Good morning, it’s Friday, October 30, 2026. Big Tech just had its worst 48 hours of the year, and Friday is lining up for round three.

Alphabet suffered its worst single-day drop on record Thursday. After the bell, Amazon fell 7.3% in extended trading and Intel plunged 23%.

Meanwhile, Brent crude is above $112, and the Fed is widely expected to hike in December.

The setup: The AI trade is being repriced in real time. But underneath the headline damage, most stocks actually went up yesterday. For your portfolio, that may be the bigger story.

➤ Wall Street bracing for $60 trillion revaluation in just… →
(from The Oxford Club)

Tech-led selling into month-end. Expect a heavy open.

What’s moving the market: Nasdaq-100 futures are down 2% and S&P 500 futures are off 0.9%, while Dow futures are flat. The money leaving AI megacaps isn’t leaving stocks entirely.

TODAY’S CATALYSTS

Most important: The 8:30 wage data. The forecast is +0.8%, against +0.9% last quarter. A hot number strengthens the case for a December rate hike.

Amazon’s AI business is working. Its cash flow is not.

AWS sales jumped 39% to $45.98 billion, beating forecasts. But trailing free cash flow swung to a $42.4 billion outflow, from a $14.8 billion inflow a year earlier. Interest expense also tripled to $1.7 billion.

Amazon kept its 2026 capex forecast at $220 billion. A day earlier, Alphabet lost about $500 billion in market value after a quarter where spending outran cash.

What this means for investors: The market has stopped rewarding AI spending for its own sake. Now it wants proof of payback. If you own an S&P 500 index fund, you have more exposure to that question than you may realize.

Intel beat estimates. The stock still cratered.

Data center and AI revenue climbed 78% to $7.3 billion. Then came the guidance: fourth-quarter revenue of $15 billion to $16 billion, versus the $17 billion Wall Street expected. qzirishtimes

Intel also warned that gross margins would drop to 37% as an industry-wide memory chip shortage raises costs. It expects the PC market to shrink 12% this year and another 10% in 2027. irishtimesqz

The stock had more than doubled in 2026 before Thursday. That’s the lesson: priced-for-perfection stocks don’t get credit for a beat.

If AI capex fears persist: Concentrated Nasdaq exposure stays vulnerable. Equal-weight and defensive sectors could keep picking up the slack.

If oil holds above $100: Producers and refiners benefit. Consumers, airlines, and the inflation outlook get worse.

If the Fed hikes in December: Savers and income investors earn more on cash and Treasurys. Rate-sensitive growth stocks face more pressure.

The opportunity: Big oil’s refining windfall.

Why now: Exxon has already signaled about $15.1 billion in Q3 adjusted earnings, with $4.5 billion of that coming from refining margins.

Bull case: BP’s Q3 profit nearly quadrupled to $8.5 billion, which suggests the margin boom is industry-wide.

Risk: President Trump has suggested fuel prices will fall after the midterms. Any de-escalation could hit crude quickly.

Watch: Chevron’s downstream number this morning.

The Fed held rates at 3.75%–4.00% this week in a 10–2 vote, and both dissenters wanted another hike.

FedWatch now puts the odds of a December quarter-point hike at 84.6%.

Yields dipped this week as investors looked for safety. That relief may not last.

Watch: Today’s ECI.

Money is rotating, not running.

The equal-weight S&P 500 ETF gained 1.20% Thursday while the index fell 0.30%. Health care, real estate, and staples led.

The Russell 2000 rose 1.01%. When most stocks rise while the index falls, the weakness is concentrated, not broad.

October’s split is stark. The Nasdaq is headed for a 2.5% monthly decline while the Dow is on pace for a 2.8% gain. Brent is up 11% this month and WTI 14%.

Leadership is shifting from AI spenders to energy and defensives.

The AI trade is being repriced, but this looks like a rotation, not a rout. Energy, health care, and equal-weight stocks are absorbing the money leaving megacaps.

Stay diversified, respect the Fed’s hiking bias, and let the volatility come to you.

P.S. You may have noticed the crash warnings are everywhere. Even Google's CEO says there are "elements of irrationality" in the AI boom. Yet stocks keep hitting new records. And Skousen says worrying about a crash right now is a huge mistake. Click here to see why.