Nasdaq Bounces 1.1% as Chip Stocks Recover From Thursday Rout
Wall Street staged a partial recovery on Friday, with the Nasdaq Composite climbing 1.09% to 24,579.42 as chip stocks bounced back from their worst session in 19 months — though a stronger-than-expected jobs report kept the Dow in the red and left the week as the market’s worst since June.
The rebound won back only a fraction of Thursday’s losses. The Nasdaq had plunged 5.5% in the previous session, its steepest one-day fall in 19 months, confirming it had entered correction territory after falling more than 10% from its record closing high in early October. The S&P 500 rose 0.31% on Friday to 7,376.86, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.46%, or 237 points, to 51,285.73.
Chips lead the bounce
Semiconductor stocks led the recovery. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose more than 6% on Friday after plunging 12.25% on Thursday, its second-biggest fall on record. Nvidia, which had suffered its worst day since January 2025, gained about 5.6%, while AMD, Intel and Micron Technology rose between 7% and 13%, according to Reuters reporting.
The sell-off had been driven by fears that a Democratic-controlled Congress could bring tougher rules for artificial intelligence and slow the build-out of AI data centres in key states. That concern has not gone away — but on Friday, buyers stepped back into the names that had fallen hardest.
“Friday was a test of whether Thursday’s chip rout was a verdict or an overreaction,” one market summary put it — and the answer, for now, was a bit of both. The Nasdaq 100 rose 1.35% to 26,989.99, and the Russell 2000 small-cap index gained 0.89% to 2,754.11.
A hot jobs report caps the rally
The rally was held in check by the October jobs report, which came in far stronger than forecast. US employers added 165,000 jobs in October, against the 65,000 economists had expected in a Reuters poll, and the unemployment rate fell to 4.1% from 4.2%. Average hourly earnings rose 0.4% for the month, against 0.3% expected.
The figures showed a resilient labour market — but they also lifted bets that the Federal Reserve could raise interest rates as soon as December. Traders put the chance of a December hike at 78%, up from 70% before the report, Reuters reported, and the 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.86%.
That rate pressure weighed most heavily on the Dow, which is more exposed to old-economy and interest-rate-sensitive names, and it capped gains across the broader market even as technology led the day.
Worst week since June
For the week as a whole, Wall Street still finished firmly lower. The Nasdaq lost 3.4% over the five sessions, the S&P 500 fell 2.7% — its worst week since June — and the Dow slipped 0.9%. The Nasdaq is now on course for a fourth straight weekly decline.
Investors will get little time to regroup. The October consumer price index, due before the Fed’s December 8–9 meeting, is now the next big test for a market caught between a resilient jobs picture, rising rate expectations and unresolved questions about the future of AI spending.
