Wall Street is experiencing a sharp decline on the last trading day of the week, with all indices in the red at noon in New York, as a cooler-than-expected July jobs report rattled risk sentiment and sparked concerns that the Federal Reserve may have erred in delaying a rate cut until September.
Nonfarm payrolls slowed to 114,000 in July, a decline of 65,000 from June and well below the expected 150,000. More alarmingly, the unemployment rate increased from 4.1% to 4.3%.
As a result, market-implied probabilities over a 50-basis-point cut in September have spiked to 73%, according to CME Group FedWatch tool.
The tech-heavy $NASDAQ 100 Index (.NDX.US)$ has entered a correction phase after surpassing a 10% drawdown since its July peak. Mega-cap, high-quality tech stocks offered no refuge to investors, as the Magnificent Seven giants all suffered losses except for $Apple (AAPL.US)$, buoyed by an upbeat earnings report. Collectively, the Magnificent Seven lost over $300 billion in market value on Friday alone.
The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), popularly known as the market's fear gauge, surged over 30% to reach the high-20 levels.
Small caps were again the weakest segment of the market, given their heightened sensitivity to economic fundamentals. The $Russell 2000 Index (.RUT.US)$ tumbled over 3%, extending declines after a 3.4% loss on Thursday.
Consumer discretionary and technology were the worst-performing sectors, while semiconductors led the selloff among industries.
$NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$ fell an additional 3.4% following a 6.7% decline on Thursday, as the chipmaker came under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for potential antitrust violations.
Treasuries were the biggest gainers among major assets, reflecting a broad-based flight-to-quality sentiment. The Japanese yen also gained significantly.
Gold edged down slightly by 0.6%, while oil prices fell more than 4% for the day, with West Texas Intermediate (WTI) light crude retreating to $72 a barrel.
Major Indices | Price | 1-day Chg % |
Dow Jones | 39,492.36 | -2.1% |
S&P 500 | 5,321.21 | -2.3% |
Nasdaq 100 | 18,355.31 | -2.8% |
Russell 2000 | 2,110.14 | -3.4% |
Friday's Stock Movers
Stocks reacting to earnings reports were:
Amazon, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) down nearly 10%.
$Apple (AAPL.US)$ up by 2.9%
$Block (SQ.US)$ up 0.5%,
$Booking Holdings (BKNG.US)$ down about 8%,
$Chevron (CVX.US)$down 3.2%,
$Cloudflare (NET.US)$ up over 7%,
$Coinbase (COIN.US)$ down 2.8%,
$DraftKings (DKNG.US)$ down over 9%,
$EOG Resources (EOG.US)$ down 1.9%,
$Exxon Mobil (XOM.US)$, down 0.6%,
$Intel (INTC.US)$, down nearly 28%,
$MercadoLibre (MELI.US)$ up 11%,
$Microchip Technology (MCHP.US)$ down over 8%,
$Opendoor Technologies (OPEN.US)$ down about 10%,
$Twilio (TWLO.US)$ up over 10%.
$Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX.US)$ down 2%.
