Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on November 4, 2026 in New York City, USA.
Gina Moon | Reuters
of Nasdaq Composite Stocks rallied on Friday as some investors bought momentum in semiconductor stocks after a painful sell-off that pushed the index into correction territory.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 1.9%. of S&P500 Although it increased by 1%, Dow Jones Industrial Average Still under pressure, down 99 points (0.2%).
Concerns that data center construction could slow after Democratic Party wins in the House and Senate and key gubernatorial races hit U.S. markets hard on Thursday.
The selling was so strong on Thursday that the average of the three major stocks suffered its worst one-day decline since April 2025. The Nasdaq Composite fell 5.5% to close more than 10% below its recent high, marking what Wall Street sees as a correction. The broader market S&P 500 index fell 4.4%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 1,800 points, or 3.4%.
All 11 sectors of the S&P 500 index ended lower, with stocks of companies related to advances in AI leading the decline.
During Friday’s session, micron technology It rose nearly 7%, following Thursday’s 17% decline. Nvidia The stock rose 6% after falling 9% the previous day.
“The magnitude of the decline in some of the market’s largest stocks is striking, but it also highlights the concentration risk that has built up in the U.S. stock market,” Stuart Clark, a portfolio manager at Quilter, said in an email.
“Currently, a relatively small number of technology and semiconductor stocks are heavily weighted, so any weakness in these stocks can quickly translate into significant declines in the Nasdaq and S&P 500.”
The Magnificent Seven stocks lost $1 trillion in market cap on Thursday alone. Together with Nvidia, tesla, meta platform and alphabet It rose on Friday.
Top Democratic Party leaders have called for curbs on data center expansion since their big election victory. Gina Hinojosa, the incoming governor of Texas, a key hub for the nation’s data centers, said in a CNN interview Thursday evening that “there will be laws enacted that protect Texans, and we need to stop what we’re doing in our data centers until those protections are in place.”
Investors reacted to the latest nonfarm payrolls report, with nonfarm payrolls increasing by 165,000 in October, much more than expected. This was significantly higher than the 59,000 expected by economists compiled by Dow Jones. The unemployment rate also fell to 4.1%. Economists had expected the rate to stabilize at 4.2%.
Even after Wednesday’s big rally in response to the election, all three major averages could fall this week. The Nasdaq fell 3% and the S&P 500 fell 2%. The 30-stock Dow Jones Industrial Average has outperformed, down 1% since the beginning of the week.
The Nasdaq’s history of corrections shows that while tech stocks often gain footing over the next three to six months, trading can remain volatile in the short term.
