Investing.com — Wall Street on Thursday put in a mixed finish, as a slide in and chip stocks countered a soft June jobs report that dented Federal Reserve rate hike expectations.
Despite the conflicted trading, U.S. stocks ended the holiday-shortened week with gains ahead of the Independence Day weekend. Markets on Tuesday posted their best quarterly advance in six years.
The benchmark S&P 500 index shed 0.1% to end at 7,478.66 points, while the tech-heavy declined 0.8% to close at 25,832.67 points. The blue-chip surged 1.1% to settle at a record 52,899.24 points.
For the week, the S&P added 1.7%, the Nasdaq advanced 2.1%, and the Dow climbed 2%.
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Fed rate hike bets pared after jobs report
The U.S. economic calendar grabbed a chunk of attention this week as a host of labor market indicators impacted the outlook for monetary policy. On Tuesday, U.S. job openings for May surged to a two-year high. Wednesday was a mixed bag, as Challenger, Gray & Christmas data showed a cooling in U.S. layoffs in June, but ADP’s gauge of private employment for the same month slipped.
The calendar culminated in Thursday’s highly-anticipated jobs report. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the U.S. added 57k nonfarm payrolls in June, much lesser than the consensus figure of 114k and decelerating from May’s downwardly revised reading of 129k. Employment trended up in professional and business services, social assistance, and health care, while jobs declined in leisure and hospitality.
Incorporating June’s numbers, the three-month average for payrolls now stands at about 111k, pointing to an overall resilient job market. The BLS also said the U.S. unemployment rate ticked down to 4.2% in June after plateauing at 4.3% over the last three months.
This week’s data pointed to an overall resilient employment situation and had implications for the Fed. The central bank last month indicated that, with the labor market holding steady, it was now largely focused on bringing down inflation, though new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh also said that policymakers would drop forward guidance going forward.
Warsh reiterated that message at a central banking forum in Portugal on Wednesday, but also noted that inflation risks had come down. Price pressures over the last few months had surged as oil prices had spiked due to the U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran that started at the end of February. But crude benchmarks have rapidly slid since mid-June after Washington and Tehran inked an interim peace deal that reopened the critical Strait of Hormuz.
Traders had pushed up their expectations of interest rate hikes at the height of the oil shock, but with inflationary pressures now easing and a resilient labor market, the Fed has more breathing room to potentially keep interest rates on hold and not tighten monetary policy. Market participants reacted in kind, with the CME FedWatch tool showing a decrease in odds for rate hikes and a tick up in odds for keeping rates steady. Rate-sensitive assets also responded accordingly, with the U.S. dollar sliding and shorter-end Treasury yields falling.
“Markets have interpreted the employment figures as making it less likely the Fed will raise interest rates,” Dan Coatsworth, head of markets at AJ Bell, said.
“Central banks look at inflation and jobs data when deciding what to do with rates. The Fed has been watching inflation closely given the Middle East conflict-induced oil price hike, as a higher cost of living might need taming through higher interest rates. However, oil prices have come back down in recent weeks, raising investors’ hopes that interest rates wouldn’t have to go up after all. The latest jobs data now feeds into that equation,” he said.
“Weak jobs numbers would normally be a key reason for central banks to consider cutting rates to stimulate the economy. The latest U.S. jobs data confirms labour market disappointment but we’re nowhere near the stage where the Fed will reach for the monetary policy scissors to start cutting. We’re more likely to see an adjustment to the Fed’s assessment that implies no change to rates, which is still a win for markets,” Coatsworth added.
See here for more reactions to the jobs data.
Chip stocks slide after posting their best quarter ever
Away from economic data, the spotlight was on a slide in chip stocks. After notching its best quarter ever on Tuesday with a whopping 87.8% rise, the — a key barometer for semiconductor names — slumped more than 11% over Wednesday and Thursday.
Chips have been the powerhouse behind the broader artificial intelligence rally this year that helped Wall Street shake off the Middle East conflict and return to record levels.
However, towards the end of June, the furious advance has taken a bit of a breather, as investors book profits and take a step back to question the billions of dollars being spent into AI.
A fall in chip stocks weighed on U.S. stocks on Wednesday as well, following a media report that Facebook-parent was potentially selling its excess computing capacity to external firms.
The development indicated that Meta and its big-name tech peers may be getting more serious about monetizing their rapid AI infrastructure build-out and curtailing recently heavy capital expenditures, analysts at Vital Knowledge said. They added that this trend could “spark a more violent pivot” out of AI chips and components stocks in “the days and weeks ahead.”
Aside from chips, a fall in Tesla also weighed on the technology sector on Thursday, despite the Elon Musk-led firm reporting record quarterly vehicle deliveries that exceeded even the most bullish individual forecasts from Goldman Sachs and Barclays. Notably, the stock had already rallied roughly 12% during the week leading into the report, with investors pricing in a robust number, leaving it vulnerable to profit-taking.
“Market had a negative reaction to good Tesla sales numbers. Gas prices are back to normal, for Tesla that also means less demand moving foreward. They make just three models and one is the non-selling Cybertruck. Cabs are stuck with FSD safety issues,” Ross Gerber, president and CEO at Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management, said.
Elsewhere, grabbed some eyeballs after the Financial Times reported that the ChatGPT-developer had proposed giving the U.S. government a 5% stake in the company. The AI startup last month confidentially filed for an initial public offering.
Ayushman Ojha and Scott Kanowsky contributed to this article