The Dow Jones crashed 288 points on Wednesday as Nvidia’s collapse sent shockwaves across markets. The S&P 500 dropped 1.4%, and the Nasdaq Composite got slammed with a 2.2% loss, according to data from CNBC.
The selloff came after Nvidia announced a brutal $5.5 billion quarterly charge. The company said it was tied to U.S. restrictions on sending its H20 graphics chips to China and other countries.
The update from Nvidia came in a filing where it explained the U.S. government now requires a special license for any exports of its chips to China. That announcement hit investor confidence like a truck. Nvidia tanked 6%, wiping out billions from its market cap in a matter of hours. And that wasn’t even the end of it.
The effects dragged down the entire chip sector. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) dropped nearly 4%. AMD fell more than 6%. Micron Technology lost 3%. On top of that, ASML’s U.S.-listed shares dumped more than 5% after it posted weak earnings. That pileup of bad news set fire to tech stocks.
Tech bleeds as Nvidia wipes out confidence
Big tech got crushed right alongside chips. CNBC’s Magnificent Seven Index — which tracks companies like Meta, Alphabet, and Tesla — dropped more than 2%. Meta Platforms fell over 2%. Alphabet and Tesla both dropped more than 1%.
That drop came while investors tried to make sense of ongoing trade fights. Over the weekend, President Donald Trump said smartphone and PC imports would be temporarily exempt from the tariffs. He later hinted that even that exemption might be canceled soon.
This isn’t new chaos. Since Trump’s administration revived its “reciprocal” tariff push on April 2, stocks have taken a beating. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite are both down around 6% since then. The Dow has lost about 5%.
Bitcoin falls 3% as risk turns investors away
Bitcoin hasn’t been spared either, as the king crypto dropped by 3% on Wednesday to $83,725, and it’s still only up around 1% for the month. Last week, Bitcoin looked like it was holding its ground compared to stocks, but that didn’t last.
The sharp moves started after Trump first laid out his tariff plans on April 2. Since then, the S&P 500 lost almost 4%. Gold surged 6% as investors ran to safer ground. But Bitcoin didn’t pop like gold. Instead, it barely moved. That has crypto traders confused.
Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy, said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that Bitcoin usually responds to global instability, unless fear shuts off demand. “Bitcoin broadly does well with these kind of macro conditions, unless there’s this kind of risk off,” Mike said. “There are always two vectors in bitcoin: one is the macro story, which you’re seeing play out in gold. The other is the adoption story.”
He added that volatility scares away potential buyers. “Because bitcoin is such a young asset, the adoption story needs more calm. When there’s this kind of chaos, the new buyers disappear and that’s what we’ve broadly seen. We’ve seen very few new buyers.”
Novogratz said Bitcoin’s place in the “Mag 8” isn’t set in stone. It might be grouped with tech now, but it doesn’t act like a hedge. Research firm Bernstein said Bitcoin is trading like a tech stock, not a safe haven. That’s made the price swing just like Nvidia and the others.
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