👀 Nasdaq Drops 5.5% in a Day, Jobs Crush Estimates, TSMC Falls 10.8% in a Day

Good afternoon and happy Sunday!

It was a week where the ballot box moved the market more than the Fed did, so let’s start with the recap.

Let's get into it.

📊 Market Performance

Friday’s close: the Dow fell 0.46% to 51,285.73, the S&P 500 gained 0.31% to 7,376.86, and the Nasdaq rose 1.09% to 24,579.42. For the week, the Nasdaq lost 3.4%, the S&P 500 dropped 2.7%, and the Dow slid just 0.9%. The S&P is still up more than 7% for 2026, but it logged its worst week since June.

The divergence is the story. The Dow, the index everyone calls old and boring, beat the Nasdaq by 2.5 points. When the AI trade cracks, boring holds up better. Thursday’s Nasdaq close of 24,315 was its lowest in more than six months, and it broke below its 200-day moving average for the first time since April.

🔑 Key Drivers

🗳️ The midterms flipped the AI trade. Wednesday was a relief rally: the Dow jumped 3% and Brent crude fell about 9% on bets that the result lowers the odds of renewed fighting with Iran. Then Thursday arrived. Investors weighed what the Democratic sweep could mean for AI regulation and data center development, and the same trade that carried the market all year got sold hard. About $3 trillion in market value disappeared in a single session.

🔌 Semis had their worst day since 2020. The Nasdaq 100 sank 6.4% Thursday, its worst day since March 2020, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 12%. AMD dropped 17%, Nvidia 9%, and Intel 10%. Friday brought a bounce, with the chip index up about 4% after Thursday’s 12% plunge, but a bounce isn’t a bottom. The Nasdaq was already skittish before the election, so the election gave it a reason to move.

💼 A jobs report that keeps the Fed in play. October payrolls came in at 165,000 against a consensus near 59,000, with unemployment down to 4.1% and prior months revised up by a combined 84,000. That is a labor market that does not need rescuing. Citigroup’s read was that it is stable and not an inflation problem, which keeps a December hike on the table.

🏦 The Fed isn’t done. The funds rate sits at 3.75%–4.00%. The Fed hiked in September for the first time in three years and held in October. Futures odds for a December hike run from roughly 65% (LSEG, Thursday) to around 80% (CME FedWatch, after the jobs report). A tech correction alone may not change the Fed’s mind. It would take a soft CPI.

🛢️ Iran and oil: the election-premium unwind. Crude fell to its lowest in two months this week on the prospect that the election brings a faster end to the Iran war, and five-year inflation breakevens slid to about 2.27% from 2.5%. That helps the inflation story. It does nothing for the AI story.

🏭 TSMC: fundamentals vs. fear. TSMC’s U.S.-listed shares fell 10.78% Thursday, closing at $353.10. They were up about 7% in Friday premarket as the short-selling curbs landed. The stock is down about 22% over the past month. The business hasn’t broken. Its October Q3 report was, per one summary, a beat-and-raise: $46.7 billion in revenue, a 66.4% gross margin, and Q4 guidance of $52.3–54.3 billion. The fear is about demand for AI infrastructure if data center construction slows. That fear is about future orders, and the current numbers haven’t shown it yet.

🎯 Key Takeaways

• 🗳️ Policy risk is back in the AI trade, and the market priced it in one afternoon.

• 📉 When tech cracks, the Dow’s boring reputation turns out to be a feature.

• 💼 165K jobs against 59K expected means the Fed doesn’t need your sympathy.

• 🏦 Tuesday’s CPI is the last inflation print before the December FOMC. Treat it that way.

• 🔌 A 12% semis wipeout followed by a 4% bounce is a reset, not a recovery. Wait for a base.

• 🔍 TSMC insiders are buying, but the checks are small. Read the signal for what it is, not what you’d like it to be.
  

🔭 What We’re Watching Next Week

📅 Tuesday, Nov. 10: October CPI. It’s due at 8:30 a.m. ET, with no year-over-year figure because of last year’s shutdown data gap. One forecast has headline up 0.28% and core up 0.21% month over month. It’s the last inflation report before the December 8–9 meeting, so a miss in either direction moves the hike odds.

📉 Nasdaq 24,315 and the 200-day. That’s Thursday’s closing low, and the index is sitting on top of the 200-day line it just lost. A reclaim on volume says Thursday was capitulation. A close below the low says it was the first leg.

💻 Tech earnings: CoreWeave, Applied Materials, Cisco. All three report next week. After a week of fear about the AI buildout, we get actual data on data center demand and chip equipment orders.

🏛️ Washington and AI policy. Nobody knows yet what a Democratic Congress does with data center permitting or AI regulation. Headlines will move chip stocks before any law does. Trade the headline with a stop, and don’t marry it.

🔍 Insider Spotlight: TSMC (TSM). Here’s the honest read. TSMC’s insiders are buying, but in small size. The most recent report: VP Lipen Yuan bought 1,000 shares at an average of $71.49, about $71,490, a 14.29% increase in his holdings. That price is per Taiwan common share. One ADR equals five, so it lines up with the ADR price near $350. In September, 25 purchase transactions by 16 insiders totaled about $100,000, and in July, VPs B.Z. Tien and S.S. Lin each added 5,000 shares

This newsletter is for educational purposes only and is not investment advice.

That's the week. See you next Sunday.

— Silas P. Insider Authority | insiderauthority.com

Insider spotlight of the week…#TSMC

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