Stock Market Today: Nasdaq Opens Higher as Chips Rebound — Dow Falls 486 Points at the Bell

The Nasdaq opened higher on Friday as chip stocks came off the heavy losses posted during Thursday's sharp selloff, Reuters reported — a selloff driven by fears that a Democratic-led Congress could result in tougher AI regulation, and one that pushed the tech-heavy index into correction territory. At the opening bell the Nasdaq Composite rose 299.54 points, or 1.23 percent, to 24,614.53, and the S&P 500 rose 19.44 points, or 0.26 percent, to 7,373.17. The Dow Jones Industrial Average went the other way, falling 486.37 points, or 0.94 percent, to 51,036.69.

Thursday is the hole the open is climbing out of. The Nasdaq Composite logged its steepest one-day decline in 19 months in the previous session, falling 5.52 percent to 24,315.00 and confirming it had moved more than 10 percent below its October record close; the S&P 500 dropped 4.36 percent and the Dow lost 1,833.06 points. Wall Street's fear gauge, the CBOE Volatility Index, logged its biggest one-day jump in about 19 months on Thursday and eased only slightly on Friday, to about 26.7 to 26.8 in the morning reads. The Nasdaq was also headed for a fourth straight weekly fall, and the S&P 500 for its worst week since March 2025.

The counterweight is the morning's other big number. October payrolls increased more than expected — 165,000 jobs against a 65,000 forecast — and the unemployment rate fell to 4.1 percent, suggesting the labor market remained resilient. That is good economic news that cuts against stocks in the current configuration, because it raises the odds the Federal Reserve hikes interest rates in December. The futures board told the split story before the bell: at 8:43 AM Eastern, Dow e-minis were down 547 points, or 1.06 percent, while S&P 500 e-minis were up 0.08 percent and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 346 points, or 1.29 percent. Nvidia, which suffered its worst day since January 2025 on Thursday when the emergence of a low-cost Chinese AI model rattled Wall Street, added 4.2 percent in premarket trading.

For this city's financial district, the open frames the session's question rather than answering it: whether the chip rebound is a recovery or a pause inside a correction. The indexes that fell hardest on Thursday are the ones rising this morning, and the index that held up best on Thursday — the Dow, down only about 0.5 percent on the week — is the one falling. This desk follows the session through the day and files the close, which is the number that supersedes this one, in a later cycle.