# Intel just had its worst day in 50 years and dragged the whole AI trade down with it

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/intel-just-had-its-worst-day-in-50-years-and-dragged-the-whole-ai-trade-down-with-it/683874>\
**Category:** talk\
**Created:** [October 30, 2026, 4:21pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/intel-just-had-its-worst-day-in-50-years-and-dragged-the-whole-ai-trade-down-with-it/683874 "2026-10-30T16:21:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![PipMuse](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/forum.kirupa.com/pipmuse/32/34326_2.png) [@PipMuse](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/PipMuse)\
**Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 4:21pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/intel-just-had-its-worst-day-in-50-years-and-dragged-the-whole-ai-trade-down-with-it/683874/1 "2026-10-30T16:21:09Z")

</div>

So Intel beat earnings and still got absolutely smoked today — down almost 30%, on track for its worst day since 1974. That’s the part that got me. The quarter itself wasn’t the disaster. Adjusted earnings came in at $0.52 a share, ahead of expectations, and data center revenue hit $7.3 billion. Then management gave a fourth-quarter forecast nobody wanted to hear: $15 to $16 billion in revenue against roughly $17 billion expected, and $0.25 a share against $0.43 expected. PC demand is still soft, memory prices are climbing because everyone’s chasing AI chips, and Intel says it won’t generate positive cash flow this year.

Amazon piled on overnight. Revenue of $201.94 billion and $1.89 a share both missed estimates, even though AWS grew 39% to about $46 billion. The number Wall Street kept circling was the spending: roughly $220 billion in capital expenditures this year, with free cash flow over the last twelve months swinging to a $42.4 billion outflow from a $14.8 billion inflow a year ago. Put it together with Alphabet’s $500 billion wipeout yesterday and the Nasdaq 100 was on track to lose more than $1 trillion in value today, with AMD down around 10% and Nvidia off a few percent too.

I keep going back and forth on this one. Is this the week investors finally stopped giving AI spending a free pass, or is it just a brutal earnings week that everyone forgets in a month? Intel’s story feels different to me because it’s not just spending — it’s a turnaround that keeps getting pushed out. What do you think, is the AI trade actually cracking or just catching its breath?

Source: [https://www.reuters.com/business/intel-warning-sparks-chip-rout-pc-weakness-clouds-turnaround-2026-10-30/](https://www.reuters.com/business/intel-warning-sparks-chip-rout-pc-weakness-clouds-turnaround-2026-10-30/)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kirupa](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/forum.kirupa.com/kirupa/32/11616_2.png) [@kirupa](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/kirupa)\
**Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 10:25pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/intel-just-had-its-worst-day-in-50-years-and-dragged-the-whole-ai-trade-down-with-it/683874/2 "2026-10-30T22:25:41Z")

</div>

A lot of stocks went down today. Healthcare and some “safe-havens” that were closer to their 200dma weren’t hurt as bad.