DAX Below 26,000: Nasdaq Plunge Pulls DAX Down

TVS News AI, editorially supervised, presents DAX Below 26,000: Nasdaq Plunge Pulls DAX Down.

Germany’s leading index drops around 1.5 percent to 25,920 points on Friday morning. On Thursday, the DAX had risen to a record high of just under 26,693 points before falling 0.4 percent to 26,325 points. Within a single trading day, the index has therefore erased not only the 26,000-point mark but also part of the record highs it recently reached.

The timing is important because the two reports being evaluated show the DAX at different stages of trading. Tagesschau reports 25,920 points and a loss of around 1.5 percent in early trading. Manager Magazin cites 26,014 points and a decline of 1.2 percent on Friday morning. In both cases, the German index is below 26,000 points. That was the direct trigger for the Wall Street sell-off.

DAX Loses Nearly 800 Points After Reaching Record High

From the record high to the 26,000-point mark

The decline appears particularly steep because the DAX reached a new record high of just under 26,693 points only the previous day. From that level, it has now fallen below the round 26,000-point mark. The distance from the cited record high is therefore just under 700 points; compared with the level of 25,920 points reported on Friday morning, it is a good 770 points.

The DAX itself is not the cause of the international plunge. It is following Wall Street’s downward pull. At the same time, the German market is falling more sharply under US pressure than the other two major European indexes: According to Manager Magazin, the MDax, composed of mid-sized companies, lost 0.7 percent to 30,674 points. The EuroStoxx 50 lost 1 percent. This highlights the concentration of Germany’s weakness in the large DAX stocks.

Why the previous day’s gains disappeared

The starting point was the Democrats’ victory in the US midterm elections. Doubts about the US technology and semiconductor industries in particular made investors more confident. The Nasdaq 100 therefore not only gave up some of the previous day’s gains but recorded its biggest daily loss since the coronavirus crash in March 2020.

The DAX subsequently plunged by around 1.5 percent to 25,920 points. On the previous day, the German index had already fallen 0.4 percent as US markets dragged it down. The scale of the decline is therefore more moderate than that of technology and chip stocks, which were predominantly affected by the prospect of stricter rules for expanding data centers and AI projects.

Nasdaq 100 Loses 6.4 Percent and $2.3 Trillion

A loss on the scale of the coronavirus crash

According to Manager Magazin, the Nasdaq 100 slumped 6.4 percent to 26,629 points, returning to its April level. This represents a loss of around $2.3 trillion in market value. The sharp decline was the tech-focused index’s biggest drop since the crash in March 2020.

Broader US indexes also fell substantially. The S&P 500 lost 4.3 percent to 7,353 points, its sharpest decline since April 2025. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 3.4 percent to 51,523 points. Despite these plunges, the indexes remained up for the year: Around 5 percent for the Nasdaq and 7.2 percent for the Dow Jones.

The semiconductor index fell even more sharply

The decline was especially pronounced in the semiconductor index SOX, which lost more than 12 percent. Tagesschau also highlights the concentration risk among heavyweight technology stocks: When a few large technology stocks fall together, they pull the major indexes down with them.

Some investors responded with sector rotation. They sold AI and chip stocks and instead invested in defensive sectors such as healthcare and infrastructure. The sell-off was therefore not merely a flight from stocks, but also a shift between different market segments.

Stricter AI Rules Hit Data Centers and Chip Stocks

Political concerns as the direct trigger

According to Manager Magazin, the Democrats are considered more skeptical of AI than the Republicans, who tend to favor deregulation. In Texas, Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa has already called for an immediate moratorium on building data centers. According to market observer Salah-Eddine Bouhmidi of brokerage IG, these political risks compound uncertainty over when the multibillion-dollar AI investments will pay off sufficiently.

His explanation focuses on two specific risks: Stricter requirements could slow the expansion of data centers and delay planned projects. Delays, in turn, would test investors’ patience because the stock market is increasingly also weighing the possible economic consequences of the new political majority.

Individual stocks fall by up to 20 percent

The individual stocks show how severely fears of an expansion freeze affected prices. Tesla fell 11.5 percent and SpaceX 8 percent. The shares of Seagate, Western Digital and Sandisk fell by as much as 20 percent. Nvidia lost 10 percent, Qualcomm nearly 14 percent and Micron nearly 16 percent.

Qualcomm was also weighed down by a weak earnings outlook. The company pointed to increased costs for components and manufacturing. Micron has temporarily shelved its plans for a memory chip plant in Taiwan because of a looming, prolonged tariff conflict.

Asia Falls Even More Than the US

Nikkei and Kospi under heavy pressure

p>The Japanese Nikkei 225 plunged by more than 6 percent to its April level. Chipmaker Rohm lost 17 percent in the decline. In South Korea, the Kospi temporarily plunged 9 percent and fell below 5,000 points for the first time since February.

The Kospi’s distance from its own record high is particularly large. From nearly 9,400 points in June to the plunge on Friday, it lost almost half. SK Hynix has shed more than 50 percent since its record high, while Samsung experienced a similar decline. The heavy losses at the two chipmakers weighed on South Korea’s leading index.

The DAX is part of a global technology sell-off

This means the explanation for the DAX cannot be found in the two US indexes alone. The sell-off in AI, chip and technology stocks spread across the United States, Japan and South Korea before reaching European markets. The DAX below 26,000 points should therefore be seen as part of an international movement rather than an isolated event in the German market.

US Jobs Report at 2:30 p.m. Adds to Uncertainty

The next trading catalyst

The monthly US jobs report is due at 2:30 p.m. on Friday. Helaba experts describe the data as “friendly, though not overwhelmingly good.” Commerzbank analysts refer to it as the “major data highlight from the US.”

The report could provide clues about the Federal Reserve’s future monetary policy and be decisive for the December interest-rate path, says Frank Sohlleder of brokerage ActivTrades. A weak figure could ease interest-rate concerns, but after the technology crash it could also intensify fears of an actual recession.

Futures trading showed early signs of a recovery in US technology stocks. Later, however, weaker Dow futures had still not indicated broad stabilization, according to Bouhmidi. Tagesschau cites the strongest argument against the short-term crash from Ulrich Stephan of Deutsche Bank: Long-term investors should not be unsettled by the pullback. Election results have rarely had a sustained impact on the stock market in the past. Nevertheless, the rest of the trading session remained under pressure amid weak Dow futures and the upcoming jobs report.

You can find the key market data in the detailed reports from Tagesschau and Manager Magazin.