Weak Jobs Lift Tech Stocks to Record Highs, Micron Confirms the AI Rally: This Week on Wall Street

A softer-than-expected September jobs report pushed the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 to a record high on Friday, as traders pulled back bets on another Federal Reserve rate hike this month.

The U.S. economy added just 29,000 jobs in September, well short of the 90,000 economists expected. The unemployment rate unexpectedly rose from 4.1% to 4.2%.

Wage growth also cooled more than forecast. Average hourly earnings rose 0.1% month over month and 3% year over year, the slowest annual pace since May 2021.

Revisions made the picture even softer. August payrolls were cut from 162,000 to to 133,000, while July swung to a loss of 10,000, down from a gain of 21,000, a combined 60,000 fewer jobs than previously reported.

The data eased pressure on the Fed to follow September’s hike with another one. Markets now price in about an 18% chance of an October hike, down from nearly 70% a week ago.

Bonds Don’t Fully Buy The Relief

The 10-year Treasury yield initially dropped to around 5.18% after the report, but the move faded during the session.

By Friday afternoon, the 10-year was back near 5.29%, up 12.3 basis points on the week, after hitting its highest level since 2002 earlier in the week.

The long end did most of the work.

The 30-year yield rose 14.1 basis points over the week to 5.64%, while the policy-sensitive 2-year yield slipped 2.9 basis points to 4.84%.

That steepened the curve. Traders are betting on fewer Fed hikes, but they’re demanding more compensation to hold long-dated debt.

Micron Confirms The AI Buildout, Nvidia Sets Fresh Record Highs

On Wednesday, Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) showed the AI buildout is still running hot. Fiscal fourth-quarter revenue hit a record $54.23 billion, ahead of the $51.07 billion consensus and up 379% from a year earlier.

Adjusted earnings per share came in at $33.42, beating the $31.61 estimate and roughly 11 times the $3.03 reported a year ago.

Guidance also topped expectations. Micron forecast current-quarter revenue of $61.5 billion, plus or minus $1.5 billion, against a consensus near $57.2 billion, with adjusted EPS of $38.15.

On Friday, Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) set a fresh all-time high, touching $237.55 and lifting its market value to about $5.7 trillion.

The move came days after the board added a record $150 billion to its buyback authorization on Monday, bringing remaining capacity to about $235 billion through fiscal 2028.

This Week’s Top S&P 500 Performers

• Carnival Corp. (NYSE:CCL), +15.30% on the week: The cruise operator reported record fiscal third-quarter revenue of $8.44 billion and adjusted EPS of $1.43, beating the $1.35 estimate, and raised its full-year outlook. Shares jumped 13.4% on Tuesday.
• Lumentum Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:LITE), +15.28% on the week: Bernstein initiated coverage of optical networking names with an Outperform rating, calling them structural AI winners. Reports that Washington is scrutinizing Chinese-made optical transceivers added to the rally. The stock rose 7.7% on Thursday to $1,045.78.
• Synopsys Inc. (NASDAQ:SNPS), +14.80% on the week: At its Wednesday investor day, the chip-design software maker unveiled GPT-Synopsys with OpenAI, a multiyear deal with Amazon worth over $1 billion, and fiscal 2027 revenue guidance of $11.1 billion to $11.2 billion, above the Street’s $10.8 billion. It also plans about $1 billion in buybacks.

This Week’s Worst S&P 500 Performers

• Fair Isaac Corp. (NYSE:FICO), -22.93%: The Federal Housing Finance Agency moved Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to a single mortgage pricing grid, putting VantageScore on equal footing with FICO. Rocket Mortgage said VantageScore 4.0 will become its default score. Tuesday marked the stock’s worst day on record, and Bank of America downgraded it to Neutral and halved its target to $700.
• AppLovin Corp. (NASDAQ:APP), -12.62%: Wells Fargo questioned whether a recent surge in AppLovin’s e-commerce pixel installations signals real growth, and a California court denied AppLovin’s restraining order request against Unity Software. Shares fell to fresh 52-week lows.

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