Markets Week in Review: Jobs Miss Sends Nasdaq to a Record (Oct 4, 2026)

Markets Week in Review: Jobs Miss Sends Nasdaq to a Record

Friday's much-weaker-than-expected September jobs report flipped the market's narrative overnight: payrolls rose just 29,000 versus roughly 90,000 expected, and unemployment ticked up to 4.2%. Bad labor data read as good news for stocks because it sharply lowered the odds of another Federal Reserve rate hike this month — October hike odds fell to roughly 20-23% from more than 55-64% a week earlier. The Nasdaq Composite closed at a record, but underneath the headline it was a split week, with small-caps and rate-sensitive sectors lagging most sessions before Friday's broad relief rally.

The week by the numbers

For the week, the S&P 500 slipped about 0.3% and the Dow fell roughly 1.3%, while the Nasdaq managed to add about 0.5%, reflecting just how concentrated the rally has become in a handful of AI-linked mega-caps. The 10-year Treasury yield fell as low as 5.15% intraday on the jobs data before sellers stepped back in, closing at 5.28% — still near the 5.34% multi-decade high touched earlier in the week. WTI crude whipsawed on reports of a coordinated G7 emergency reserve release, tumbling to roughly $88/bbl before settling at $91.11. Gold eased slightly to $4,162.30/oz and bitcoin held near $84,800.

Five things that matter most

1. Jobs miss flips the Fed narrative. The soft payrolls print knocked October rate-hike odds down sharply, but it also confirms a genuinely cooling labor market heading into Wednesday's FOMC minutes.
2. Nasdaq closes at a record on AI leadership. NVDA touched a fresh intraday all-time high near $237.88, pushing its market cap past $5.7 trillion and anchoring the index's gain.
3. Yields stay historically elevated. Despite Friday's dip, the 10-year remains near levels last seen roughly two decades ago, keeping pressure on rate-sensitive financials and small-caps.
4. Oil whipsaws on a coordinated reserve release. A reported G7 emergency release temporarily eased energy-inflation fears, though the move largely faded by the close.
5. Micron sets a high bar for AI earnings. MU's record $54.2 billion quarter and strong forward guidance raises the bar for every AI-capex-linked name reporting as Q3 season opens.

Notable options flow

• SPY $810 calls (9/30/27): a large far-dated bullish floor block, $13.2M bid-side.
• AMD $700 puts (12/18): repeated ask-side put buying totaling $6.6M, a bearish lean into AMD's November earnings.
• MU $1220 calls (3/19/27): an ascending-fill call sweep worth $6.7M following the stock's record quarter.
• QQQ $865 puts (3/31/27): long-dated hedge buying worth $5.4M on the ask side.
• META $760 calls (1/15/27): steady repeated-hits call buying worth $5.3M.

What to Watch Next Week

The calendar is light on hard data but heavy on Fed signal risk. Monday brings the ISM and S&P Global Services PMI readings; Wednesday's FOMC September meeting minutes should clarify how close the committee actually came to another hike before the jobs report; and Friday's preliminary University of Michigan consumer sentiment reading will show whether elevated yields and energy costs are denting household confidence. On earnings, PepsiCo and Delta Air Lines report before Thursday's and Friday's opens respectively, testing consumer and travel-spending trends, while Constellation Brands, Penguin Solutions, Applied Digital and Levi Strauss report after the close with options markets pricing moves as wide as ±17%. Congressional filings this week showed disclosed trades in Home Depot, Amgen, Marathon Petroleum, Netflix and Alphabet, while retail attention on Reddit and X stayed concentrated in Micron, Nike, Meta, AMD and Alphabet.

Have a good weekend, and see you before the bell Monday.