Dow jumps nearly 600 points to record close; Nasdaq slides as chip stocks suffer: Live updates
Traders work at the New York Stock Exchange on June 26, 2026.
NYSE
The Dow Jones Industrial Average scaled to a record high on Thursday as investors reacted to a weaker-than-expected nonfarm payrolls report for June, while the Nasdaq Composite languished as semiconductors struggled once again.
The 30-stock average added 594.83 points, or 1.14%, for a record close of 52,900.07. The index hit a new all-time intraday high of 52,903.85. The S&P 500 rose less than 1 point to end at 7,483.24, while the Nasdaq dropped 0.8% to 25,832.67.
Semiconductors fell for a second day in a row, weighing on the latter two benchmarks. The VanEck Semiconductor (SMH) ETF dropped 4.5%, led by a 13.6% decline in Teradyne and a 11.5% slide for KLA. Nvidia shares also pulled back 1.4%, while Micron lost 5.5%.
“This is a rotation potentially out of a sector that’s been red hot for the last few months and into other areas, but I also do think that there’s a little bit of a revaluation of the AI trade in itself,” said Anshul Sharma, chief investment officer at Savvy Wealth. “If companies are more sensitive to the cost of compute, is that going to be the next area that they’re going to focus on?”
The major averages finished the holiday-shortened week with solid gains. The broad-based S&P 500 rose 1.8% gain, while the 30-stock Dow and tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped nearly 2% and 2.1%, respectively.
Big jobs report miss
The June jobs report showed an increase of 57,000 last month, below the 115,000 jobs that economists polled by Dow Jones expected. The unemployment rate, however, dropped to 4.2%. Economists had forecast the rate to stay at 4.3%.
The 2-year Treasury note yield fell after the data on the notion the Federal Reserve will hold off hiking interest rates under these conditions.
“As we are learning how the Fed reaction function will form under [Fed Chairman Kevin] Warsh, this print takes some of the pressure off of the inflation fighting institution to hike near term,” said Bradford Smith, portfolio manager at Janus Henderson Investors.
“That said, Warsh commented at his first presser that jobs data only becomes meaningful after the third revision and by then becomes ‘echoes of history,'” he continued. “With oil price inflation moderating, some softness on the jobs front likely keeps the Fed on hold at least for the next meeting.”
