Alex Eule
Healthy Markets? If you're phone is set to track the Dow Jones Industrial Average, it looked like a stellar day on Wall Street. The Dow jumped at the open and held its gains for the entire session, closing up 875 points, or 1.7%. But strange things are happening under the hood of this market. Artificial intelligence continues to whipsaw tech stocks, with huge up days followed by significant declines.
Tech stocks are so valuable that they move the broader indexes no matter what's happening elsewhere. Today, for instance, the S&P 500 saw 362 of its components rise, against just 140 decliners. Still, the large-cap index only rose 0.4%. And the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite actually finished the day lower by 0.1%.
Today's tech laggards were led by chip maker Broadcom, which tumbled 12.6% a day after a solid earnings report. Investors wanted a better forecast from the company. Apparently sales growth of 84% this quarter, to $28.3 billion, wasn't enough. Such is life in the AI hype cycle. The closely watched SOX semiconductor index finished down 2.2%.
Perhaps tech's stumbles are a healthy sign for markets, though, offering a chance for other stocks to shine. And today, they did. Healthcare companies in the S&P 500 jumped 3.2%, while financials were up 2.7%. The industrial sector rose 1.2%.
The earnings flow boosting markets has dried up, but tomorrow brings another key piece of data: the jobs report for May. Economists expect a third-straight monthly job gain, with 88,000 new jobs, leaving the unemployment rate steady at 4.3%.
Those numbers would likely be good news for the Fed and its ability to keep inflation contained in the months to come, says Hardika Singh, economic strategist at Fundstrat:
A strong or at least not a crumbling labor market can take the pressure off the Federal Reserve, while it focuses on the price stability part of the dual mandate. The war has sent prices surging for commodities, leading to broader price-based pressures across the economy. Some investors are now leaning toward an interest-rate hike over a cut this year to fight inflation. That's why it's so important for the job market to show signs of life: Otherwise the monetary tightening could threaten to take down the economy.
Barron's will be covering the jobs report in real-time here.
The Hot Stock: Blackstone +7.5% The Biggest Loser: Ciena -13.7%
Best Sector: Healthcare +3.2% Worst Sector: Information Technology -1.4%
Fidelity Adds to FOMO
The coming SpaceX IPO is likely to spark a major moment of FOMO for investors. That's not to say new shares of SpaceX are a good investment, but they will be in short supply, and all over the headlines when trading is expected to start next week. The IPO will feel like an exclusive party, where having a ticket feels great. The next morning, though, is a different story.
In its prospectus, SpaceX says it will offer IPO shares to retail investors through Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Robinhood, and SoFi.
Now, Fidelity is lowering the bar for participation. Usually, the brokerage firm reserves IPO shares for customers with accounts of $500,000 or more. In the case of SpaceX, though, Fidelity will allow customers with accounts of just $2,000 to get in on the action.
My colleague Paul La Monica reports that "Fidelity is lowering the minimum investment because SpaceX is offering more shares to average investors, with plans to allocate 30% of the deal to individual traders."
FOMO or not, Barron's has advised readers to hold off on the IPO and the other mega listings soon to come.
In our recent cover story, Nate Wolf wrote: "Even the savviest, most battle-tested investors may fear missing out. But SpaceX and its fellow IPOs won't behave like normal stocks for months, if not longer, and trading promises to be choppy and unpredictable. Waiting out the chaos may not be exciting. It will be shrewd."
The Calendar
The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the jobs report for May tomorrow. Economists forecast an increase of 88,000 in nonfarm payrolls, following a 115,000 gain in April. The unemployment rate is expected to remain unchanged at 4.3%. Payrolls posted back-to-back gains in March and April for the first time since last May, alleviating concerns of a flagging labor market.
What We're Reading Today
-- Here Be SpaceX, Destroyer of Worlds
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Prepare.
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-- Blackstone Fund Caps Withdrawals. Why Private-Credit Stocks Are Surging
This Time.
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 04, 2026 19:55 ET (23:55 GMT)
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