Wall Street closed out its strongest week in months on Friday, with the Nasdaq Composite and Nvidia both touching fresh records after a surprisingly weak September jobs report cooled bets that the Federal Reserve would tighten policy further this month.
The Nasdaq climbed 319.27 points, or 1.19 percent, to a record 27,190.86, according to Yahoo Finance. The S&P 500 added 0.73 percent to close at 7,722.72, up nearly 13 percent for the year, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.49 percent to 51,176.96.
Nvidia shares gained 1.34 percent to $233.95, a record intraday high that pushed the chipmaker's market capitalization to roughly $5.64 trillion, as investors continued piling into artificial-intelligence trades even as a handful of other chipmakers, including Western Digital, slipped on the session, per Benzinga.
A Jobs Report That Changed the Fed Math
The rally followed a Labor Department report showing employers added just 29,000 jobs in September, far below the roughly 84,000 to 89,000 economists had forecast, while the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2 percent from 4.1 percent, according to the Detroit News.
Traders read the soft data as reducing the odds that the central bank would raise rates again this year. Futures tracked by the CME's FedWatch tool showed roughly a 78 percent probability that the Fed holds rates steady at its Oct. 27-28 meeting, even as the 10-year Treasury yield ticked up to 5.28 percent, a sign bond investors are still wary of persistent inflation pressure.
The split reaction — equities rallying while yields held near multi-year highs — underscores how unsettled the economic picture has become. With government statistical agencies releasing a thinner stream of data amid ongoing budget fights in Washington, investors have leaned more heavily on whatever official releases do arrive, amplifying the market's reaction to Friday's payrolls miss.
Technology and AI-linked names led the week's broader gains, with corporate spending on data centers and chips continuing largely unabated despite the softer labor market. Strategists say the next major test for the rally will come from corporate earnings season, which begins in earnest later this month and will show whether that spending is translating into profit growth that can justify current valuations.
