CLOSING BELL
Pop Goes The Weasel?
The market was climbing Thursday after Nvidia beat, but by the end of the day thebreakout green broke down into red across the board. The Dow fell nearly 1,000 points as traders sold the good news. It was the biggest one-day tech drop, from the highest high to the lowest low, since April’s tariff liberation day.
The Philly Semi index was down nearly 5%, tech on the Nasdaq 100 was down 5% from the daily high. Nvidia swapped from a gain to a 2% loss after a double beat.
The BLS finally came out with September’s jobs numbers. Though there were double the expected hirings at 119,000, the unemployment rate rose to a four-year high of 4.4%.
That’s high, but is it cut rates no matter what in December high? Most traders don’t seem to think so, not yet at least, and that, along with a collapsing crypto market, helped push equities lower. Walmart and big box stores beat their retail expectations, but those listening to sales calls heard Walmart was welcoming higher-income customers into stores. It’s hard to make ends meet, even if the top 10 companies are paying each other billions to farm AI.
Today’s RIP: Why Nvidia beat and the market sold, after market reports, and meet MIchele Steele, our new Content Strategy Director.
One sector closed green. Staples $XLP ( ▲ 0.72% ) lead and tech $XLK ( ▼ 3.14% )lagged.
AFTER THE BELL
The Who’s Who Of Who Cares Reporting After Hours
Before we get to the falling market, let’s pull together some after-hours moves that reported earnings and eec changes Thursday. No offense to fans of these names, it’s clear there is one name everyone is waiting to hear about later down below:
Intuit $INTU ( ▼ 2.03% ) : Intuit beat its fiscal Q1 ‘26 expectations, reporting $3.34/share on revenue of $3.89B, as its AI-push across TurboTax, QuickBooks, and Credit Karma drives momentum.
Webull $BULL ( ▲ 0.37% ) : Webull posted another strong quarter, it was the highest trending stock on Stocktwits if you ignored Nvidia Thursday. Q3 revenue jumped 55% YoY to $156.9 M, and customer assets surged 84% to $21.2B; adjusted net income came in at $32.9M. Still, the stock fell in the post-market.
Gap $GAP ( ▼ 1.79% ) : Gap beat on Q3 comparable sales that grew +5% and delivered revenue of $3.94B, up +3% YoY, with EPS of $0.62 and raised its full-year net sales outlook to the high end of prior guidance. Gap was up 5% post-market.
Ross Stores $ROST ( ▲ 0.03% ) : Ross reported Q3 sales of $5.6B, raised its full-year EPS guidance to $6.38–$6.46, and increased its holiday same-store sales growth forecast to 3–4%, citing robust demand for its value-focused offerings.
Citigroup $C ( ▼ 2.2% ) CFO Mark Mason stepped down after the bell. Conzalo Luchetti will take his place as he transitions out of the position by January.
WHY
Nvidia Beat Turns Into Major Sell-Off
“Nvidia beat baby!” Was my morning story, loud in proud as the market went green. Not two hours later, Nvidia and the whole market sold off, despite yet another beat. Nvidia went from +5% to -2%, a collapse of more than $300B in just one day.
Turned out, Chief Huang’s claim that there is no AI bubble was not enough to stop investors from selling the news, but there is more to it than that. The beat also did not stop bubble claims: Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio told CNBC that warned markets are 80% of the way into an AI bubble
What bubble?
With sales numbers in the $51B range for datacenters, in just three months, how can Nvidia not gain the good graces of the market? Some reporters pointed out the Accounts Receivable line on the firm’s report, basically a record of value delivered to customers that the firm has not received payment for yet.
Nvidia’s recorded $33.4B. That’s more than half of revenue to actually come in the door yet. Kimberly Forrest, chief investment officer and founder of Bokeh Capital Partners told Bloomberg: “It does beg the question: If things are flying off the shelves, then why aren’t you getting paid for it?”
As investors question if AI spending is really all it’s meant to be, and revenue is scrutinized for accounting tricks, it was enough to sell on. There was also the macro environment to freak out over. September’s Jobs numbers showed a similar data duality as Nvidia’s report. Hirings were high, but so was unemployment, and traders said it was a bad sign.
Peter Tuchman, a Wall Street NYSE trader (the one who looks like Einstein) said in a tweet the market reaction to Nvidia’s report was vastly different from AI name Palantir weeks ago.
“Palantir rode up into the earnings for seven days. The earnings came out, they were blowout, and the stock sold off. Buy the rumor, sell the news. That's the way it works,” Tuchman said. “Nvidia was different. It sold off for three weeks into the earnings, blew out earnings across the board, even in data centers, and the stock rallied up 5% whole market was up massively.”
Then everything changed, and Tuchman pinned it on the Fed, and the liquidating Bitcoin crypto markets. He said traders are selling equities to cover their positions as crypto prices fall.
“The fact that we opened in the top and closed lower is really concerning in a lot of ways.” He said. “The Federal Reserve usually is quite transparent. The fact that they're giving us completely psychotic mixed messages is really disappointing. So where do we go from here?”
Torsten Slok, Apollo Global Management Chief Economist, said that the Fed saw the inflation rate at 3% and the labor market creating 100k+ jobs today, and comparing that to their goals, all signs say, ‘hold strong’. He said the Fed’s baseline ‘equilibrium’ monthly added jobs goal is closer to 30k, so three times that amount in September is great. So why cut when things are going well?
POPS & DROPS
Top Stocks News Stories
Verizon confirmed layoffs of 13,000 employees.
Google launched advanced image generation model using Gemini 3 Pro.
SoftBank will invest $3B in Ohio factory for OpenAI data centers.
ZIM Integrated Shipping stayed afloat despite Q3 revenue falling 36%.
Amazon will invest $3B in Mississippi AI data center.
Coinbase launched Ethereum-backed loans and raised BTC loan limits.
Existing home sales rose in October as mortgage rates fell.
Micron stock gained UBS price target raise.
Tomorrow’s Top Things
Economic data: FOMC Member Williams Speaks (7:30 AM), S&P Global Manufacturing PMI (9:45 AM), Michigan Consumer Expectations (10:00 AM)
Pre-Market Earnings: Frontline Plc ($FRO), VinFast Auto Ltd. ($VFS), and BJ`s Wholesale Club Holdings Inc ($BJ)