Aristotle never said "nature abhors a vacuum," but his insistence that empty space must always be filled created the rule that Wall Street lives by.

The stock market, by the way, hates the rule but follows it anyway, filling up the blank days on economic calendars, the weekends, and the holidays with all sorts of theories, rumors, and wagers -- many that send investors in the wrong direction.

And that puts the market's end-of-year run, which includes 34 full trading days and trio of early closures, back in focus -- especially after Tuesday's midterm elections triggered this brutal AI sell-off.

There are effectively only three calendar items left that will either steady investors' nerves or deepen their jitters: Nvidia's third-quarter earnings update, the planned public listing of AI start-up Anthropic, and the Federal Reserve's December rate decision. And there's one subject that has been a point of discussion for months now: the Iran war.

First, though a look at this past week to understand what's at stake going forward: The Nasdaq Composite fell into correction territory and had its biggest loss in market value on record. Plus, the AI trade is still facing its biggest test since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022.

For Alex Guiliano, of Resonate Wealth Partners, there certainly is uncertainty and a good possibility of more losses.

"This is a stock market that is trying to figure out the right valuations for the AI trade and grappling with a swift sentiment shift after the midterm elections," said Guiliano, Resonate Wealth's chief investment officer.

Before and after 2018's midterms, "the stock market experienced significant volatility and declined nearly 20%, so there is a historical precedent for more downside risk ahead," he added.

The next leg lower isn't hard to visualize: the Nasdaq is now less than 1% higher than it was at the end of July. The S&P 500 is sitting on a loss of 1.1% for the second half of the year.

Democratic wins in key states, including in Georgia, Texas, and Ohio, will probably put restrictions on AI data centers. And the blue wave on Capitol Hill could mean a regulation crackdown for the market's most-important sector.

And Wall Street's appetite for the AI trade, in the form of Anthropic's $1.5 trillion IPO, will no doubt be tested, too.

The S&P 500 Information Technology sector, in fact, is trading at the lowest levels in six months, and the Communications Services sector is at its lowest levels of the year. Together, the two make up half of the S&P 500's $67.4 trillion in market value.

Fourth-quarter earnings for both should still be solid and contribute 45.4% of the $810 billion in collective S&P 500 profits expected over the three months.

But tech's share of the profits is starting to slow and so is the overall rate for broader earnings growth. LSEG data shows overall profits will rise by 35% this year but fall by more than half -- to 16% -- in the coming year.

That's pretty much in line with what Capital Economics' John Higgins is expecting.

"We think there is plenty of scope for the rout [in both sectors] to continue in 2027 even if there is a rebound before the end of this year," he said.

"But we would be surprised if there were ultimately as big peak-to-trough drawdowns [in the tech and communications services sectors] as there were after the dotcom bubble burst," said Higgins, whose title is chief economic adviser.

"That's because this time the rally is more 'fundamental' than 'speculative,' judging by the relative contributing of earnings and the price that investors were willing to pay for them."

So back to the future: Nvidia's earnings are Nov. 17, Anthropic's IPO should come later this month, maybe before Thanksgiving, and the Fed's next policy meeting is Dec. 9. And the Iran war is in a holding pattern, for now.

Investors have to think about all of these things.

They even put the chances of an escalation in war behind them, either, even with last week's 14% slide in Brent crude prices, the largest in more than six years.

Nor can they discount the impact oil will have on inflation readings and, by extension, the Fed's final rate decision of the year.

Which, for ING economist James Smith, may now be cast in a very different light because of how the central bank's chairman, Kevin Warsh, is thinking.

"The rout in AI stocks matters because Warsh has rationalized a decent chunk of the Fed's rate hikes through loose financial conditions, widely seen as a euphemism for soaring equity prices," he said. "That's clearly changing. And a much deeper correction could raise serious doubts about another December hike."

Friday's strong jobs report, however, has kept the rate-hike heat at a simmer. The odds of a quarter-point increase, which would take the target to 4%-nd 4.25%, now stand at 80%, according to the CME FedWatch.

But, as Hirtle & Co.'s Brad Conger points out, the jobs report and the Fed projections are running a distant second to the market's AI trade -- and there are few, if any, answers as to where that's headed.

"Under normal circumstances, an unexpectedly strong jobs report would crush Treasuries and lift rate hike expectations, but given the rout in the AI capex sectors over the past couple of weeks, all data points will be considered extremely 'backward looking'.

"All eyes are, rightly, are on the semiconductor stocks and the Anthropic IPO," said Cooper, who is Hirtle's chief investment officer.

In other words, chips and one very big public debut are what will fill the empty space.

November is historically the market's strongest month, with an average gain of 1.9% and upside moves 70% of the time since 1950, according to the Stock Trader's Almanac.

Maybe that will calm those late-autumn jitters, maybe not. But investors could use history repeating itself right about now.