Stock Market Today at Midday: Nasdaq Up 1.8 Percent, Dow Back to Flat After Thursday's Rout
Wall Street's midday tape is a recovery in progress: the Nasdaq Composite was up 1.80 percent at 24,751.94 on the late-morning print, the S&P 500 up 1.02 percent, and the Dow — down 486 points at the open — back to roughly flat, a session after the worst single day in 19 months.
By midday Friday, the recovery had a shape. The last index prints on the late-morning market read put the Nasdaq Composite at 24,751.94, up 1.80 percent, the S&P 500 at 7,428.63, up 1.02 percent, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average at 51,569.69, up 0.09 percent — the Dow back to flat after falling 486.37 points at the opening bell. A second midday briefing read the same direction at slightly earlier prints: Nasdaq up 1.46 percent to 24,670.81, the S&P 500 up 0.77 percent to 7,409.95, the Dow up 0.02 percent, and the fear gauge easing — the VIX at 25.44, down 9.72 percent on that table.
What the tape is recovering from is Thursday. The Dow lost 1,833.06 points, or 3.4 percent, to close at 51,523.06 with every one of its 30 components in negative territory; the Nasdaq plunged 5.5 percent to 24,315.00, its steepest one-day decline in 19 months, and entered a technical correction more than 10 percent below its October 6 record close; the S&P 500 fell 4.4 percent to 7,353.73, and the VIX jumped 69.7 percent to 28.18. The selloff was driven by fears that a Democratic-led Congress could bring tougher AI regulation — the same fear that made this morning's open split, chips up and the Dow down.
The morning's other fact is still in the mix: October payrolls rose 165,000, far past the 65,000 forecast, and unemployment fell to 4.1 percent (filed this morning as SQ-20261106-025) — a strong labor print that keeps December rate-hike fears alive even as technology recovers. That tension is the session in one line: the growth stocks that fell hardest are leading the way back, while the rate story argues against the recovery.
For this city's financial district, midday is a direction, not a verdict. The indexes have taken back only a fraction of Thursday's losses — the Nasdaq's midday gain, even at 1.80 percent, recovers roughly a third of Thursday's 5.5 percent fall — and the VIX, though easing, remains in the mid-20s. This desk files the close in a later cycle; the close is the number that supersedes this one.
