At the time of writing, stocks continue to slide and the Nasdaq is now down 2% on the day. It was a fade that everyone expected to some degree, just not one this deep. What began as a relief rally after Nvidia’s earnings has turned into a broad reversal that swept across the major indices.
Stock flipped sharply on Thursday as investors weighed Nvidia’s strong numbers against the implications of the September jobs report.
The Nasdaq Composite, up more than 2% earlier in the session, fell into the red and continued to slip. The S&P 500, which had rallied 1.8% at the open, is now trading 1.2% lower. The Dow, less exposed to heavyweight tech, is down 0.9%.
Nvidia shares told the same story. The stock jumped nearly 5% early on after the company delivered another earnings beat and issued a stronger-than-expected fourth-quarter revenue outlook.
CEO Jensen Huang said demand for Blackwell processors is off the charts, an update that initially helped calm nerves after several days of selling across AI-linked names. The optimism did not last. Nvidia also turned negative as investors took profit and reassessed how much of the good news was already priced in.
The macro backdrop added more fuel to the intraday swing. The September nonfarm-payrolls report showed the US economy added 119,000 jobs, far above expectations for 51,000.
The unemployment rate edged up to 4.4% from 4.3%. After the release, options markets priced in roughly 38% odds of a December rate cut, up from the day before but still pointing to a split view inside the Federal Reserve on how to proceed.
Risk assets weakened across the board. Bitcoin sold off heavily, down more than 5.4% and trading at $86,514 by 19:00 GMT, extending the shift out of high-beta areas of the market.
The mood has swung from early optimism to a defensive close, with tech leading the retreat and investors treating strong earnings as an opportunity to lighten exposure rather than add to it.
