Wall Street Mixed: Tech Drops, Dow Rises
Wall Street traded mixed on Wednesday (February 4), as traders continued to rotate out of technology stocks while digesting the latest jobs data. The S&P 500 was little changed at 9:30 a.m. New York time. The Nasdaq 100 fell 0.5%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4%.
Behind the scenes, the underlying theme was clear: chips and software were being spun again. Broadcom (AVGO) fell -3.27%, Micron (MU) -4.16%, while Oracle (ORCL) -3.36% and CrowdStrike (CRWD) -3.93%—signs that investors were reducing exposure to AI-sensitive names and high valuations.
AMD also featured prominently today. Reuters noted that AMD shares fell nearly 7% in the premarket after guidance raised concerns about AI competition against Nvidia—adding further pressure on the semiconductor sector.
On the macro data side, the ADP report showed that private payrolls in January were only +22,000, well below expectations (around 48,000 according to a Reuters survey). This reinforces the signal that the labor market is slowing, but not yet collapsing—more of a "low-hire, low-fire" pattern.
Why is the market so sensitive? Because this week's NFP (BLS) was not released due to operational disruptions during the partial shutdown, even though the shutdown itself ended Tuesday night after Trump signed the funding bill. So, traders are temporarily "holding" ADP while waiting for clarity on the next official data.
Source: Newsmaker.id
