Dow closes down 1,800 points, Nasdaq into correction territory, wiping out gains from midterm results rally

(ABC NEWS) — The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down more than 1,800 points on Thursday, wiping out all of the rally from a day earlier when midterm election results propelled the index to its best trading session in more than a year.

The S&P 500 finished trading down 4.3%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 5.5%, putting the index into correction territory, meaning it has fallen more than 10% from a previous peak last month.

The Dow closed down 1,833 points, or about 3.4%.

The selloff hammered many artificial intelligence firms as investors appeared to digest risk for the sector posed by newly empowered Democrats, many of whom ran campaigns critical of artificial intelligence data centers.

Nvidia, the chipmaking giant behind many of the semiconductors used in AI products, closed down 9% on Thursday. Rival chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices saw shares fell 17%. SanDisk, another AI hardware firm, plummeted more than 22% in value by market close.

The slide also hit some other major tech firms behind AI development.

Microsoft, which holds a large stake in OpenAI, saw its stock price close down more than 3%. Amazon, which has spent hundreds of billions on its build-out of AI infrastructure, also dropped more than 2%.

The downturn in markets largely reversed blockbuster gains from the previous session.

On Wednesday, the Dow jumped 1,570 points, or 3%, recording its best one-day performance since April 9, 2025, when President Donald Trump announced the suspension of a far-reaching set of reciprocal tariffs.