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Market Recap: The Nasdaq Falls 8X More than the Dow Jones

Eric Bleeker

Published: October 25, 2023 6:42 pm

Last Updated: October 25, 2023 6:46 pm

The Dow Jones (INDEXDJX: .DJI) fell a relatively modest .32% while the Nasdaq saw a fire sale that brought it down 2.43% on Wednesday. Let’s dive into what happened across major indexes on October 25th.

Index Performance on October 25, 2023

• Dow Jones Industrial Average: 33,035.93 (-105.45 | -0.32%)
• S&P 500 (INDEXSP: .INX): 4,186.77 (-60.91 | -1.43%)
• Nasdaq Composite (INDEXNASDAQ: .IXIC): 12,821.23 (-318.65 | -2.43%)
• Russell 2000 Index (INDEXRUSSELL: RUT): 1,651.43 (-28.07 | -1.67%)
• VIX (INDEXCBOE: VIX): 20.19  (+1.22| +6.43%)

Why The Dow Outperformed the Nasdaq

Of the Dow’s 30 components, 10 of them closed in positive territory. The largest gainer was Traveler’s, which saw a 4.31% gain. Other winners included Walgreens, UnitedHealth, Visa, Coca-Cola, Merck, Procter & Gamble, and McDonald’s.

On the negative end, the Dow’s biggest loser was Intel, which lost 5.09%. Other big losers included Salesforce, Dow Inc., Boeing, Walt Disney, and Verizon.

Perhaps surprisingly on a day that technology stocks saw outsized losses, the second biggest winner in the Dow was Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT), which gained 3.07%. The company reported earnings yesterday that featured better-than-expected demand for AI cloud services.

The Nasdaq’s biggest loser was Alphabet (Nasdaq: GOOGL) which lost 9.60%. While Microsoft reported strong cloud results, Alphabet’s came in below expectations. Google’s poor earnings were the likely catalyst for the Nasdaq’s slide, with most the major losers centering in the technology space. Other major losers included:

• Automatic Data Processing: Down 9.2%
• Datadog: Down 7.14%
• The Trade Desk: Down 6.34%
• Atlassian Corporation: Down 6.3%
• Amazon: Down 5.58%
• AMD: Down 5.52%
• NVIDIA: Down 4.31%

As you can see, sectors like cloud computing, SaaS, and semiconductors led the sell-off.

S&P 500 Records 1.43% Decline

The S&P 500 saw a decline of 1.43%. Other than the major decline of Alphabet discussed above, other major losers included MarketAxess (Nasdaq:MKTX), which was down 9.2%, and MGM Resorts (NYSE: MGM), which declined 5.5%. There’s no clear company news on MGM, so it’s likely economic data may have propelled their decline.

One of the largest drops on the day was a European company named Worldline, which dipped a stunning 59% after it warned macroeconomic conditions in Europe were declining. Worldline’s macro commentary led to sell-offs in some payment processors and consumer discretionary companies.

Nasdaq Futures are Negative

After the bell, Meta Platforms (Nasdaq:META) released earnings that beat expectations soundly. However, their stock traded down nearly 3% in extended trading. Futures Trading as of 6:30 p.m. ET indicated a negative open of -.75% for the Nasdaq 100 tomorrow.

With the Nasdaq entering correction territory today, it appears the sell-off will extend into Thursday morning.