Nasdaq suffered its strongest three-day collapse since April, bitcoin fell in price to $63,000

Investors continued to exit risk assets on Thursday, February 5. This led to capital outflow from technology stocks and cryptocurrencies. Additional pressure on the market was exerted by macro data: unemployment in the U.S. was higher than expected. The S&P 500 fell below the values of early January for the first time this year, CNBC noted. And the Nasdaq 100 experienced the worst three-day decline since April, Bloomberg writes.

- The S&P 500 broad market index fell by 1.2% on February 5, ending the day in the negative zone at 2026. At the moment the decline reached 1.5%, and the total losses in the capitalization of companies in the index since the end of last week exceeded $1 trillion, writes CNBC. Nine out of eleven industry groups in the S&P 500 were in the negative at the end of the session, notes Bloomberg.

- The technology sector index Nasdaq Composite lost 1.6% on Thursday, while the Nasdaq 100 posted its worst three-day decline since April, Bloomberg notes. At the moment, the fall of Nasdaq Composite exceeded 1.9% amid a massive exit of investors from securities related to AI and software development.

- The Dow Jones Industrial Average blue-chip index fell 1.2%, ending the day below the 49,000-point mark.

- The price of bitcoin collapsed by 13%, falling to $63,000. Since October, the losses of the largest cryptocurrency amounted to almost 50%.

- Silver collapsed by 16%, interrupting a two-day rise. On Friday, the metal had already lost about a third of its value, making the current drop one of the largest since the beginning of the year.

The sharp cooling of investor interest in everything related to AI has coincided with growing doubts about whether the huge investments in AI infrastructure can justify themselves, Bloomberg comments on the ongoing sell-off. An example was a report from Google's parent company Alphabet: its shares fell 0.5%, despite strong quarterly results, after announcing an unexpectedly large investment in AI. Alphabet's capital expenditure in 2026 will be between $175 billion and $185 billion, almost double the 2025 level.

Stocks were also impacted by labor market data. In December, the number of job openings fell to the lowest since 2020, while the number of layoffs rose. January was the worst in the number of reported layoffs since 2009, and the number of applications for unemployment benefits for the week exceeded expectations, Bloomberg writes.

"This time it's not about rotation between sectors, but an outright sell-off. Employment statistics have cooled economic optimists," Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers, told the agency. He noted that most of the questions from investors right now are specifically about the decline in software maker stocks and the outlook for the technology sector as a whole. "The consensus has shifted: software is now seen as a victim of AI rather than its beneficiary," Sosnick noted. - Investors were willing to pay a premium for companies that could use AI to improve the efficiency of development and end products. But that perception has changed dramatically: it is now believed that such companies will be crowded out."

Technology stocks have been under pressure for a long time, reminds Deutsche Bank strategist Jim Reed, he is quoted by Barron's. Since the October peak, the sector has lost more than 10%, he notes, while the S&P 500 index has remained virtually unchanged over that period. According to Reed, "almost everything but technology has worked." Leading the gains since October has been the energy sector, adding 21%, followed by basic materials, consumer staples and industrials. However, since technology stocks account for a large portion of the market, it has played a key role. "The longer and deeper the sell-off in the dominant sector, the harder it is for the broad index to resist this pressure," the Deutsche strategist warned.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor