The Nasdaq Composite rallied late on Tuesday to snap its losing streak at three days.
The tech-heavy index rose 0.2% after falling nearly 0.6% at its low earlier in the day. The S&P 500 dipped 0.2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 302 points, or 0.6%.
The Nasdaq’s turnaround was propelled by late gains among large tech stocks including Tesla, Meta Platforms, Nvidia, and Microsoft.
The yield on the 2-year Treasury note fell to 3.48%. The 10-year yield was down to 4.15%.
Stocks and bonds traded sideways for much of the day after the November nonfarm payrolls report included stronger-than-expected jobs growth and an unexpected uptick in unemployment.
The data was messy, with traders also parsing partial numbers from October that were affected by the government shutdown. Mike Reid, senior U.S. economist at RBC Capital Markets, argued the report showed “a continued weakening in the labor market, though the unemployment uptick has a major caveat.
“While this morning’s upside surprise to the unemployment rate–to 4.6%–garnered attention, the details were reassuring,” Reid wrote. “The uptick was entirely driven by re-entrants and workers on temporary layoff. In fact, permanent layoffs ticked lower.”
Trading was all over the place, with tech and momentum stocks spiking, then falling. Mizuho’s Daniel O’Regan writes that there were a lot of gyrations under the hood.
“It feels like dispersion levels are high with lots of outsized moves around crowded themes, Ai, shorts, etc,” O’Regan writes. “The majority of today’s flow feels hedge fund driven with lack of mutual fund participation.”
Though the Nasdaq snapped its streak, the S&P’s slight decline extends its own skid to three consecutive days.