Nasdaq Drops Four Percent, NFP Blows Past 172K

The chip selloff became a rout. A trillion dollars in market cap evaporated across the semiconductor sector in two sessions. Then the jobs report arrived and complicated everything.

There are weeks that pass quietly. This was not one of them. What began as a Broadcom guidance disappointment on Tuesday night escalated by Friday into the worst two-session wipeout for the Nasdaq since April 2025. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index shed roughly 8% across the week. And then, just as the dust was settling, the Bureau of Labor Statistics delivered a May jobs report that scrambled every narrative about where the economy — and the Fed — is headed.

The Selloff in Full

Thursday's session started with Broadcom shares already down on Wednesday's miss. Then the full weight of the guidance narrative hit. AMD and Intel fell sharply in sympathy. By Friday's close, Nvidia had shed more than 3% on the week. The Nasdaq's 4.18% Friday decline was its worst single-day performance since April 2025. The S&P 500 dropped 2.64%, closing at 7,383. The Dow fell 695 points to 50,867. South Korea's Kospi plunged 5.54%; Samsung and SK Hynix dropped 6.4% and 9.92% respectively as the selloff metastasized globally overnight.

The Jobs Report Paradox

The May employment situation summary dropped at 8:30 AM Friday and immediately complicated the rate narrative. Nonfarm payrolls increased by 172,000 — more than double the 85,000 consensus. March was revised up to 214,000 from 185,000. April revised up to 179,000 from 115,000. Combined, that's 93,000 more jobs than previously reported. The unemployment rate held at 4.3%, labor force participation was steady at 61.8%, and average hourly earnings rose 0.2% month-over-month.

Several economists flagged the upcoming FIFA World Cup as a partial explanation — leisure and hospitality accounted for 70,000 of the 172,000 gains, with food and drink establishments alone contributing 48,000. The World Cup kicks off in the U.S. on June 11, a day before SpaceX's Nasdaq debut. Either way, the headline number matters: a strong jobs print at 4.3% unemployment with PCE already running at 3.8% is not a Fed-cutting environment. Warsh's first press conference on June 17 just got harder.

"The upside surprise was highly concentrated. But the Fed doesn't get to exclude the headline. 172K is 172K."

— Market commentary, Friday session

Sector Damage Report

Ticker	Close	Wk Chg	Driver
AVGO	—	▼ ~22%	AI guidance miss; sell-the-news
NVDA	—	▼ ~5%	Sympathy selloff; no new news
AMD	—	▼ ~7%	Sector contagion; valuation concerns
MRVL	—	▲ +12%	Jensen "next trillion-dollar company"
SMCI	—	▼ ~10%	$7B equity financing dilution concerns
Energy (XLE)	—	▲ +1.2%	Oil elevated; rotation from tech

What the Week Proved

The nine-week S&P winning streak that carried into June was always fragile in one specific way: it was priced for perfection in AI. The moment the best guidance wasn't good enough — Broadcom's AI beat with conservative forward numbers — the air came out. The question now is whether this is a healthy correction or the first chapter of something larger. The SpaceX IPO next Thursday, the FOMC on June 16–17, and May CPI (due Wednesday the 10th) are the next three pivot points.

Marvell's performance this week was the one clean signal: the market isn't abandoning AI, it's repricing the leadership. Jensen Huang's endorsement moved a stock 12% in a week when the rest of the sector was underwater. That's not a market in panic — it's a market discriminating.