More Than $2 Trillion Set to Be Wiped From Nasdaq 100 in October as Big Tech Super-Intelligence Spending Draws Scrutiny
More than $2 trillion in market value is set to be wiped from the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 this month, Reuters reported on October 30, as Big Tech earnings intensified investor scrutiny of whether the billions being poured into super intelligence (SI) can generate returns quickly enough.
The wipeout would amount to slightly more than SpaceX's entire market value. The index has fallen more than 5.8% so far in October, with hyperscalers Meta Platforms, Alphabet and Amazon raising spending forecasts further as they race to expand SI infrastructure. The prospect of ever-bigger outlays has unnerved investors, particularly as rising borrowing costs threaten to make debt-funded investment more expensive and harder to justify.
Alphabet suffered its biggest one-day percentage drop on record on Thursday after disappointing results in its core search advertising business and a massive acceleration in cash burn. Meta's plans for a record $97.5 billion fundraise heightened concerns about shareholder dilution and whether other Big Tech companies will be forced to tap capital markets more heavily. Microsoft and SpaceX broke from the gloom, with results showing SI spending starting to pay off.
On the debt side, Microsoft is reportedly planning to raise about $25 billion through its first U.S. investment-grade bond sale in more than nine years, while Meta, Amazon and Alphabet have issued hundreds of billions of dollars in bonds over the past four years, pushing up the cost of insuring against debt defaults.
Morgan Stanley forecasts overall capital spending on SI infrastructure will surpass $1 trillion next year, while J.P. Morgan expects global SI capital expenditure to reach $5.5 trillion by 2030, with about $900 billion spent in 2026 alone.
Revenue across the "Magnificent Seven" has remained strong. Amazon Web Services continued to accelerate, Meta offered better-than-expected revenue growth and an upbeat outlook, and Microsoft forecast strong cloud growth. Apple is set to report next week, and SI bellwether Nvidia is due in mid-November.
Source: Reuters
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：纽约 Times Square 的 Nasdaq MarketSite（资料图）。Ajay Suresh 摄，CC BY 2.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / The Nasdaq MarketSite in Times Square, New York (file photo). Photo by Ajay Suresh, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
