S&P 500 ends nine-week winning streak as jobs report sparks rate hike fears
In brief
- S&P 500 closed down 2.6% on June 5, ending nine consecutive weeks of gains
- Nasdaq Composite fell 4.2%, its largest single-day drop since April 2025
- May jobs report added 172,000 positions, nearly double analyst expectations
- Bitcoin fell below $62,000; semiconductor index shed $1 trillion in market value
- Tech and crypto assets increasingly correlated during macro market dislocations
The Jobs Report Shock
US nonfarm payrolls added 172,000 positions in May, nearly double what analysts had penciled in. For a market that had spent nine consecutive weeks climbing on the assumption that rate cuts were coming, the strong labor data was the opposite of welcome. Investors immediately repriced the probability of tighter monetary policy, triggering a broad sell-off across equities.
Tech and Crypto Get Hit Hardest
The damage rippled through semiconductor stocks with particular ferocity. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index lost a staggering $1 trillion in market value in a single trading session. Nvidia shares dropped more than 6%, while AMD, Intel, Micron, and Broadcom fared even worse, falling between 8% and 13.5%.
Bitcoin, never one to sit out a risk-off party, fell more than 4% to approximately $61,900. Some exchanges briefly logged prices below $60,000. Crypto-adjacent equities like Coinbase and MicroStrategy each shed about 7%, tracking the broader carnage.
Macro Correlation
Digital assets have become increasingly correlated with risk-on equity positioning, particularly during sharp macro dislocations. Bitcoin's decline to roughly $61,900 wasn't a crypto-specific event. It was a macro event that happened to crypto. The sell-off underscores how tightly woven digital assets have become to broader financial markets and macroeconomic expectations.
