Calendar › Morning Rundown › 2026-11-06

Chips' worst day since 2020. NQ bounces into payrolls

Rundown · 2026-11-06

Thursday flipped Wednesday on its head, and this morning flips it back. The Democratic sweep went from relief rally to rout in one session: Nasdaq-100 −6.36%, S&P 500 −4.36%, Russell 2000 −4.45%, Dow −3.44%, the worst day for all three major averages since April 2025, with the Philadelphia semiconductor index down about 12%, its worst day since March 2020. The selling went to Asia overnight (Nikkei −5.96%, Kospi −6.02% after a circuit-breaker halt) and to Europe (DAX −2.24%). But the chipmakers are bid in the US pre-market, so as of about 06:45 ET NQ is +1.42%, ES +0.28%, RTY flat and YM −0.96%. Bonds rallied hard Thursday: the 2-year fell 12bp to 4.46% and the 10-year 6bp to 4.84% (US Treasury) as December hike bets eased. DXY is +0.4%, gold −0.76% after +0.99%, WTI +0.41% after +2.72%. October payrolls at 08:30 (65K consensus, TradingEconomics) land on a market with a VIX still above 26.

Overnight

• Against Thursday's settles, about 06:45 ET: NQ +1.42% · ES +0.28% · RTY 0.00% · YM −0.96%. That is Wednesday's order turned upside down. The chip names that led Thursday's fall are leading the bounce; the high-priced Dow names that held up best are the ones giving ground.
• Ranges since the 18:00 reopen, as reference only. NQ has ranged 3.31% (1.44% below to 1.87% above its settle) and sits near the high. ES has ranged 1.42% (0.82% below to 0.60% above) and sits in the upper quarter. YM has ranged 1.31% and has not traded above its settle (from 1.40% below to 0.09% below); it sits in the lower third. RTY has ranged 1.07% and sits in the upper third. Thursday's cash session covered more ground than all of those; overnight is a narrower reference, not a calm one.
• Why YM is red while NQ is green. The Dow's chip exposure is small, and its high-priced non-chip members are lower pre-market: UnitedHealth −1.65%, Home Depot −1.77%, Visa −1.62%, Sherwin-Williams −1.87%, Microsoft −1.25%. Spread across the price-weighted index, that outweighs Nvidia's bounce. Caterpillar (+3.47%) is the main offset.
• Asia: the chip selling peaked here. In Tokyo the Nikkei fell 5.96%, its largest one-day drop since April 2025 and into bear-market territory from its June peak, led by Advantest and SoftBank Group. In Seoul the Kospi fell 6.02% after trading was halted for 20 minutes; Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix led. Taiwan's benchmark entered a bear market. Hong Kong went the other way: Hang Seng +2.35%.
• Europe is lower but not panicking. STOXX 600 −1.73%, DAX −2.24%, FTSE 100 −2.14%. Both DAX and FTSE sit near their session lows.
• What broke while the US was closed: nothing new on the data-centre policy front. Reuters reported that Anthropic's planned listing later this month could be delayed, one more read on how the AI funding pipeline is taking the week. Fed's Williams (04:30 ET, Frankfurt) said inflation is too high and must return to 2%, but gave no signal on December.

The Dollar & FX

• DXY +0.42%, near the top of a 0.54% overnight range, after a soft week that took it to a five-week low on Wednesday. The dollar is getting the risk-off bid that equities in Asia handed it, and that matters more this morning than Thursday's drop in Treasury yields.
• 6A: AUD/USD −0.78%, the pair carrying the move. The Aussie is the market's proxy for Asian risk appetite, and it is trading as one: it gave back Wednesday's trade-surplus bounce and then some as Tokyo and Seoul fell 6%. It sits near its overnight low.
• 6J: USD/JPY +0.38%, a weaker yen into a risk-off night. For the second session running the yen has not acted as a haven; the Nikkei's fall came with yen selling, not buying. USD/JPY sits near its overnight high.
• 6E: EUR/USD −0.33% and 6B: GBP/USD −0.38%, both near their overnight lows. Neither has a domestic driver; they are the mirror of DXY.
• 6C: USD/CAD +0.33%, a softer loonie even with crude up. Risk tone is beating oil for CAD this morning.
• Fed pricing. The bond rally says December hike odds fell Thursday, and Reuters reports markets still put the chance above 50%. We could not get a same-day CME FedWatch reading or a dated prediction-market figure, so we are not printing a number. The next FOMC decision is December 9.

Energy & Metals

• CL: +2.72% Thursday, +0.41% overnight. WTI rebounded from Wednesday's 8% drop on renewed reports of attacks on commercial shipping near the Strait of Hormuz. Overnight it has ranged a wide 3.82% (1.60% below to 2.22% above the settle) and sits mid-range. Brent: +3.88% Thursday, +0.32% overnight.
• The mechanism. Wednesday priced the war premium out on the election result; Thursday put part of it back on tanker headlines. Neither move was about supply. The 3.8% overnight range is the live tell: CL is trading Hormuz headlines in both directions, not settling on a view. Baker Hughes at 13:00 is the only scheduled energy print.
• GC: +0.99% Thursday, −0.76% overnight. Overnight it has ranged 1.74% (1.68% below to 0.07% above the settle) and sits mid-range. Silver is −0.57%.
• Why gold is softer. Thursday's gain was a rates move: the 2-year fell 12bp as hike bets eased, which is the cleanest support gold gets. This morning the dollar is up 0.4% and the 10-year note future is slightly lower (yields up about 2bp), so both legs of that support have stepped back. Gold holding inside its range through an equity rout and a dollar bid is itself the read.

Where We Left Off

• Thursday's RTH: Nasdaq-100 −6.36%, Nasdaq Composite −5.52%, Russell 2000 −4.45%, S&P 500 −4.36%, Dow −3.44% (AP carries the four main indices; closes cross-checked against a second source). The Nasdaq Composite closed more than 10% below its peak, in correction.
• Treasury yields Thursday: 2-year 4.46% (−12bp), 10-year 4.84% (−6bp), 30-year 5.25% (−3bp) (US Treasury, 5 November). A 2-year move that size is the market pricing out Fed hikes, not just a haven bid.
• What happened. The read on Wednesday was that a Democratic Congress means slower data-centre spending, good for the spenders and bad for the suppliers. On Thursday the market decided it was bad for everyone in the chain. Sandisk −22.26%, Micron −17.46%, AMD −17.26%, Broadcom −10.43%, Qualcomm −9.49% on weak guidance, Nvidia −9.26% on a report that about 600,000 advanced chips are waiting on Chinese import approval. Wednesday's winners gave back too: Microsoft −3.58%, Amazon −2.19%, Apple −1.53%. All 11 sectors closed lower and the VIX rose about 60%.
• What carries over: whether Thursday was a capitulation or a start. The chip bounce this morning is real (Nvidia, AMD and Micron are up 5-9% pre-market), but it is a pre-market bounce on thin volume after a 12% sector drop. That is the question the first hour answers, not this brief.

Yesterday's Data

• Jobless claims 189K vs 196K expected: ties the 2026 low a day before payrolls.
• Productivity 3.6%, unit labour costs −0.7%: wages are adding nothing to inflation pressure.
• Natural gas +77 Bcf vs +81 expected: injection season closes 54 Bcf above normal.

On The Calendar Today

Time ET · Event · Consensus · Prior · Hits

04:30 · Fed's Williams speaks (out, no December signal) · n/a · n/a · USD · rates

08:30 · Nonfarm payrolls, October · 65K · 29K · USD · ES/NQ · GC

08:30 · Unemployment rate, October · 4.2% · 4.2% · USD · ES/NQ · GC

08:30 · Average hourly earnings m/m · 0.3% · 0.1% · USD · rates · GC

08:30 · Average hourly earnings y/y · 2.9% · 3.0% · USD · rates

09:10 · Fed's Musalem speaks · n/a · n/a · USD · rates

10:00 · UMich sentiment, November prelim · 48.0 · 48.0 · USD · ES

10:00 · UMich 1-year inflation expectations · n/a · 4.7% · USD · GC

12:15 · Fed's Bowman speaks · n/a · n/a · USD · rates

13:00 · Baker Hughes oil rig count · n/a · 462 · CL

15:00 · Consumer credit, September · $12.0B · $8.28B · USD

18:30 · Fed's Williams speaks again · n/a · n/a · USD · rates

Consensus: TradingEconomics. Release times from TradingEconomics, cross-checked against the week's coverage of the BLS schedule. Some newsroom surveys have payrolls lower, around 59K. Monday: 3-year auction and NY Fed inflation expectations; Tuesday: October CPI.

08:30 is the fulcrum, and it lands on a market that has just priced hikes out. The 2-year fell 12bp Thursday on the equity rout, not on data. A strong payroll number, or wages back at 0.3%, argues the Fed's case was never about stocks, and would test both the bond rally and gold. A weak one hands the rate market a second reason to price the Fed lower, on top of the first. Either way the release is likely to set the session's range more than the chip bounce does.

Index Movers

Ranked by index contribution. Thursday's moves close to close; pre-market as of about 06:45 ET, on thin volume.

• NVDA −9.26% Thursday, +5.07% pre-market. The largest weight in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100. Thursday's drop came with a Bloomberg report that about 600,000 advanced AI chips are in Hong Kong awaiting Chinese import approval. Its bounce is the single biggest reason NQ is green.
• MSFT −3.58% Thursday, −1.25% pre-market; AAPL −1.53% Thursday, −1.04% pre-market. Two of the three biggest S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 weights, and both high-priced Dow members. They are not joining the chip bounce, which is part of why ES lags NQ this morning and why YM is lower.
• AMD −17.26% Thursday, +8.71% pre-market; MU −17.46%, +9.08%; AVGO −10.43%, +5.12%. The chip weights in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 that fell hardest are bouncing hardest. Sandisk (−22.26%, +11.85% pre-market) is the extreme case.
• GS −6.36% Thursday, +0.18% pre-market. The highest-priced Dow member and Thursday's largest single drag on the Dow, more than Caterpillar (−6.37%) because of its share price. Flat this morning, so it is not helping YM recover.
• ABNB +13.20% pre-market after third-quarter results Thursday evening. An S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 member, but a small weight; a sign earnings can still move a stock this week, not an index driver.

What Would Change The Read

• Scoring Thursday's calls. We said that if ES turned red with NQ after 09:30, the chip selling would have become an index story. It did, and then some: the S&P fell 4.36% and all 11 sectors closed lower. We asked whether gold would hold without the dollar: it did, +0.99% on lower yields. We asked whether the Hormuz reports would be confirmed: crude rose 2.7% on renewed shipping-attack reports, so the market treated them as real.
• Whether the chip bounce outlasts the open. Pre-market chip moves of 5-9% after a 12% sector drop are a reference, not a verdict. If NQ gives back its overnight gain while YM stays red, Thursday's selling is still in charge.
• Whether the bond rally survives payrolls. The 2-year fell 12bp on a stock rout. A firm payroll or wage print would test that move first, and gold with it.
• Whether the dollar's risk bid sticks. DXY is up because Asia fell. If US stocks steady, the cleanest place to see the risk bid fade is AUD/USD.
• Whether YM stays the laggard. The non-chip, high-priced Dow names are lower across the board. If they turn, YM catches up quickly; if they don't, the rotation back into chips is happening at their expense.

The Bottom Line

Thursday took Wednesday's split, buy the spenders and sell the suppliers, and turned it into a broad rout: the worst chip session since 2020 and the worst day for the major averages since April 2025. Asia took the selling and Europe has taken some of it. The US pre-market has done the opposite, bidding the chipmakers hard and selling the defensive Dow names, so NQ is up while YM is down. Into that, payrolls at 08:30 hit a bond market that has just priced Fed hikes lower on fear rather than data. The overnight ranges are the reference; the number sets the day.

_For informational purposes only. Not investment advice._