Is the Nasdaq the Only Lifeboat Left in Friday’s Selloff?

NEW YORK — The U.S. stock market at midday Friday is not falling apart — it is splitting in two, and which side of the divide you are sitting on determines everything about your afternoon.

At 1:30 PM ET, the S&P 500 sits at 7,651.82, down 0.15% from Thursday’s close of 7,663.43 and well off its morning high of 7,660.15. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is the session’s weakest link at 52,343.93, down 524 points or -0.99%, dragged by industrial and financial components that have no AI story to lean on. The Nasdaq Composite, at 26,068.50, is the lone major index in positive territory, up +0.23%, while the Russell 2000 drops a modest -0.28% to 2,776.33. This is not a market in freefall. It is a market in active argument with itself.

Data Visual

Major Index Performance at Midday, October 23, 2026 (% Change from Previous Close)

Shows the divergence across the four major U.S. equity indexes at Friday midday, highlighting the Nasdaq’s isolation as the lone gainer.

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The Case Against the AI Boom — and Why It’s Getting Louder

Thursday’s session set the tone for everything happening today. The tech selloff that cracked the broader market sent the Nasdaq down roughly 2.6%, the S&P 500 off 1.2%, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index — the SOX — plunging 6.7%, its worst single-session performance in months. The catalyst was the first wave of Magnificent Seven earnings, and the read was not encouraging.

Meta Platforms left its capital expenditure guidance entirely unchanged, offering no new color on where AI investment is heading or when it expects returns to materialize. Tesla went a step further, cutting its full-year capex guidance by 20%. For a market that has priced in an uninterrupted AI spending supercycle, both announcements landed badly. As our earlier analysis of Meta’s $145 billion capex bet laid out, the core tension is not whether AI investment is happening — it clearly is — but whether it is happening fast enough, at sufficient scale, and with any near-term pathway to monetization.

Friday’s modest partial recovery in the Nasdaq suggests the market is not ready to fully abandon the AI trade. But the recovery’s narrowness is a warning. The AI spending problem catching up with markets is a theme that will not resolve in a single session. The next meaningful data point will be what the remaining Magnificent Seven names say about their own capital allocation when they report in the coming days.

SpaceX Rewrites the Telecom Playbook — in Real Time

If the AI capex story is the week’s slow-burn anxiety, the SpaceX wireless carrier report is Friday’s live grenade. Reports circulating mid-morning indicate that SpaceX is in direct discussions to lease access to U.S. cell sites — potentially up to 80,000 of them — as part of a plan to establish itself as a fourth nationwide wireless carrier. The market’s reaction was instantaneous and severe on one side, euphoric on the other.

Crown Castle International (CCI) surged +11.65%, the session’s standout gainer among large caps. SBA Communications (SBAC) added +7.78%. American Tower moved approximately +7%. These are not companies that typically see double-digit intraday moves — tower REITs are supposed to be the boring side of telecom infrastructure. The SpaceX bid, if it closes, transforms their revenue visibility overnight.

The other side of that trade is brutal. AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile all fell sharply on the news, facing the prospect of a well-capitalized, technologically aggressive competitor entering a market they have treated as an effective oligopoly for years. SpaceX shares themselves gained roughly 2%, a measured response that suggests the market views the wireless ambition as a long-duration strategic play rather than an immediate earnings catalyst. Whether the SpaceX wireless threat is priced correctly in the incumbents today — or dramatically underpriced — is the question serious telecom analysts will be arguing about through the weekend. The bears on AT&T and Verizon would say this is the beginning of a de-rating story. The bulls would note that spectrum, regulatory approvals, and build-out costs make a fourth carrier harder than it looks on paper.

Data Visual

Top Midday Stock Movers by % Change, October 23, 2026

Compares the day’s most significant individual stock moves to illustrate how the SpaceX cell-tower story and AI capex fears are driving dramatic divergence at the stock level.

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Earnings Delivering Surprises — But Not Always the Right Kind

Away from the macro narratives, Friday’s earnings slate is producing genuine company-specific moves that demand attention. RingCentral (RNG) is up +6.64% after beating third-quarter earnings expectations and raising full-year guidance — a clean result in a quarter where clean results are in short supply. Robert Half International (RHI) added +8.81% after topping Wall Street’s Q3 forecasts, a notable move for a staffing firm given persistent questions about labor market softening.

Newmont Mining (NEM) reported Q3 adjusted EPS of $2.20 against a consensus of $1.94, a meaningful beat of roughly 13%, and reaffirmed its full-year 2026 production guidance. With Brent crude above $114 and gold benefiting from geopolitical risk premiums tied to Middle East tensions, commodities-adjacent names are finding support that the broader market is not providing.

On the losing side of the earnings ledger, Bloom Energy (BE) dropped -11.14% despite a strong Q3 beat and a guidance increase. The market looked past the headline numbers and focused on negative free cash flow and capital expenditure intensity — an ironic echo of the AI capex anxiety playing out at the index level. Comfort Systems USA (FIX) fell -10.66% after reporting without providing a clear forward earnings outlook, compounding the uncertainty with news that longtime CFO Bill George will retire following the 2026 annual filing.

Reading the Rotation — What Is Actually Leading This Tape

Strip away the individual stock stories and Friday’s sector picture tells a specific story about where capital is hiding. Energy is getting a direct bid from Brent’s move above $114, the highest since May, as markets price escalating Middle East supply risk and the possibility of Iranian supply disruption. Real estate infrastructure — led by cell tower operators — is the day’s surprise gainer courtesy of the SpaceX headline. Technology is fractured: semiconductor names remain under heavy pressure from Thursday’s SOX collapse, while software and communications names like RingCentral are finding buyers on earnings delivery.

Industrials and financials are the clear drags on the Dow. These are sectors with no AI narrative to lean on and real sensitivity to the rate environment — and with Brent above $114 adding inflationary pressure, the Fed’s room to cut remains constrained. The jobs market and Fed patience dynamic we flagged earlier this week is not going away, and commodity-driven inflation keeps that tension alive into year-end.

One counterintuitive read worth considering: the Dow’s -0.99% decline may be masking genuine resilience in the S&P 500. The broader index is only -0.15% — a whisker. If the Dow’s decline were structural rather than index-composition-driven, the S&P 500 would likely be much weaker. The divergence suggests this is a rotation story as much as a risk-off story, which changes how aggressively bears should be pressing their positions into the close.

What the Final Two Hours Need to Deliver

The afternoon setup carries three specific things worth tracking before the 4:00 PM ET close.

First, the S&P 500’s intraday low of 7,612.07 is the level that matters. The index printed that number in the morning session and recovered. A retest into the close — especially on expanding volume — would shift the technical picture from “orderly pullback” to something more concerning given that Thursday’s session was already -1.2%. Hold 7,612 and the week ends with damage contained. Break it and traders will be heading into the weekend with unresolved downside risk.

Second, watch oil. Brent at $114 is not yet a crisis number, but the trajectory matters more than the level. Any headline suggesting military action involving Iran — flagged in this morning’s reports as a live risk — could push crude materially higher before the close, adding a macro wildcard that would pressure the Dow’s already-weak components and put the S&P 500’s tenuous stability at risk.

Third, the SpaceX wireless story is still evolving. Any official confirmation or denial from SpaceX, Crown Castle, or one of the incumbent carriers in the next two hours will move those stocks sharply. Unconfirmed reports of this magnitude have a history of being either refined or partially walked back by late afternoon, which could create a mean-reversion opportunity in CCI if the detail set shrinks from 80,000 sites to something more modest.

The afternoon setup favors neither the committed bull nor the committed bear. This is a tape where the index math is almost flat but the underlying stock moves are violent — a condition that typically favors stock-pickers over macro traders. The S&P 500 is 21% above its 52-week low, earnings beats are still arriving, and Nasdaq is green. But the Dow is down nearly a full percent, crude is at a May high, and the AI capex story that drove this year’s rally is being actively questioned in real time. Going into the weekend, the burden of proof sits squarely with the bulls — they need the remaining Magnificent Seven reporters to deliver, and they need $114 oil to stop climbing.