The Nasdaq 100 has already fallen more than 5.8% in October, and AI spending has become a source of pressure on share prices in an earnings season. On 30 October 2026, Reuters reported that, on the month's trend, the index was set to lose more than $2 trillion in market value, slightly more than the entire market value of SpaceX. Investors are asking only one question: when will the hundreds of billions being poured in turn into profit?
Three heavy blows in earnings season
Alphabet suffered its biggest one-day percentage drop on record after reporting results on 29 October, with disappointing results in its core search advertising business and an acceleration in cash burn as the immediate causes. Meta's plan to raise $97.5 billion deepened worries about shareholder dilution and still-rising AI spending. Microsoft was reportedly planning a roughly $25 billion bond sale, its first US investment-grade bond sale in more than nine years, bringing hyperscalers' reliance on debt markets into view. Amazon also set its 2026 capital expenditure at about $220 billion, mainly for AWS and AI.
Revenue is still rising, patience is thinning
The sell-off does not mean demand has dried up. Reuters notes that revenue across the so-called Magnificent Seven has remained strong since ChatGPT's launch, AWS kept accelerating, Meta's revenue beat expectations, and Microsoft expects cloud growth to continue. Morgan Stanley forecasts that total capital spending on AI infrastructure will surpass $1 trillion next year. J.P. Morgan expects global AI capital expenditure to reach $5.5 trillion by 2030, including $900 billion in 2026 alone. The disagreement is not over whether to build, but how fast, who pays, and when the returns arrive.
Two dates are worth watching: Apple reports next week, and AI chip bellwether Nvidia reports in mid-November. Until then, the market's tolerance for AI spending is likely to be rewritten by each earnings report.
