Nasdaq caps its worst month since March 2025 with a 2.9% drop as bitcoin heads for an October loss of about 8%

Wall Street ended its last session of October with a broad sell-off, and crypto went down with it. The Nasdaq Composite closed 2.86% lower at 25,437.00, the S&P 500 fell 1.82% to 7,580.07 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.09% to 51,770.31, Yahoo Finance reports. The Nasdaq ended October down about 5%, its worst month since March 2025, while the Dow finished the month about 1.5% higher.

Tech led the losses. Intel was down 29% at midday, CoinDesk reports, with SanDisk, Dell and AMD also down by double digits. Bitcoin, already hit by the Binance theft, fell to $76,368 early on Friday, a six-week low at the time, according to Reuters. By 3:24pm ET it was near $76,300, down 8.4% for October with less than 36 hours of the month left, per CoinDesk. That would be a rare weak October: CoinDesk notes bitcoin rose in 10 of the 13 Octobers from 2013 to 2025.

Crypto-linked stocks took the brunt at the open. At 9:43am ET Coinbase was down 12%, Strategy 11%, Circle 9.5%, Bullish 8.3% and Galaxy 6.8%, CoinDesk reports. Gold and silver also fell during the day. Bitcoin trades through the weekend, so its October result will not be final until the month ends on Saturday.