US Stocks Find Respite as Dip Buyers Move In, Nasdaq Futures Up 1.4%

The selloff in US stocks paused, with dip buyers moving in to support the bruised artificial-intelligence trade after the S&P 500's steepest drop in more than a year, Bloomberg reported. S&P 500 futures rose 0.4%, and Nasdaq 100 contracts gained 1.4%, set to pare part of Thursday's 6.4% decline. Worries about tighter data center regulation shaved around $3 trillion off the index in the previous session. The turmoil kept reverberating: the MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell 3.9%, the Stoxx Europe 600 dropped 1.2% and the MSCI Emerging Markets Index lost 2.7%, while Dow futures slipped 0.6%. Treasuries halted their haven-driven advance ahead of Friday's payrolls report, the dollar outperformed all major peers and Brent traded around $97 a barrel. Global markets have been whipsawed this week. Investors first bet a Democratic sweep would hasten an end to the Iran war, before fears of a clampdown on the data center buildout overwhelmed that optimism. Chipmakers bore the brunt, with a key US semiconductor gauge down almost 16% since Monday. An ETF tracking US chip stocks rebounded 4.5% in premarket trading and Nvidia jumped more than 4%, though Amazon and Apple remained under pressure. Data center firm IREN soared 18% after reporting a surge in AI cloud revenue. Roberto Scholtes at Singular Bank said he expected a modest rebound as opportunistic buyers picked up some of the hardest-hit stocks, adding that investors would look for clues about the Democratic Party's intentions and that a credible sign a nationwide moratorium was off the table could help reverse sentiment. Santiago Mateo Yanguas at CaixaBank Asset Management said Thursday felt close to capitulation, and that while it may be too early to call a bottom, much risk had already been flushed out and fundamentals were not validating the most bearish AI concerns. Hedge fund losses deepened the unease: Walleye Capital is returning cash after its worst month since March 2020, Greg Coffey's Kirkoswald posted its worst-ever monthly decline, and credit fund Arini Capital Management lost more than 12% last month. Bloomberg Economics expects payrolls to rise 26,000 with unemployment near 4.2%, neither of which would deter the Fed from its path to a December rate hike, economists including Anna Wong wrote. Francisco Simon at Santander Asset Management said a strong jobs report could calm nerves by reinforcing confidence in the economic cycle, though focus is likely to stay on AI and data centers, and that cyclical employment still has room to expand. Other moves: 10-year Treasury yields were little changed at 4.84%, gold slipped 0.4% to $4,072.05 an ounce, Brent fell 1.3% to $96.98, bitcoin rose 0.4% to $76,054.23 and ether added 0.4% to $2,235.54.