MARKET SNAPSHOT
U.S. stocks fell, driven by a decline in tech stocks following a promising start on Nvidia results and a delayed payrolls report for September. Bonds rallied, driving Treasury yields lower, as markets braced for a pause in interest rate cuts. The dollar regained ground lost after the jobs report. Oil and gold fell.
MARKET WRAPS
EQUITIES
U.S. stocks surrendered gains and closed lower, giving up a jump that began after Nvidia posted strong results.
The Nasdaq composite led indexes lower after being up on the day more than 2%. It closed 2.2% lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.8%, while the S&P 500 declined 1.6%.
Despite the strong report, many investors still worry the swollen valuations of AI companies and their aggressive spending plans could mark signs of a bubble. Investors have turned jittery about big tech's massive artificial-intelligence spending commitments, with shares selling off in recent sessions. Nvidia finished the day down 3%.
A mixed jobs report also added fuel to concerns that the Federal Reserve won't cut rates in December. The September jobs data, postponed due to the government shutdown, showed the U.S. added 119,000 positions, beating consensus forecasts for 50,000 jobs. However, the unemployment rate unexpectedly ticked up to 4.4%.
Asian indexes were mixed.
Stocks in China gave up early morning gains, with the tech-heavy ChiNext index closing 1.1% lower, and Shenzhen and Shanghai down 0.8% and 0.4%.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng ended flat.
In Japan, the Nikkei closed up 2.7%, supported mainly by technology.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 Benchmark Index added 1.2%.
Shares in New Zealand rose as the S&P/NZX 50 Index gained 0.8%.
COMMODITIES
Oil futures returned early gains and settled lower as the U.S. presented a plan to restart peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, reducing risk premium a day before U.S. sanctions on Russia are set to go into effect.
"If a cease-fire in Ukraine does come to fruition and sanctions on Russia are lifted, I would think WTI crude oil trades sharply lower and takes out the $55.12 level from April 9," Mizuho's Robert Yawger said in a note.
The U.S. sanctions on Russia's major oil producers have been holding up oil prices amid market concerns about large coming oversupply.
December WTI went off the board at $59.14 a barrel, down 0.5%, and the January contract fell 0.4% to $59.00. Brent slipped 0.2% to $63.38.
Front-month gold settled 0.5% lower, down five of the past six sessions.
TODAY'S TOP HEADLINES
Nvidia Stock Gives Back Gains After Earnings. Wall Street Still Has Questions About AI.
Nvidia stock gave back its gains Thursday after the chip maker's earnings only briefly silenced concerns of an artificial-intelligence bubble.
Nvidia shares were down 1% at $184.65 in afternoon trading, off from an intraday high of $196 earlier in the session.
The broader market also gave back gains after starting the day in rally mode. The S&P 500 was down 0.5%. Other chip stocks mostly dropped. Advanced Micro Devices was down 4.8% and Broadcom was up 1%. The iShares Semiconductor exchange-traded fund swung to a 2.1% loss.
Delayed Data Show Strong Hiring, but Offer Little Clarity for Fed
The U.S. labor market defied expectations in September, adding 119,000 jobs according to a report delayed nearly seven weeks by the government shutdown. At the same time, the unemployment rate rose slightly to 4.4%, the highest level in four years.
The Labor Department report leaves an already divided Federal Reserve with stale and somewhat inconclusive government data as the central bank heads into its next meeting in December.
The September numbers were eagerly anticipated and offer the first official picture of where the job market was as of two months ago. Yet they say little about how the economy is doing in this moment and where it may be headed.
Third-Quarter GDP, October Spending Data to Be Delayed
Two economic-data releases originally scheduled for next week will be delayed as the government's statistics agencies continue to recover from the recent prolonged shutdown.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis, part of the Commerce Department, said Thursday that its second estimate of third-quarter gross domestic product growth, originally scheduled for Nov. 26, will be rescheduled for a later date. The BEA already missed publishing its initial estimate of 3Q GDP during the shutdown. That report had been scheduled for Oct. 30 and has yet to be rescheduled.
Also delayed will be the BEA's October data on personal income and spending, also initially set for Nov. 26. The agency already had fallen behind on those data when it missed publishing the September income and spending data as had been scheduled on Oct. 31.
Intuit First-Quarter Sales Jump, CFO Cites AI Demand From Mid-Sized Businesses
Intuit's sales climbed in its latest quarter as its artificial intelligence-driven offerings gained traction with mid-sized businesses, according to its chief financial officer.
More businesses are signing onto Intuit's QuickBooks platform in an effort to cut down on hours of administrative work by automating accounting, invoicing and payroll processes, CFO Sandeep Aujla said. The platform is also expanding its business with existing customers as they look to use more of its AI tools, he said.
QuickBooks customers tend to be smaller businesses, like bakers and caterers, who work during the day and manage their business in the evening, Aujla said.
Second Large Fire at Ford Aluminum Supplier Threatens Production
A second large fire broke out Thursday morning at a key aluminum supplier to Ford. A Sept. 16 fire at the plant reduced production of F-150 pickups and other models. Thursday's fire appears to be in the same area of the plant, said people familiar with the matter.
All workers were evacuated from the Oswego, N.Y., plant, Novelis said in a statement. Firefighters remained at the scene Thursday afternoon to monitor the site after the fire was extinguished.
Thursday's fire at the about 1.5-million-square-foot plant started in a section with the rolling mill, where slabs of aluminum are heated and flattened into long, thin sheets that undergo further processing elsewhere at the plant. The coils of aluminum sheet are eventually stamped into body panels for vehicle exteriors.
Elliott Management Builds Stake in Barrick, Encouraged by Breakup Prospects, Source Says
Activist investor Elliott Management has built up a sizable stake in Barrick Mining, putting pressure on the gold and copper producer to consider splitting up its operations.
The stake positions Elliott as one of Barrick's top 10 shareholders, a person familiar with the matter said, and was made because the activist was encouraged by the prospect of Barrick's exploring a breakup.
A spokeswoman for the Toronto company declined to comment on the investment or Elliott's ambitions, saying the company doesn't comment on matters relating to individual shareholders.
American Shoppers Are Looking for Deals and Walmart Is Cashing In
Walmart's earnings told the story of a two-track economy, one where low-income Americans are spending less and wealthier shoppers are spending steadily.
One thing unites them: Everyone wants a deal.
Walmart executives said Thursday that it is winning over more people in all income groups, with the biggest gains coming from higher-income shoppers. Meanwhile, the executives said low-income shoppers showed signs of stress as they pulled back on some spending in the third quarter amid the pause in federal government funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
UPS Plane-Crash Probe Identifies 'Fatigue Cracks,' Metal Stress
Federal investigators probing the crash of a United Parcel Service cargo jet that killed 14 people in Louisville, Ky., earlier this month found signs of metal fatigue and stress in hardware that connected an engine to the plane, according to a preliminary accident report published Thursday.
Investigators "found evidence of fatigue cracks in addition to areas of overstress failure" in a part of the engine mount that linked the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 freighter's left engine to the wing, the National Transportation Safety Board report said. Video footage of the plane's takeoff showed the General Electric engine aflame before it detached, shot above the fuselage and hit the ground.
The jet continued to climb and cleared a fence before its left main landing gear hit the roof of a UPS warehouse beyond the runway at Louisville's Muhammad Ali International Airport. The plane then crashed in an industrial area beyond the warehouse that included a petroleum recycling facility, the report said.
Expected Major Events for Friday
00:00/SKA: Nov Trade data - 1st 20 days of month
00:00/SIN: 3Q GDP
00:00/SIN: 3Q Balance of Payments
00:30/JPN: Nov Japan Flash Manufacturing PMI
01:00/JPN: Oct Steel Imports & Exports Statistics
02:00/NZ: Oct Credit card statistics
04:00/MAL: Oct CPI
05:00/JPN: Oct Steel Production
07:00/MAL: Nov International Reserves, middle of month
07:30/THA: Weekly International Reserves
09:59/CHN: Oct FDI Foreign Direct Investment
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 20, 2025 17:00 ET (22:00 GMT)
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