US stocks finished in mixed territory on Thursday as a weaker-than-expected US jobs report shifted expectations for interest rates, while renewed selling across semiconductor shares dragged on technology stocks and outweighed a strong recovery in Tesla’s vehicle deliveries.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed more than 600 points, gaining over 1.1% and moving closer to another record high. The S&P 500 was little changed, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.8% as chipmakers extended the previous session’s sell-off.
Attention centred on the June nonfarm payrolls report, which showed the US economy created 57,000 jobs, well below forecasts of 113,000. The unemployment rate stood at 4.2%, slightly better than the 4.3% expected, ending a three-month run of stronger labour market readings.
The weaker hiring figures reinforced expectations that the Federal Reserve is unlikely to rush into cutting interest rates, with investors continuing to focus on incoming economic data after Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh urged markets to rely on the numbers rather than central bank guidance.
Tesla shares dropped around 7% despite reporting a much stronger second quarter than analysts had expected. The electric vehicle maker delivered 480,126 vehicles during the quarter, comfortably ahead of Bloomberg consensus estimates of 397,466.
Deliveries rose 25% from a year earlier and were 34% higher than the first quarter, marking a rebound after last year’s disruption caused by the Model Y production transition, the loss of US electric vehicle tax credits and controversy surrounding chief executive Elon Musk’s political views. Even so, investors appeared to lock in profits following the strong update.
Technology stocks remained under pressure after weakness spread through the global semiconductor sector. A sharp sell-off in South Korean chipmakers contributed to a 7.9% fall in the Kospi index, with the weakness spilling into US names including AMD, Micron and Intel.
Oil prices also extended their decline, falling for a fourth consecutive session after signs of progress in diplomatic talks between the United States and Iran raised hopes that tensions in the Middle East could ease. Brent crude slipped 0.8% to below $71 a barrel, while US benchmark WTI crude fell roughly 1.1% to below $68, leaving both benchmarks at their lowest levels since early March.
The latest move followed comments from Qatar’s foreign ministry, which said negotiations between US and Iranian officials had made “positive progress” after initial talks in Doha. Further discussions are expected to take place after funeral ceremonies on 9 July for former Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed during US and Israeli airstrikes on Tehran earlier this year.
Away from the markets, fresh financial disclosures showed President Donald Trump executed more than 21,000 securities trades during his first year back in office. The filing placed the total value of those transactions at somewhere between $600 million and $1.86 billion, although exact figures were not disclosed.
The report also revealed that Trump averaged around 85 trades on each market day, with activity heavily concentrated during periods of heightened market volatility following his own policy announcements.
In more than 200 cases, he bought shares in one trading account while selling the same stock in another on the same day. The disclosures are likely to renew scrutiny from ethics watchdogs, particularly after Trump also reported earning at least $1.4 billion from cryptocurrency and memecoin-related ventures during 2025.
