It was a volatile week on Wall Street, with the final two sessions delivering jolts to a rally that had looked unstoppable.
First came Broadcom. The chipmaker giant beat expectations last quarter and guided next-quarter sales to $29.4 billion, above the Street’s $28.6 billion.
Yet CEO Hock Tan kept full-year Al semiconductor guidance unchanged at “in excess of $100 billion,” puncturing sky-high expectations. The stock collapsed 12.6% Thursday to $418.91, dragging the entire Al infrastructure complex with it.
The semiconductor sector tumbled more than 8% between Thursday and Friday midday, on track for its worst two-day drop since April 2025’s tariff shock.
Then came the May jobs report.
Payrolls rose 172,000 versus an 85,000 consensus, with March and April revised up by a combined 93,000. Unemployment held at 4.3%.
Good news has become bad news for markets. Hotter-than-expected hiring, layered on top of April CPI (Consumer Price Index) at 3.8% year-over-year — the hottest since May 2023 — pushed the bond market to bet the next Federal Reserve move is up, not down.
Money markets now almost fully price a rate hike by year-end. The S&P 500 fell over 1% Friday, the Nasdaq nearly 2%.
The carnage was deepest in digital assets. Bitcoin plunged below $60,000, a 17% weekly drop, its worst since November 2022, when Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX collapsed.
Strategy — formerly MicroStrategy, the world’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder with over 843,000 coins — dropped roughly 25% on the week.
Chairman Michael Saylor disclosed the sale of 32 Bitcoin for $2.5 million between May 26 and May 31, his first sale since December 2022, breaking the “never sell” mantra he had long preached.
Ford Motor Co. recorded one of its worst weeks in years, shedding 14% after a four-week winning streak. The automaker saw gains, including after announcing a new side business, Ford Energy.
The Detroit automaker also is recalling nearly 420,000 Expedition and Lincoln Navigator SUVs (model years 2018-22) — about 14,000 in Canada — over a seat belt pretensioner defect that can lock the belt and raise injury risk in crashes.
Volatility is back, the Fed-hike narrative is rising, the Al rally is being repriced, and Bitcoin’s bid has broken.
After nine weeks straight up, the market needed a reason to pause.
It found several at once.
Benzinga is a financial news and data company headquartered in Detroit.
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