Nvidia and chip stocks bounce before the bell after the Nasdaq's worst day since April 2025, with the October jobs report up next
Nasdaq 100 futures rose about 1% to 1.5% on Friday as dip buyers returned to the AI names crushed on Thursday. Dow futures were lower, oil eased and gold slipped, while traders waited for the 8:30 a.m. ET payrolls report.
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Wall Street's AI trade is trying to find its footing. After a selloff that pushed the Nasdaq Composite into correction territory on Thursday, futures tied to the Nasdaq 100 rose early Friday as buyers stepped back into the chipmakers that took the hardest hits. The rebound has a deadline, though: the October jobs report lands at 8:30 a.m. ET and could reset expectations for the Federal Reserve before the opening bell.
Where futures stand
Nasdaq 100 futures were up about 1% to 1.5% in the early morning, according to Reuters, Yahoo Finance, Investing.com and TipRanks, with the exact figure depending on the time of the reading. S&P 500 futures gained roughly 0.3% to 0.4%. Dow futures went the other way, falling about 0.7% to 0.9%, as money rotated back toward technology and away from the blue chips that had held up better this week.
The CBOE Volatility Index, Wall Street's main fear gauge, was slightly lower at about 26 early Friday, Reuters reported, after posting its biggest one-day jump in about 19 months on Thursday.
Thursday's damage
The numbers from Thursday's session were stark. The Nasdaq Composite fell 5.52% to 24,315.00, closing more than 10% below its recent high, which is the common definition of a correction. The S&P 500 dropped 4.36% to 7,353.73, and the Dow lost 1,833.06 points, or 3.44%, to 51,523.06, according to CNBC, Yahoo Finance and market data. For all three, it was the worst day since April 4, 2025, during the tariff shock.
Chipmakers led the way down. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell more than 12%, according to Investing.com and TradingKey. Nvidia dropped 9.26% to $181.60, its biggest one-day fall since January 2025, Reuters reported, and lost more than $440 billion in market value in a single session, according to CNBC and Benzinga. AMD fell 17.26% to $404.40 and Micron 17.46% to $656.39. CNBC calculated that the group of megacaps known as the Magnificent Seven lost more than $1 trillion in combined market value.
The trigger was political. Investors are worried that Democratic control of Congress, after this week's midterm sweep that included several key data-center states, could bring tougher rules for artificial intelligence and slow the construction of new data centers, according to Reuters and Investing.com. Those projects have been one of the biggest sources of demand for chips, power equipment and cloud services.
The premarket bounce
Friday morning looked different. Nvidia was up in premarket trading, by about 2% to 3.6% depending on the time, according to Benzinga and Reuters. AMD, Intel, Broadcom and Micron were up between roughly 5% and 8%, Reuters and Investing.com reported, and SanDisk gained about 8%, according to Investing.com and Newsquawk. Data-center operators and AI-linked utilities that were hit on Thursday also recovered some ground, Reuters said.
Not everyone sees Thursday as a turning point. "We view Thursday's selloff as reactionary, not a fundamental reset, driven by a collision of concerns around AI spend, policy and inflation," said Jane Gibbons, equity strategist at Jefferies, according to Reuters.
The selling did spread overseas first. South Korea's Kospi closed down more than 6%, its worst day since 2025, as SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics fell about 10% and 6%, according to Investing.com, MarketScreener and Newsquawk.
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Yields, oil and gold
Treasury yields edged lower ahead of the jobs data. The 10-year yield was around 4.83% early Friday, according to CNBC, and Investing.com said the rush into bonds this week had pushed yields to their lowest levels since early September. The 2-year yield was flat near 4.47%.
Oil gave back a little after a sharp rebound. Brent crude settled up $3.67, or 3.88%, at $98.29 a barrel on Thursday and U.S. crude rose $2.40, or 2.72%, to $90.52, according to Reuters, DTN and Stockbiz, after new attacks on tankers in the Gulf. On Friday morning Brent was down about 0.5% to 0.7% near $97.56 and U.S. crude near $89.77, according to TipRanks and Newsquawk, as traders weighed a call between Qatar's emir and President Donald Trump.
Gold slipped as the dollar firmed. Spot gold was down about 0.3% to 1%, trading between roughly $4,050 and $4,075 an ounce, according to RTTNews, CNBC and Investing.com, but was still up more than 4% for the week, on track for its best week since August.
What matters today
The main event is the October nonfarm payrolls report at 8:30 a.m. ET. Economists polled by Reuters expect 65,000 new jobs, after 29,000 in September, with the unemployment rate holding at 4.2%. The Dow Jones consensus cited by CNBC is 59,000. The University of Michigan's preliminary November consumer sentiment reading follows at 10 a.m. ET, and Fed officials Alberto Musalem, Michelle Bowman and Mary Daly are scheduled to speak, according to Newsquawk.
The jobs number matters more than usual because the Fed is in a rate-hiking cycle. Traders priced more than a 65% chance of a quarter-point hike in December before the release, according to Reuters, down from roughly 77% to 81% earlier in the week, according to CME FedWatch figures cited by Kalkine. A strong report could revive those bets, which would be another test for the growth and tech stocks trying to bounce this morning.
Even with Friday's early gains, the Nasdaq is on track for a fourth straight weekly decline, Reuters reported. Premarket moves can fade quickly once regular trading starts at 9:30 a.m. ET.
