Wall Street Closes Lower as Alphabet Falls More Than 12 Percent and the Nasdaq Drops 1.4 Percent

Wall Street closed lower on Thursday, October 29, 2026, with technology shares leading the fall. The Nasdaq Composite finished down 1.38 percent at 26,184.72, and the tech focused Nasdaq 100 also finished down 1.4 percent. The S&P 500 finished 0.30 percent lower at 7,720.39. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 0.25 percent at 52,342.56, pulled lower by a drop of more than 9 percent in Caterpillar shares.

Alphabet and Caterpillar weigh on the close

Alphabet shares were more than 12 percent lower after the Google parent reported disappointing results late on Wednesday, as Investopedia reported. Market data put the fall at 12.64 percent on the day, from a previous close of 324.89 to 283.82. A fall of that size in one of the largest companies in the index pulled hard on both the Nasdaq Composite and the Nasdaq 100, and it set the tone for technology shares through the close.

Caterpillar did similar damage to the Dow. Its shares fell 9.25 percent on the day, from a previous close of 713.38 to 647.39, according to market data. Investopedia and Invezz both pointed to that drop of more than 9 percent as the main weight on the Dow, which still finished with a smaller loss than either the S&P 500 or the Nasdaq.

Gains outside technology limit the fall

The selling did not reach every part of the market. Eli Lilly shares jumped 7.3 percent after the company raised its revenue outlook, and Merck advanced 3.3 percent after lifting its guidance, as TradingView reported. Those gains in health care shares gave the broader indexes some support on a day when their biggest technology names were falling.

Small cap shares also moved the other way. The small cap Russell 2000 advanced, so the weakness in technology stocks did not extend across the entire market, as Invezz reported. That split, technology down and small caps up, is why the headline index losses stayed moderate outside the Nasdaq even though two very large company falls drove the session.

Bonds, rates and the day's economic data

In the bond market, the yield on the 10 year Treasury was around 4.95 percent, down from late Wednesday, as Investopedia reported. Bond yields moved in the opposite direction to the stock indexes on the day, easing while shares fell.

Traders also kept a high price on a rate rise at the end of the year. Traders see about an 80 percent likelihood that the Federal Reserve will raise rates by at least a quarter percentage point at its December meeting, per CME FedWatch figures cited by Investopedia. That pricing stood even though the day's inflation reading came in soft.

The September Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index came in slightly cooler than economists expected, while third quarter GDP beat forecasts. TradingView reported that GDP expanded 3.4 percent in the third quarter. Taken together, the data gave traders a cooler inflation print and a stronger growth print on the same day that technology shares sold off.