Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during morning trading on June 04, 2026 in New York City.
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U.S. equities tumbled on Friday because of a violent sell-off for chip stocks. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index lost 4% for its biggest decline since the tariff turmoil of early 2025.
The catalyst for the chip turn was unclear. Some disappointment in Broadcom’s failure to raise its AI chip outlook Wednesday night caused the group to lose ground on Thursday. But Friday’s selling reached a new level of intensity. A spike in Treasury yields following a much stronger-than-expected jobs report for May didn’t help the case.
The Nasdaq lost more than 4.1%, on pace for its biggest drop going back to April 2025. The S&P 500 dropped 2.6%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average traded down 697 points, or about 1.4%.
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Nasdaq Composite, 1-year
Shares in Broadcom were more than 6% lower after tumbling more than 12% on Thursday. Marvell Technology and Micron Technology dropped 12% and 11%, respectively. Intel dropped more than 9%, while Advanced Micro Devices fell 10%.
“This is a bit of profit taking,” said Anshul Sharma, chief investment officer at Savvy Wealth. “The AI narrative still remains intact, but I do think that the expectations got more elevated than they thought, and I think even relatively good news can end up disappointing when it’s not as high as where the expectations are.”
The moves came after the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that nonfarm payrolls increased by 172,000 in May, well above the 80,000 jobs that economists polled by Dow Jones had expected to be added. The unemployment rate also held steady from April at 4.3%, in line with expectations.
Treasury yields moved higher following the report as expectations grew that the Federal Reserve could raise interest rates by the end of the year, per data from the CME FedWatch Tool. The 10-year yield jumped above 4.5%, while the 30-year yield advanced above 5%.
“It’s going to make the Fed’s job a little bit more difficult in terms of the path forward,” Sharma said. “March and April payrolls were also revised upward, and so that gives more strength or more support to the notion that the labor market is stronger than what the headlines would say.”
On a positive note, consumer staples was up 2%, with Colgate-Palmolive and Coca-Cola both up more than 3% as the rotation out of tech continued.
The S&P 500 is down more than 2% on the week, on track for its first negative week in 10. The 30-stock Dow is poised to end the week up less than 1%, while the Nasdaq Composite is heading for a roughly 4% loss.
— CNBC’s Jeff Cox and Garrett Downs contributed to this report.