Stocks Saw a Positive Sign In a Weak Jobs Report. They Were Mixed Anyway.
Stocks were mixed on Thursday as the Dow Jones climbed to a new record and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.80%, dragged by chipmakers. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF fell more than 5%, CNBC noted.
In contrast, the Dow Jones Industrial average rose more than 1%, reaching yet a new record before the long weekend. The S&P 500 was largely flat.
Tesla also underperformed, its stock declining about 7% even though the electric vehicle maker reported second-quarter 2026 delivery numbers that easily surpassed Wall Street expectations.
The selloff extended a pattern that has emerged after recent quarterly delivery announcements. Tesla shares have now declined following each of its last three delivery reports, suggesting that markets are looking beyond headline sales figures and focusing instead on the company’s broader competitive and financial outlook.
Elsewhere, stocks had largely climbed earlier in the session after a disappointing jobs report led investors to believe there are lower chances of a rate increase by the Federal Reserve. However, they resumed losses shortly after as the rotation out of chipmakers continue.
Nonfarm payrolls increased by much less than expected in June, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Concretely, nonfarm payrolls increased by 57,000, less than half the 115,000 expected by the Dow Jones consensus forecast.
However, the unemployment rate dropped to 4.2%, slightly ahead of the 4.1% than the same period a year ago.
CNBC explained that the drop was explained by a lower labor force participation rate, which was 0.3 percentage points lower and clocked in at 61.5%, the lowest since March 2021.
Leisure and hospitality reported 61,000 fewer jobs, with the BLS said was a result of of lower seasonal hiring even despite the World Cup taking place in the country.
In contrast, professional and business services gained the most jobs for the month, climbing by 36,000. Social assistance increased by 25,000 and health care by 22,000.
Investors are analyzing different aspects of the U.S. economy to make their moves. At the same time, Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh declined to give guidance about the central bank’s next decision on interest rates but did give a potential hint by saying inflation is running too high.
“We’re all in the price stability business, that might not be our only business, but if there was a common thing I heard over the last couple of days, it was open-mindedness on these questions of AI, open-mindedness on productivity, but we’ve all looked around, and we’ve seen that prices are too high,” Warsh told CNBC during a forum held by the European Central Bank in Portugal this week.
