November 06, 2026

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Happy Friday. Here’s some Earth-shaking news to kick off your weekend: According to new research, Chihuahuas have a tiny amount of coyote DNA.

Think about that the next time you put one in your purse.

—Sam Klebanov, Molly Liebergall, Matty Merritt, Dave Lozo, Adam Epstein, Holly Van Leuven, Neal Freyman

In today’s newsletter, we’ll get into:

Tech stocks getting obliterated
Canva’s severance package earning praise
The Met Gala pivoting to the least controversial theme imaginable

Markets

Nasdaq

24,315

-5.52%

S&P

7,353.8

-4.36%

Dow

51,521.28

-3.44%

10-Year

4.837%

-6.0 bps

Bitcoin

$75,999.46

-5.18%

Tesla

$343.69

-10.77%

Data is provided by

*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 4:30pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean.

Markets: Maybe don’t check your 401(k) today. Stocks were in freefall yesterday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq down more than 5%, as investors fled the AI trade in light of the Democratic midterm victory. Tesla was one of the big losers, since Elon Musk’s Texas-based company may clash with a bluer Lone Star State.

CORRECTION ISSUED

Stocks get pummeled amid post-midterm AI jitters

Robot on fire with collage of computer chip and fire photos

Nick Iluzada

Wall Street is acting like Marie Kondo got it to reconsider whether it really needs to own so many stocks. After a post-midterm upswing on Wednesday, stocks cratered yesterday, as investors pondered what election wins by AI-skeptical Democrats would mean for the data center buildout.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq index dropped more than 5% yesterday, trading more than 10% below its recent high. The sell-off embroiled the broader S&P 500, which closed more than 4% in the red, its worst day since President Trump’s tariff announcements in April 2025.

Tipping point

The prospect of a Democratic Congress tightening AI regulations—along with newly elected Democratic governors pausing data center construction in hubs like Texas and Georgia—added to investors’ existing AI skepticism.

Shares of data center suppliers tanked the hardest:

The Philadelphia semiconductor index plunged more than 12%. AI chipmaker Nvidia and memory chip supplier Sandisk closed down 9% and 22%, respectively.
The downturn spread to pretty much all software companies that previously rode the AI wave, like Uncle Sam’s AI supplier Palantir and cybersecurity provider CrowdStrike, which were both down nearly 10%.
Financial, manufacturing, and pharma stocks also dropped sharply.

Vibes were panicky: The VIX index, which measures stock volatility and is known as Wall Street’s “fear gauge,” soared 69% yesterday. Goldman Sachs equity traders told Bloomberg that they were flooded with calls from investors asking how deep the rout might go, as institutional investors dumped assets and fewer traders were eager to buy the dip.

But it was a good day…for safe-haven assets. Gold was up more than 0.6%, US Treasury bonds rose, and the Swiss franc jumped to nearly a two-month high against the dollar.

Is this a bubble bursting? While some of the selling was driven by a reaction to political changes and underwhelming earnings projections from chipmaker Qualcomm, some analysts say that it might also be an irrational knee-jerk reaction. Ed Yardeni of Yardeni Research told CNBC that slowing the pace of the data center buildout could help prevent an even bigger AI crash down the road.—SK

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World

Tour de headlines

Bryson DeChambeau waving in front of LIV Golf sign

Jordan Bank/Getty Images

⛳ LIV Golf is dead. The 119 you’re about to shoot at your hometown course is not the ugliest thing to happen in golf this week. LIV Golf, the upstart league that sought to challenge the PGA Tour with billions in Saudi money, is officially shutting down, its lawyers said in a bankruptcy hearing yesterday. The writing had been on the wall for months after Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund withdrew its funding in April, having sunk $5 billion in the league that struggled to make good on its promise to rival the PGA Tour. That left LIV scrambling for cash: BC Partners, a British investment firm, pledged $300 million to rescue the league, but it abandoned those plans after failing to secure enough commitments from top golfers to stay. It’s unclear if or when certain LIV stars like Bryson DeChambeau will be allowed back on the PGA Tour.—AE

🤖 OpenAI rebrands data centers as “compute campuses.” In a blog post titled “Setting a new standard for responsible AI infrastructure,” the AI giant outlined a new framework for local communities to have a say in how data centers are developed. Except the company didn’t use the term data centers—instead, it is now calling them “compute campuses,” part of a charm offensive meant to soften the image of the elephantine tech facilities. OpenAI’s new guidelines came only about 48 hours after midterm voters almost universally rejected data center buildouts in their towns.—AE

🎥 The New York Times is reportedly in advanced discussions to buy Letterboxd. The news company that brought Wirecutter and Wordle in-house is trying to acquire a snazzy portfolio addition that doesn’t start with W. Letterboxd, an online cinephile community that’s like Goodreads for people who own Criterion Collection DVDs, has a user base of 30 million movie buffs and projected earnings this year of $15 million, according to the New York Times. While no one at the Times or Letterboxd would provide a comment on the record for the NYT’s story, the outlet said anonymous sources put the price tag being considered at $330 million, the studio A24 was interested but priced out of contention, and the entire deal could still fall apart.—HVL

SEVERANCE BENEVOLENCE

Canva praised for the way it fired employees

Canva

Hate to see them go, love to watch what they leave with: The internet is enchanted by a severance package Canva announced this week as part of a massive restructuring that impacts 22% of its staff.

Nearly 1,300 workers will lose their jobs, switch roles, or relocate. Canva didn’t say how many people fall into each category, but:

Those leaving will receive at least six months’ pay, one year of healthcare, one year of LinkedIn Premium, career coaching, and access to an alumni network.
Canva will also let them keep their work MacBooks, and it’ll nix its one-year vesting cliff so recent hires can retain their company shares.

“We need more founders like thissss,” one X user wrote about the severance package in a post that garnered 7+ million views. Still, lots of people are losing their jobs, and other internet commenters took issue with the layoffs, which come amid Canva’s broader AI pivot.

“This has been our hardest year yet,” co-founder and CEO Melanie Perkins wrote in her note to employees. Canva—like the rest of the design software sector—has been hobbled by the growing capabilities of AI image generation tools. The company’s AI costs are surging and revenue growth forecasts are shrinking while it tries to adapt, which led investors to cut its valuation in August—the last thing the company wants as it eyes an IPO.—ML

Friday puzzle

A US state is hidden somewhere in the paragraph below. Its letters appear consecutively, in the correct order, without skipping or rearranging any letters. Ignore spaces, punctuation, and capitalization.

During the overnight audit, the website’s checkout page failed without warning. Two technicians blamed the cache, but Mira was unconvinced. She suspected the delay came from an outdated protocol or ad overload, since the browser had opened dozens of promotional windows before freezing. Nobody noticed that the latest error report carried a timestamp from the previous afternoon.

Which state is hidden in the paragraph?

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Colorado (protocol or ad overload)

Word of the Day

Today’s Word of the Day is: elephantine, meaning “enormously large, massive, heavy, or clumsy (like an elephant).” Thanks to Oz from Oroville, CA, for the suggestion. Submit another Word of the Day here.

Written by Adam Epstein, Sam Klebanov, Molly Liebergall, Matty Merritt, Dave Lozo, Holly Van Leuven, and Neal Freyman

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