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Stocks showed signs of life as U.S. financial markets opened on Friday, stabilizing after a steep selloff the previous day driven by concerns over a potential slowdown in data center construction.
In early trading, the S&P 500 climbed 72 points, or nearly 1%, erasing losses after it suffered its worst day since April 2025 on Thursday. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 437 points, or 1.8%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 129 points, or 0.2%.
Markets soared immediately after the midterm elections earlier this week, but quickly reversed course on Thursday as investors assessed whether sweeping Democratic victories could lead to tighter restrictions on building data centers and weaker spending on artificial intelligence.
As of Friday, voters had approved more than 40 ballot measures restricting data centers in communities across the country, according to an analysis from political research firm Redbud Consulting.
Tech stocks started to recover on Friday, helping pull the Nasdaq higher after a brutal beating on Thursday that caused the index to shed more than 1,400 points and enter a “correction,” or when stocks fall at least 10% from their previous peak.
Chipmaker Nvidia — a bellwether for the AI sector — gained 6.6% in early trading, and semiconductor manufacturer Micron Technology rose 9.8%.
The so-called hyperscalers — the companies leading the data center buildout — saw modest gains in early trading, with Google-owner Alphabet climbing 2%, Amazon up 1.1% and Meta gaining 2.4%; Microsoft shed 0.6%.
Slowing AI investment?
A key question for Wall Street is whether AI companies will deliver the revenue growth investors are banking on. Anthropic, which filed for an initial public offering last month and is expected to debut on the Nasdaq this month, will serve as a critical test case. While filing highlighted rapid growth, the company has yet to turn a profit.
In a research note on Friday, Vicky Redwood, a chief economic adviser at Capital Economics, said the investment advisory firm expects AI to boost productivity but is “less confident that AI revenues will grow rapidly enough to sustain the current pace of investment.”
The firm expects AI capital expenditures to slow next year, a development Redwood said could drag on U.S. economic growth.
The stock market rebound on Friday came after the release of the jobs report, which showed robust payroll gains in October. Employers added 165,000 last month, above economists’ expectations, while the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.1%.
