Since late October, stock markets have shaken investor confidence with larger volatility and daily declines. On Thursday, the Nasdaq (QQQ) index lost 2.37% and is now down by 8.06% from its all-time high.
Investors who bought and held stocks early last month are back to where they started. Will Nasdaq enter a brutal sell-off to a 20% total decline from the high? That defines a bear market.
Nvidia (NVDA) initially rallied confidently, gaining over 5% on Thursday morning. But like recent post-quarter earnings events, NVDA stock fell the day after. Markets might have priced in the strong growth and outlook ahead. In Q3/2026, CEO Jensen Huang said that cloud GPUs are sold out and Blackwell server AI chip sales are off the charts.
Investors who reviewed the Q3 consolidated balance sheet will find that inventories jumped from $2.36 billion last year to $9.703 billion in the nine months ended Oct 26, 2025. This increases Nvidia’s risk of holding unsold inventory should customers cancel orders.
Nvidia announced a strategic partnership with OpenAI to deploy at least 10 gigawatts of Nvidia systems in the quarter. However, the company said that a deal to supply that much computing power was not guaranteed.
Your Takeaway
Nasdaq was due for a healthy correction. Another 2% decline would put the index on a technical 10% correction. Watch the mega-cap firms for leadership. If Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), and Alphabet (GOOG) stock weaken, this might take away some of the index’s 14.56% return in 2025.
