Nasdaq Jumps 1.1% as Chip Stocks Snap an Eight-Day Slide; Dow Slips

A bounce was due after the worst week since June. Monday delivered one, narrowly, and left the verdict to this week's earnings.

The Nasdaq Composite rose 1.11 percent to close at 26,430.89 on Monday, October 19, 2026, the S&P 500 rose 0.41 percent to 7,690.73, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.07 percent to 51,966.03. It was a narrow rebound, not a broad one: chipmakers and a few mega-cap growth names did nearly all of the lifting a session after the Nasdaq closed out its worst week since June, and most investors spent the day waiting for the technology earnings that will test whether the bounce deserves to last.

Chips ended an eight-day slide

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index snapped an eight-day losing streak in which it fell about 15.7 percent, its longest run of declines since October 2008. The iShares Semiconductor ETF closed up almost 2 percent after a 4 percent drop on Friday, and the Roundhill Memory ETF rebounded 4 percent, with Western Digital, Sandisk, Micron Technology and Seagate Technology advancing up to roughly 6 percent. Intel rose 2.5 percent after JPMorgan upgraded the stock to neutral from underweight, and Nvidia rose nearly 1.5 percent. Michael James, an equity sales trader at Rosenblatt Securities, put the move down to exhaustion rather than news: nothing had changed over the weekend except that nothing bad happened, sentiment had grown so negative that a bounce was due, and, he cautioned, the market is far from out of the woods.

Amazon and Tesla carried the mega-caps, narrowly

Amazon rose 5 percent after Morgan Stanley called the stock a top pick and lifted its price target, the biggest gain among the mega-caps, and Tesla rose nearly 4 percent ahead of its results on Wednesday. The Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF rose about 1.5 percent, but the group was split: Apple finished 0.2 percent lower and Meta fell 0.6 percent before its own Wednesday report. CoreWeave, the stock at the center of last week's selloff after a plunge of more than 25 percent on worries over its $50 billion debt load, gave back early gains of as much as 7 percent to finish 0.4 percent lower, a reminder that the financing question behind the rout has not gone away. Outside technology, Cleveland-Cliffs surged after its third-quarter profit beat estimates, in a session when consumer discretionary and technology led the S&P 500's sectors and defensive utilities and real estate lagged.

Yields near 5.14 percent and $109 Brent kept a lid on it

December Brent settled down 0.3 percent at $109.55 a barrel and December West Texas Intermediate fell 0.5 percent to $98.54, after President Trump waived newly imposed sanctions on Russia. The expiring November WTI contract rose 2.2 percent to $103.66 on thin volume ahead of Tuesday's expiry, an expiry print rather than a fresh leg higher in the most-traded contract. The 10-year Treasury yield ended near 5.14 percent, still high enough to keep financing costs at the center of the artificial intelligence debate, while the CBOE Volatility Index fell to 18.42 from 19.99 on Friday as the week's fear premium drained out. The day's one major economic release cut the other way for rate-sensitive stocks: homebuilder confidence fell to 29 in October, its lowest since 2012, as 30-year mortgage rates averaged 7.4 percent.

Netflix on Tuesday, Tesla and Meta on Wednesday

What can settle the argument arrives quickly. Netflix reports after the close on Tuesday, alongside results from SpaceX, GE Aerospace and General Motors, and Tesla and Meta report on Wednesday, in a week when more than 70 S&P 500 companies are due to publish results. The question those reports have to answer is the one last week's selloff posed: whether the revenue from artificial intelligence can catch up with the spending and the borrowing behind it. A one-day chip bounce after an eight-day slide does not answer it.