Stocks See Slight Rebound After Thursday’s Rout But Remain Well Below Highs
Stocks attempted a rebound on Friday after a brutal selloff on Thursday, in which the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite saw its worst session in over a year and a half.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged down, dropping 0.46%, while the S&P 500 gained 0.32% and the Nasdaq Composite did so 1.09%.
Shares of technological companies saw gains but were small when compared to Thursday’s plunge. Micron climbed 5% but plummeted 17% on Thursday. Nvidia also gained almost 3% after falling 9%.
The tech-heavy index entered correction territory after Thursday, finishing more than 11% below its October record. The retreat crossed Wall Street’s correction threshold, a decline of at least 10% from a recent peak. A drop of 20% marks a bear market.
For investors wondering what comes next, past corrections offer reasons for patience, but little assurance that the worst is already over.
A CNBC analysis of 10 previous Nasdaq corrections over the past decade found that several episodes brought additional losses during the following month. Corrections in 2025, 2022, 2020 and 2018 all featured further selling over that period.
Yet the picture generally improved over longer stretches. Among those episodes, the index had returned to gains after six months in every case except 2022, according to the analysis. Across the historical sample, there were average gains of 9.41% over three months and 17.03% over six months from correction bottoms.
The jobs report also dominated the news after blowing past expectations. Nonfarm payrolls climbed by a seasonally adjusted 165,000 last month, way above the 59,000 expected by the Dow Jones consensus.
At the same time, the unemployment rate fell to 4.1%, lower than the 4.2% expected by analysts.
Previous months were also revised to the upside. August added more than 50,000 additional extra jobs, while September gained 31,000 more than originally reported.
Payroll gains were also better than expected, with average hourly gains climbing 0.4% last month and 3.1% for the year, compared to 0.3% and 2.9%, respectively.
Private sector figures also surprised to the upside earlier this week. ADP showed that companies added 86,000 jobs, compared to the 75,000 expected by the Dow Jones consensus.
ADP said that “hiring showed solid growth for a second month and pay gains were steady,” but noted there were “weak spots,” as “professional and business services lost jobs for the third straight month.”
“Employers of all sizes were hiring last month, and our data suggests that job-changers were lured by a combination of bonuses, overtime, and more hours in addition to higher base pay. Taken together, earnings growth for these workers hit its fastest pace since March 2024,” said Dr. Nela Richardson, ADP’s Chief Economist.
Trade, transportation and utilities gained some 39,000 new roles. Education and health services kept hiring, with 28,000 jobs, while leisure and hospitality gained 19,000. In contrast, professional and business services shed 27,000 positions. Natural resources and mining lost 8,000.
