Amazon fell 7.2% in premarket trading on Friday, October 30, and Intel tanked 25%, after both companies showed investors the bill for the AI buildout is still climbing. Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 640 points, or 2.16%, by 4:04 a.m. ET, and the two companies together were poised to shed about $300 billion in market value if those losses held into the regular session.

That is the second shock in two days. Alphabet closed down 12.6% on Thursday, wiping out roughly $500 billion in market value in its worst one-day fall on record, after its own AI spending pushed free cash flow negative. Amazon and Intel then gave Wall Street fresh reasons to ask the same question: how long can this spending run ahead of the payoff?

What drove the Amazon Intel AI spending selloff

Amazon’s headline numbers looked mixed rather than disastrous, which is exactly why the reaction stung. Revenue rose 12% to $201.9 billion in the third quarter, just short of the $202.31 billion analysts surveyed by LSEG expected, while earnings per share came in at $1.89 against a $1.96 forecast. Net income slipped to $20.7 billion from $21.2 billion a year earlier, a comparison Amazon tied largely to a $9.5 billion pretax gain on Anthropic-related investments in the year-ago quarter.

Investors focused instead on the cash. Amazon spent more than $77 billion on property and equipment in the quarter, far above analyst estimates, as it built data centers and added computing capacity for AI services. Over the trailing 12 months, free cash flow swung to an outflow of $42.4 billion from an inflow of $14.8 billion a year earlier, even as operating cash flow rose 29% to $168.3 billion. Amazon kept its 2026 capital spending plan at about $220 billion and signaled the AI spending boom is far from over.

Its cloud business did not save the story. Amazon Web Services revenue jumped 39% to $46.0 billion, its fastest growth in nearly five years and its sixth straight quarter of acceleration, with operating income rising to $17.8 billion from $11.4 billion. But online sales grew just 2% to $68.5 billion, the slowest increase since early 2023, and Amazon forecast holiday-quarter sales of $240 billion to $247 billion, a range that left some analysts wanting more. Holiday-quarter operating profit was forecast at $28.5 billion to $33.5 billion, against an average estimate of about $33 billion.

Intel’s warning hit a different nerve

Intel’s problem was not just spending. It was demand, supply, and a factory accident arriving at once. Shares had already plunged 23% after hours on Thursday, and the slide deepened in premarket trading Friday after Intel warned it would burn cash this year, citing a faltering PC market, manufacturing bottlenecks, and heavy spending to expand production.

Revenue for the third quarter rose 21% to $16.5 billion, in line with company guidance. Yet PC chip revenue fell 5% to $8.1 billion, and Intel expects that business to fall in the mid-20% range in the fourth quarter. Fourth-quarter revenue was forecast at $15 billion to $16 billion, below the $17.07 billion average analyst estimate compiled by LSEG, with adjusted profit of 25 cents per share against a 43-cent forecast.

“I’m disappointed that we were not able to meet strong customer demand in this quarter,” Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said on a conference call with analysts. “We face near-term challenges, including manufacturing supply shortages, the unprecedented memory crunch, and the resulting softness in PC demand.”

Chief financial officer David Zinsner said Intel does not expect positive cash flow this year as it expands manufacturing capacity, and that capital spending of $20 billion this year would rise sharply in 2027. He also said the PC slowdown could last through the first half of 2027. Rising memory prices have pushed up PC costs and squeezed demand, a squeeze that also showed up in shares of PC makers HP and Dell, which sank 8% and 6.8% in after-hours trading.

A deadly October explosion at Intel’s Kiryat Gat plant in Israel added about $600 million in lost revenue over two quarters, Intel told Reuters, after a two-week shutdown. Zinsner said Intel lowered its fourth-quarter revenue outlook by roughly $300 million and cut its gross margin outlook by about 200 basis points because of the incident, and planned to ramp production back up at the facility by the end of the week.

Why this matters beyond two earnings reports

Wall Street noticed. Nvidia fell 2.5% in premarket trading, AMD slid 7%, and Broadcom lost roughly 4%, while AI cloud stocks CoreWeave, Nebius, and Iren had already fallen 5.8% to 6.7% after hours on Thursday. Alphabet slipped another 0.9% in premarket trading, extending Thursday’s record selloff.

Alphabet’s Thursday drop set the tone. Its shares closed at $283.82, down 12.64%, after third-quarter revenue of $127.6 billion rose 25% but missed forecasts, search advertising grew 12% to $63.35 billion against a roughly $65 billion estimate, and capital spending hit $51.4 billion while free cash flow came in negative at $9.1 billion. Meta also burned cash in the September quarter, according to Reuters reporting, while Microsoft stood out by raising $25 billion through a debt sale on Thursday.

Pepperstone analyst Chris Weston summed up the shift in mood this way: “The market isn’t necessarily questioning whether the AI buildout can be financed. It’s increasingly questioning whether shareholders will earn an adequate return on the enormous capital being deployed.”

Nobody in this week’s selloff argued that AI demand has vanished. AWS is growing at its fastest pace in nearly five years, and Google Cloud revenue roughly doubled to $30.7 billion. What investors are now pricing in is timing: data centers, chips, and power get paid for today, while the revenue that justifies them arrives on a slower schedule, and in Alphabet’s case, AI search answers are currently monetized at lower rates than traditional search. For shoppers, the ripple could show up in prices too, as memory-driven PC price pressure starts to pinch demand for devices, not just server racks.

Frequently asked questions

Why did Amazon and Intel stocks fall on October 30, 2026?

Amazon fell after reporting a $42.4 billion trailing free cash outflow on heavy AI data center spending, while Intel warned it would burn cash this year and forecast weak fourth-quarter revenue on a PC slowdown.

How much did Amazon spend on AI infrastructure in Q3 2026?

Amazon spent more than $77 billion on property and equipment in the third quarter, mostly on data centers and AI computing, and kept its full-year 2026 capital spending plan at about $220 billion.

What did Intel warn about the PC market?

Intel said PC demand softness could last through the first half of 2027, forecast fourth-quarter revenue of $15 billion to $16 billion versus a $17.07 billion analyst average, and said an explosion at its Israel plant would cost about $600 million in revenue over two quarters.

How far did Nasdaq futures fall after the Amazon and Intel results?

Nasdaq 100 futures fell 640 points, or 2.16%, by 4:04 a.m. ET on October 30, 2026, with Amazon and Intel together poised to lose about $300 billion in market value if premarket losses held.

Sources: Reuters, CNBC, Bloomberg, Nikkei Asia