MARKET SNAPSHOT

All three major U.S. stock indexes fell, as a slide in big tech shares led a broad selloff. Treasury yields and the dollar fell as investors grasped on tidbits of data to guess what the Fed will do next. Oil futures settled lower in choppy trade. Gold edged slightly lower, down two of the past three sessions.

MARKET WRAPS

EQUITIES

A slide in big tech shares led a broad selloff Thursday, as AI jitters returned.

The Nasdaq Composite fell 1.9% as shares of the big tech behemoths, who have led the market's artificial-intelligence rally over the past few years, declined after a brief reprieve Wednesday.

Tesla, which was due to disclose later Thursday if Elon Musk's vast pay package won the approval of shareholders, was off 3.5% and Amazon.com, Meta Platforms and Nvidia also fell more than 2.5%. Palantir, a longtime investor darling, slid 6.8% Thursday, bringing its losses for the week to more than 12%.

Health-care stocks outpeformed. Merck and Pfizer rose, as did Eli Lilly, which along with Novo Nordisk struck a deal with the Trump administration to cut prices for popular weight-loss drugs.

The S&P 500 fell 1.1%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.8%.

Earlier Thursday, markets in Asia traded higher.

The Shanghai Composite Index rose 1%, the Shenzhen Composite Index increased 1.2%, and the ChiNext Price Index climbed 1.8%.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose 2.1%.

Japan's Nikkei Stock Average increased 1.3%.

Stocks in Australia rose, as the S&P/ASX 200 Benchmark Index gained 0.3%.

In New Zealand, the S&P/NZX 50 Index fell 0.3%.

COMMODITIES

Oil futures settled lower in choppy trade with geopolitical premium from Ukraine's continued strikes on Russian refineries offset by concerns about oversupply.

Adding to the bearish mood was this week's large U.S. crude stock build and Saudi Arabia's lowering its December official selling price to Asia.

On crude, "we are also still in no man's land regarding the glut," said Neil Crosby of Sparta Commodities. "U.S. stocks are not even building at seasonally normal pace."

U.S. exports are high, possibly on a temporary pull from some pro-active buying of WTI over fears of Russian supply disruptions, he said.

WTI settled down 0.3% at $59.43 a barrel, and Brent slipped 0.2% to $63.38.

Gold futures settled essentially flat, with the front-month gold contract down .01% to $3,979.90 a troy ounce.

With the government shutdown now record-long, investors found themselves relying on data from private sources instead of the usual government numbers. This made gauging the likelihood of the Federal Reserve cutting rates in December even harder. Amid this uncertainty, investors continued to have a generally positive view on the longer-term prospects for gold.

"Despite recent consolidation, gold prices remain well-supported as global demand hit a record high last quarter," said ADM Investor Services.

TODAY'S TOP HEADLINES

What One Bleak Data Point Tells Us About the Labor Market

On Thursday morning, a private consulting group said that employers announced a surge in October layoffs and more than a million job cuts so far this year-big numbers that seemed to raise fresh alarm about the state of the labor market.

A few hours later, Bank of America offered a slightly better picture: The job market continues to slow, but hadn't changed substantially from an already rocky September.

"It's cooling, but not collapsing," said David Tinsley, senior economist at the Bank of America Institute, regarding the labor market.

Cleveland Fed's Beth Hammack Skeptical of Further Cuts

Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack suggested Thursday that she is skeptical the Fed can afford to opt for further interest-rate cuts, given the persistence of inflation and the monetary easing from the rate cuts the Fed has already completed.

Speaking to a club of economists in New York, Hammack said that after a percentage point of rate cuts last year and another half point of cuts over the past two Fed meetings, the central bank's policy stance is now doing very little, if anything, to restrain an economy that is still producing above-target price increases.

She acknowledged that the labor market has cooled, a trend that typically calls for lower interest rates. But she said that weighing that risk against stubborn inflation, the Fed has limited room to move toward easier policy.

U.S. to Reduce Flight Traffic by 10% at 40 Airports Because of Shutdown

The Federal Aviation Administration said it was ordering traffic to be reduced by 10% at 40 major airports while air traffic controllers work without pay during the government shutdown.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the reductions would start Friday and are designed to keep air travel safe.

The shutdown, which began Oct. 1, has exacerbated staffing issues in the ranks of federal transportation employees, leading to thousands of delayed or canceled flights and long lines at security checkpoints.

Airbnb Sales Rise 10% as Travelers Book Vacations Further in Advance

Airbnb logged another quarter of sales growth, as travelers are feeling more confident about making future vacation plans.

Travel demand strengthened in the third quarter and continued to do so in October, the short-term rental company said Thursday. Customers are booking travel further in advance, which is a contrast from earlier in the year, when many were waiting to plan trips amid economic uncertainty.

Revenue rose 10% to $4.1 billion. Analysts surveyed by FactSet forecast revenue of $4.08 billion. Gross booking value was $22.9 billion, ahead of the $21.9 billion expected.

Trump rolls out pricing deal with weight-loss-drug giants Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk. Analysts say the pact raises more questions than it answers.

The Trump administration on Thursday announced a much-anticipated deal with drugmakers Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk that aims to deliver lower prices for their popular GLP-1 drugs to certain Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries and to users of TrumpRx.gov, the administration's new direct-to-consumer drug website.

Analysts said the deal raised more questions than it answered.

"There are still a lot of unanswered questions about how this will all work," said Matthew Fiedler, senior fellow at the Center on Health Policy at the Brookings Institution. "It seems likely that Medicare will pay lower prices for these drugs than it pays today. But the prices of these drugs were already slated to become eligible for price negotiation under the Medicare price-negotiation program created under President [Joe] Biden. How far this goes beyond what was already in the pipeline, if at all, is not clear."

Ford Considers Scrapping Electric Version of F-150 Truck

Ford Motor executives are in active discussions about scrapping the electric version of its F-150 pickup, according to people familiar with the matter, which would make the money-losing truck America's first major EV casualty.

The Lightning, once described by Ford as a modern Model T for its importance to the company, fell far short of expectations as American truck buyers skipped the electric version of the top-selling truck. Ford has racked up $13 billion in EV losses since 2023.

Overall EV sales, already falling short of expectations, are expected to plummet in the absence of government support. And big, electric pickups and SUVs are the most vulnerable.

Warner Discovery Moving Fast on Split or Sale, CEO Says

Warner Bros. Discovery Chief Executive David Zaslav said the company's exploration of a possible sale of some or all of its holdings is briskly moving ahead.

"It's fair to say that we have an active process under way," Zaslav told investors on a call Thursday to discuss the company's quarterly results.

Zaslav declined to elaborate on potential suitors for Warner Discovery or a deadline for a decision.

Expected Major Events for Friday

02:00/JPN: Oct Imported Vehicle Sales

02:00/PHI: 3Q GDP

04:00/MAL: Sep Industrial Production Index

04:00/MAL: Sep Manufacturing sales

05:30/AUS: Oct Official Reserve Assets

07:00/MAL: Oct International Reserves, end of month

07:30/THA: Weekly International Reserves

08:00/TAI: Oct Merchandise trade

08:30/HK: Oct Foreign Exchange Reserves

09:00/SIN: Oct Official Foreign Reserves

09:59/PHI: Oct Gross International Reserves

09:59/CHN: Oct Foreign Exchange Reserves

09:59/CHN: Oct Commodities Trade Data

09:59/CHN: Oct Energy Trade Data

09:59/CHN: Oct Trade

10:59/INA: Oct International Reserves

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 06, 2025 16:56 ET (21:56 GMT)

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