2% and the Dow about 3% a day earlier. How that reversal happened is the subject of part 3.

This was a chip-and-AI sell-off that spread outward, not a uniform fall. The information-technology sector was down 6.6%, the worst of the S&P 500's sectors, per CNBC. Selling then reached industrials and financials.

Qualcomm added to the pressure. Market reports say its results, published late Wednesday, showed handset-chip revenue down 26% to $5.14 billion, below analyst estimates. The exceptions were few: AppLovin rose on its own earnings, and, as part 8 covers, gold held its gains.

No single cause explains a day like this, and the outlets weight them differently. Three explanations recur across the coverage:

• The Democratic sweep and the data-center build-out. Yahoo Finance and CNBC both tie the sell-off to Democrats winning control of Congress and what that could mean for rules on AI data centers. CNBC adds that Senator Bernie Sanders called for a national data-center moratorium, and that voters rejected data-center development in 40 of 41 local ballot measures. Part 6 covers this in detail.
• Positioning. HuggingNews reports that hedge funds sold the hyperscaler stocks they had bought in Wednesday's rally, and quotes a social-media trader saying Goldman Sachs' trading desk described long-only investors as “frozen”. Keith Lerner of Truist told CNBC: “The rubber band is becoming increasingly stretched.”
• Company news on top of a nervous market. Qualcomm's weak handset revenue landed the same night, and the week before, Alphabet had its worst day on record on negative free cash flow and heavy AI spending; see Alphabet loses $500 billion in one day.

Whether the AI trade was already overextended is a separate and larger question, taken up in part 7.

CNBC's live blog reports Asian chip stocks tumbled: South Korea's Kospi closed down 5.28% at 5,383.8, Japan's Nikkei 225 closed down 1.79% at 61,077.9, and Japan's Advantest fell about 11.7%. The picture was not uniform. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 closed up 2.61%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up more than 3% late in its session, and in Europe the Stoxx 600 was up about 0.5% early even as ASML and Infineon fell. Part 5 looks at what a Democratic Congress means for the wider economy.

• Gold rose, to roughly $4,114 to $4,130 an ounce depending on the reading (Yahoo Finance; CNBC), and touched a two-week high. See part 8.
• The 10-year Treasury yield was about 4.83% in Yahoo Finance's reading, lower on the day as money moved into bonds.
• Oil was volatile: WTI about $90 and Brent about $97 in Yahoo Finance's afternoon updates, after both had fallen more than 8% on Wednesday.
• Bitcoin fell about 5% to roughly $76,000, from above $80,000 on Wednesday, with crypto-linked stocks falling harder. See part 9.

A correction is a fall of 10% or more from a recent high. The Nasdaq Composite is in one, and for the second time this year, per HuggingNews. That is a meaningful move, and it is also an ordinary event in market history. One day cannot say whether this is a pause in a long advance or the start of something deeper. Analysts quoted in the coverage disagree, and the rest of this series sets out both readings rather than choosing for you.

This is one of eleven connected pieces on the November 2026 election and market shock. Read them in order, or jump to the one you need.

1. 01The crash: what happened on 5 November (this article)
2. 02How $2.7 trillion was wiped out in a day, and whether that number is real
3. 03From rally to rout: why stocks rose on the Democratic win and crashed a day later
4. 04The Democratic win: what the midterm result changes
5. 05What a Democratic Congress means for the world economy
6. 06The data-center backlash and what it means for AI
7. 07Is it really an AI bubble? The evidence on both sides
8. 08Gold after the midterms
9. 09Bitcoin and crypto after the midterms and the chip crash
10. 10What happens next: the dates, scenarios and signals to watch
11. 11The discussion: the hardest questions about the crash and the AI bubble, answered

• Stock market today: Nasdaq plunges 5% amid chip stock wipeout, Dow and S&P 500 erase post-election rally gains — Yahoo Finance
• Dow tumbles 1,600 points, erasing its postelection rally; Nasdaq plummets 5%: Live updates — CNBC
• S&P 500 Wipeout Hits $2.7T as Hedge Funds Dump Hyperscalers and Chip Index Plunges 11% — HuggingNews
• Chip stocks get slaughtered as Wall Street heads for its worst post-midterm day since 1896 — AOL/Yahoo Finance