Chips Bounce and the Dow Slips as a Brutal Week Ends Mixed

The Nasdaq Composite rose 1.09% on Friday as chip stocks bounced a day after their worst rout since 2020, trimming a brutal week's losses without erasing them.

A bounce that stayed narrow

The S&P 500 closed at 7,376.86, up 23.13 points, or 0.31%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 237.33 points, or 0.46%, to 51,285.73.

More stocks fell than rose within the S&P 500, the Associated Press reported. Only three of its 11 sectors finished higher, and consumer staples lagged most.

Small caps joined the bounce. The Russell 2000 rose about 0.9% to roughly 2,754.

For the week, the S&P 500 fell 2.7%, the Nasdaq fell 3.4% and the Dow fell 0.9%. The S&P 500 remains 5.3% below its all-time high, set last month.

Chips led, and the losers were steep

Technology was the leading sector, up 1.45%. Advanced Micro Devices jumped 11.04% to $449.04, and Micron Technology rose 5.12% to $690.00.

Nvidia, the AI trade's bellwether (a stock watched as a guide to the whole theme), rose 2.78% to $186.64. Lam Research climbed 8.5% after announcing a buyback program of up to $25 billion.

IREN, an AI data-center company, jumped 19.4% on stronger-than-expected results, the Associated Press reported. CoreWeave, which rents out AI computing capacity, rose 5.8%.

Airbnb jumped 11.67% to $189.99 after its Thursday earnings beat. Firefly Aerospace soared 36.80% to $20.76 on its more than $1.3 billion engine deal with AST SpaceMobile, which rose 7.05% to $32.33.

The decliners were heavier. DraftKings plunged 21.30% to $18.51 after missing quarterly estimates and cutting its full-year earnings outlook.

Axon Enterprise fell 18.18% to $313.00 on its own miss and guidance cut. Microchip Technology dropped 10.02% to $58.35 after its December-quarter guidance missed.

Charter Communications fell 6.19% to $118.07 after reporting a quarterly loss where analysts expected a profit.

A strong jobs report cut both ways

October payrolls rose 165,000, far above the mean forecast of about 59,000. Unemployment ticked down to 4.1%, and wages rose 0.4% from September and 3.1% from a year earlier.

The strength steadied stocks, but it also raised the rate stakes. After the report, traders saw a greater probability of a December rate hike, the Associated Press reported, citing CME Group data.

The 10-year Treasury yield rose to about 4.86%, from 4.84% on Thursday. Consumer sentiment's preliminary November reading came in at 51.0, a beat the market mostly shrugged off.

The VIX, Wall Street's volatility gauge, fell 9.19% to 25.59, from 28.18 on Thursday. Front-month Comex gold settled at $4,064.50 an ounce, down 0.93%.

What remains unknown

Friday's bounce does not settle whether Thursday's rout was a washout or a warning. Barron's noted the dip-buying looked concentrated in technology, with little participation beyond it.

Unknowns that matter: whether chip buyers return on Monday, whether data-center politics harden into law, and how the Federal Reserve reads a labor market this strong.

What to watch: Berkshire Hathaway reports third-quarter results on Saturday, November 7. The Trade Desk reports after Monday's close, and October's consumer price index lands Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time.

One CPI caveat: the Bureau of Labor Statistics collected no October 2025 prices during the federal shutdown. Many 12-month inflation changes therefore will not be published.

The Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed's rate-setting panel, meets December 8-9. Its decision now hinges on whether inflation or employment looks like the bigger risk.