Wall Street steadied on Friday as chip stocks bounced back from one of the sharpest selloffs of the year, with investors buying back the semiconductor names that had been hammered a day earlier over fears about artificial intelligence spending and regulation.
The S&P 500 rose 0.31 percent and the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.1 percent, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.46 percent, according to Reuters. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index jumped 4.2 percent, a day after suffering its biggest one-day drop since April 2025.
Nvidia rose nearly 3 percent, recovering part of a 9.26 percent plunge on Thursday that marked its worst day since January 2025. Other major chipmakers also rebounded, with AMD, Intel and Micron Technology closing up between 5 percent and 11 percent. Tesla rose 4 percent.
Thursday's rout had been brutal. The Nasdaq fell 5.52 percent and entered correction territory, and the semiconductor index plunged 12.25 percent, wiping an estimated $2.5 trillion in market value from Nasdaq-related stocks. Investors had sold AI-linked shares on concerns that Democratic victories in Tuesday's midterm elections could bring tighter regulation of artificial intelligence and slower investment in data centers.
Analysts cautioned against reading too much into a single day. Jefferies described Thursday's selloff as "reactionary, not a fundamental reset," driven by a collision of concerns around AI spending, policy and inflation rather than a change in the investment outlook for the technology.
Stronger-than-expected October jobs data also complicated the picture, reviving concern that the Federal Reserve could raise interest rates as early as December. Despite Friday's rebound, all three major indexes finished the week lower, capping a volatile stretch for markets still digesting the election result.
