Stock futures fell Thursday evening after a punishing sell-off in artificial intelligence stocks that sent the Nasdaq into correction territory. Traders also awaited a key payrolls report.
S&P 500 futures lost 0.8%, while Nasdaq-100 futures slid 1.3%. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 264 points, or 0.5%.
The moves follow a bout of heavy selling during Thursday's regular session that saw the three major averages post their worst one-day performances since April 2025. The Nasdaq Composite tanked 5.5%, closing more than 10% below its most recent high and landing in correction territory. The broad-market S&P 500 lost 4.4%, while the Dow fell more than 1,800 points, or 3.4%.
While all 11 sectors of the S&P 500 closed with losses, shares of companies tied to the AI build-out suffered keenly. Democrats' big wins in the House and Senate, as well as key governorships in states like Texas, sparked traders' worries of a potential slowdown in data center construction.
Micron Technology and Advanced Micro Devices plummeted 17% each, while neocloud CoreWeave slid 10%. Even the Magnificent Seven weren't spared, as Nvidia dropped 9%, turning negative for 2026, and the cohort of tech juggernauts shed more than $1 trillion in aggregate market cap.
The three major averages are poised for losses on the week, with the Nasdaq down 4.4% and the S&P 500 off almost 3% in the period. The 30-stock Dow is the relative outperformer of the three, off just 0.5% week to date.
The pullback creates a buying opportunity, Victoria Green, CIO at G Squared Private Wealth told CNBC Thursday. "The AI trade, in my opinion, is not dead here," Green said, adding, "it's a good discount." She's interested in memory stocks, citing how management teams throughout this earnings season have been talking about the capacity crunch. "Buying a volatile dip tends to be good as long as we're still in a non-recessionary period," she said.
Another market catalyst awaits investors on Friday morning in the form of the October payrolls report. The Dow Jones consensus estimate is for 59,000 jobs added last month and for the unemployment rate to hold steady at 4.2%.
U.S. stock futures fell shortly after 6 p.m. ET on Thursday.
Futures linked to the S&P 500 were down 0.4%, while Nasdaq-100 futures dropped 0.4%. Dow futures lost 201 points, or 0.4%.
