US stocks edged lower on Friday, paring back the prior session’s rebound after stronger-than-expected labor data reinforced expectations that the Federal Reserve has room to continue raising interest rates to curb inflation. Futures tied to the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and Nasdaq 100 slipped slightly below the flatline.
Nonfarm payrolls increased by 162,000 from the previous month, significantly exceeding forecasts of just over 50,000 jobs and supporting recent FOMC commentary that the labor market remains at or near full employment. Following the data, credit-sensitive sectors retreated as Treasury yields climbed, with Microsoft, Tesla, and Mastercard each falling nearly 1%.
In contrast, semiconductor stocks advanced after lagging earlier in the week. Lam Research, Applied Materials, and SanDisk gained close to 2%, while Marvell, Micron, Intel, and Nvidia rose more than 1% amid growing optimism surrounding OpenAI’s latest GPT model.
