FX.co ★ US Stocks Inch Down After Jobs Report

US equity futures slipped on Friday after fresh evidence of labor-market strength gave the Federal Reserve more room to keep raising interest rates to fight inflation. Futures on the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and Nasdaq 100 dipped slightly into negative territory.

Nonfarm payrolls rose by 162,000 from the prior month, far exceeding expectations of just over 50,000 new jobs and reinforcing recent FOMC commentary that the labor market is operating at or near full employment. Following the data, credit‑sensitive sectors retreated as Treasury yields rebounded, with shares of Microsoft, Tesla, and Mastercard each falling nearly 1%.

In contrast, semiconductor stocks advanced after a week of underperformance. Lam Research, Applied Materials, and SanDisk climbed nearly 3% in pre-market trading, while Marvell, Micron, Intel, and Nvidia gained more than 1%, supported by growing optimism around OpenAI’s latest GPT model.