Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on February 11, 2026 in New York City, USA.
Brendan McDiarmid | Reuters
of S&P500 Stocks fell on Thursday, the benchmark’s third day of declines, as investors continued to shift away from technology stocks and toward stocks more likely to benefit from a growing U.S. economy.
The market-wide index fell 1.2%. Nasdaq Composite It decreased by 1.7%. of Dow Jones Industrial Average It decreased by 555 points (1.1%).
Investors moved into more buoyant areas of the market during the session. shares of walmart and boeingFor example, they registered increases of 3% and 2%, respectively. But tech stocks are under pressure. apple and Amazon Each decreased by approximately 3%.
In the tech industry, software stocks posted another loss. The group has been hit hard in recent weeks as concerns that artificial intelligence will disrupt the software industry have rattled Wall Street.
Key role of AI Palantir Technologies Although it decreased by more than 6%, oracle It fell more than 2%. sales force fell more than 1%, iShares Enhanced Technology Software Sector ETF (IGV) Down 3%, the fund is now about 32% below its recent high. moreover, Cisco Systems Shares fell 11% after makers of network hardware such as switches and routers reported disappointing outlooks for the current quarter.
“I think this rotation is in many ways being driven by the resilience of the economy,” said Ross Mayfield, investment strategist at Baird. “The money that comes out of software has a place to go, whether you call it mechanical, financial, or energy.”
Stocks closed lower after an early rebound on a strong jobs report that showed payrolls rose by a whopping 130,000 last month, far exceeding economists’ expectations and far exceeding the downwardly revised December increase. The unemployment rate fell from 4.4% to 4.3%.
The report was a relief to investors who had been concerned that the labor market would show weakness after a recent trove of data showing slowing growth in a “no hires, no firings” environment.
But the strong jobs report has confounded the Federal Reserve’s interest rate outlook and could mean fewer rate cuts than traders had expected if high inflation also remains an issue. This highlights the importance of Friday’s consumer price index and could indicate what central banks need to do to better balance their dual responsibilities.
Investors are now bracing for the inflation outlook on Friday. Economists polled by Dow Jones expect the consumer price index to rise 0.3% in January for both the composite and core index, which excludes food and energy prices.
“Now that we have a good jobs report, the CPI is a little less important because it already allows the Fed to shut down certain activities for significant periods of time,” Mayfield said. “If CPI does go up, the Fed will probably need several months of data to get some sense of the trend before making any really tough decisions.”
Conversely, if this data emerges, the strategist expects Friday could be a risk-on day, but added: “It would take a fairly severe numerical upside to really impact the stock market or federal funds futures.”
The number of new jobless claims for the week ending February 7 fell from the previous week, the Labor Department said Thursday. However, the numbers were slightly higher than expected.
