S&P 500 firms shed $2.9 million in market value and Nasdaq companies lost $2.5 trillion – both single-day records – on Thursday as investors panicked over a looming data-center reckoning in the wake of Democrats’ midterm sweep.
Page F135From§Eachthe afternoon edition — 5 November 2026
Data-center backers warned voters they'd end up poor, then their own stocks lost $2 trillion by Thursday.
As it ran on the front
On September 1, the president told data-center opponents they would end up backwards and poor. On September 2, his commerce secretary called the public's worry about the industry's electricity and water bills "propaganda," and left no number in the record to counter it. Seventeen days later, on October 22, the Nasdaq composite had already fallen 2.6 percent in a single session, and the correction the sector would flirt with was already filed in the tape, before a single ballot that week was cast.
On Tuesday, voters in at least 38 jurisdictions passed bans or restrictions on data centers anyway. By Thursday, the Nasdaq composite had fallen 5.5 percent, its worst day in 18 months, erasing its entire post-midterm rally and landing the index more than 10 percent below its recent record high — correction territory, the state the sector first touched two weeks earlier. The S&P 500's decline was its worst since the April 2025 tariff announcement, and the correction that began October 22 did not pause for the vote — it widened on contact with it.…
…(cont) What moved the market that day wasn't the ballots — it was the filing. The same AI build-out whose durability investors suddenly doubted is the one the commerce secretary dismissed as a cost nobody should worry about seven weeks earlier. The industry that told the public it would end up poor for saying no to data centers posted, on the same ticker, the worst single day its own sector has had in a year and a half.
Nobody in this story is poor yet. The 38 jurisdictions that voted no are exactly as solvent Thursday as they were Tuesday. The Nasdaq is not. The warning and the ledger point in opposite directions, and only one of them showed up for work this week.
“They spent two months telling people that banning data centers would make them poor, then the industry's own stock lost two trillion dollars in a single day. Nobody's pension fund voted on data centers, but it's holding the loss anyway. The guys who told you "no" would cost you money just wrote the check for the correction themselves.”
“Look, this is a short-term correction, that's all — markets price in regulatory uncertainty, that's basic finance, and a 38-jurisdiction patchwork of local bans creates exactly the kind of uncertainty investors hate. Sure, the Nasdaq had its worst day in a year and a half, but that's volatility, not validation. Did I just say the voters caused this? That's not — that doesn't sound like me.”
Earlier in this story
- Trump warns data-center opponents they'll end up "backwards and poor," Nasdaq ends up backwards and poor instead. By Ruth · the morning edition, 5 November 2026
The receipts
Nearly $2tn shaved off Nasdaq value as worries of curbs to AI datacenters ripple across bourses The Nasdaq share index had its worst day in 18 months after slumping 5.5% on Thursday amid growing signs that the artificial intelligence industry will face tougher regulation because of the midterm election results. As Wall Street sustained…
The S&P 500 slumped to its worst daily decline since April 2025 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq entered correction territory, as investors fretted about the durability of the A.I. build-out.
· Sharp drops for AI stocks overwhelm markets worldwide as oil prices jump from the morgue, 22 Oct 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.