After Huge Rally, Stocks Wobble Awaiting Jobs Data

Published as of: February 9, 2026, 9:16 a.m. ET

(Monday market open) After last Friday's dramatic tech-fueled rebound, investors return to critical data, most notably January nonfarm payrolls Wednesday. Last week's S&P 500 whipsaw from 2% losses to almost even sent volatility to new two-month peaks, and after-shocks can't be ruled out. Major indexes edged lower this morning, Treasury yields climbed, and bitcoin dropped back below $70,000.

"On the one hand, it's encouraging to see fresh all-time highs in the Dow and S&P Equal Weight indices," said Nathan Peterson, director of derivatives research and strategy at the Schwab Center for Financial Research (SCFR), in his Schwab Weekly Trader's Outlook. "On the other hand, I'm asking myself whether Friday's sharp bounce-back in higher risk areas of the market, like software and crypto, is a legitimate signal of capitulation and seller exhaustion, or whether it's a short-term oversold bounce that will give in to more selling pressure." The S&P 500 Equal Weight Index (SPXEW) weighs all components equally rather than by market capitalization, smoothing mega-cap influence.

Someone back from vacation hearing the S&P 500 Index fell less than 1% last week might assume it was a dull stretch. Reality was very different, as anyone who strapped in for last week's nail-biting roller coaster ride remembers. Though Friday's 4% tech rally provided the heavy lifting on the comeback trail, market breadth remains solid with 67% of S&P 500 stocks at or above their 50-day moving averages, reinforcing below-surface strength. Last week's leading sectors were staples, industrials, energy, and materials—the same four that lead this year and have the S&P 500 Index near all-time highs despite tech's 3% decline.

1. Consumer takes stage as earnings, data roll on: Earnings slow this week, but a wide mix of companies across sectors prepare to open their books. Some likely to capture interest are Cisco (CSCO) and Applied Materials (AMAT) for possible insights on tech demand, along with consumer bellwethers like Coca-Cola (KO), McDonald's (MCD), and Ford (F). Checking earnings progress, of almost 300 S&P 500 companies reporting through Friday, 79% beat analysts' earnings expectations and 65% beat on revenue, with earnings per share growth at 13.6%, Bloomberg said. Data-wise, Wednesday's jobs report is expected to show relatively soft employment growth of around 70,000, and in an interesting note, Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, warned on CNBC today of possible weaker jobs numbers. Friday's Consumer Price Index (CPI) is another trail marker ahead. Before all that, there's another consumer check tomorrow morning with December retail sales. By the end of this week, investors should have a very good snapshot of corporate and economic health, perhaps easing some of the volatility.
    
2. Shifting winds for chip, software market: The PHLX Semiconductor Index (SOX) gained 5.7% Friday, evidence of the chip sector's influence on the comeback. Other major chip-related firms setting the pace that day included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM), CoreWeave (CRWV), and Intel (INTC). However, some chip stocks, including Micron (MU), slid early today on reports that South Korea's Samsung plans to release a high-bandwidth next-generation memory chip as soon as this month, CNBC said. Software stocks, which spent much of last week in the red on worries over AI competition, mostly rebounded Friday as shares of AppLovin (APP), Salesforce (CRM), Palantir (PLTR), and Intuit (INTU) climbed out of what appeared to be massively oversold conditions. However, it wasn't a complete sea of green, and software might remain on shaky ground, with slight gains this morning for some shares. Nevertheless, some analysts said last week's reaction to the introduction of Anthropic's new AI tool for legal tasks was overdone and that the technology isn't necessarily ready to take over, comparing the sell-off to last week's DeepSeek impact on AI stocks.
    
3. Metal margins meltdown: One slightly overlooked element of the recent sell-off in precious metals and possibly beyond was recent changes to the CME Group's (CME) margin requirements. Both initial and maintenance margins for COMEX 100 gold futures rose to 9% from 8%, while COMEX 5000 silver futures margins were hiked to 18% from 15% effective at Friday's close, The Wall Street Journal reported. This follows the CME's changing of its margin-setting methodology for precious metals in mid-January, which was followed by three margin increases between then and Friday. Margins—deposits traders must provide to cover potential losses and meet their contract obligations—often rise during times of surging volatility. "Lots of leverage had built into things like the gold trade and the silver trade, and the CME raised margin requirements that pushed a lot of speculators out fairly quickly," said Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist, SCFR, in an interview with Bloomberg last week. "The raising of margin requires margin calls, and that has feeders into other high-momentum areas."

• Oracle (ORCL) climbed 5% early today after getting upgraded to buy from neutral at DA Davidson. The analyst believes a revamped OpenAI will return to its position as Alphabet's (GOOGL) top challenger and be able to live up to its obligations this year—including to Oracle—which it sees removing the biggest concern from Oracle.
   
• Novo Nordisk (NVO) rose 5% and Eli Lilly (LLY) rose 2% early today as Hims & Hers (HIMS) decided to pull its copy of Wegovy from the market, according to CNBC. This followed threats of legal action.
   
• AI stocks rocketed Friday as investors grew more positive following the heavy spending plans outlined by Alphabet (GOOGL) on Wednesday and by Amazon (AMZN) on Thursday. Shares of Nvidia (NVDA), Super Micro Computer (SMCI), Western Digital (WDC), Marvell Technology (MRVL), Broadcom (AVGO), and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) all climbed 7% or more. Nvidia enjoyed its best day since last April 9, up nearly 8%. "The spending hikes signal executive confidence in AI, healthy demand, and suggests that the AI infrastructure buildout still has more room to run," my colleague Peterson said.
   
• Bolstered by hopes that AI spending might reverberate around the economy, industrial and consumer names like Caterpillar (CAT), Delta Air Lines (DAL), Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCLH), GE Vernova (GEV), and Constellation Energy (CEG) posted gains of 5% or more on Friday. Mining firms gained despite silver and gold's challenging week.
   
• Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF) dropped 2.8% this morning following earnings and revenue that missed analysts' expectations. Steel shipments and revenue were flat versus a year ago in the fourth quarter. Weak auto production hurt 2025 performance, the company's CEO said in a press release, but dynamics have improved.
   
• Kroger (KR) powered 6% higher early Monday after The Wall Street Journal reported the company is hiring a former Walmart (WMT) executive as CEO.
   
• Bitcoin (/BTC) also had a stellar Friday, rising 10% in its best outing in months and one that lifted shares of crypto-related stocks like Strategy (MSTR) and Coinbase (COIN) by 26% and 13%, respectively. Those two shares fell today, as well.
   
• The S&P 500 Equal Weight Index (SPXEW) forged all-time highs last week, rising 2% even as the market capitalization-weighted S&P 500 Index lost a bit of ground.
   
• Treasury yields rose moderately this morning in what might be a reaction to the weekend Japanese election that gave Prime Minister Takaichi's party a super majority. "Given her plans to boost the economy through fiscal policy, it’s reasonable to expect upward pressure on Japan's bond yields—contributing to further upside pressure on global bonds. Japan is the largest foreign holder of U.S. treasuries, which means that its market tends to influence U.S. rates," said Kathy Jones, chief fixed income strategist at SCFR.
   
• More pressure on U.S. Treasuries came today when China asked its banks to limit exposure to U.S. Treasuries, according to a Bloomberg report.
   
• Small caps outpaced the broader market Friday. The Russell 2000^® Index (RUT) posted 3.5% gains and is up 7.5% so far this year versus about 1.1% for the S&P 500 Index. Strength in small caps can imply underlying firmness in the domestic economy, since small caps tend to sell less of their goods overseas.
   
• Despite Friday's fierce rally, the tech-dominated Nasdaq-100^® (NDX) fell roughly 2% last week and is now down two weeks in a row. Technically, NDX fell below support last week and remains under its 100-day moving average, keeping the near-term picture cautious.
   
• Silver gained more than 3% early Monday while gold rose 1%. Both spent much of last week clawing back from the previous Friday's epic losses, but without much success. Silver is back at early January levels, though still higher than it ever traded before that, near $80 per troy ounce. It was $32 a year ago. Mining shares were higher early today.
   
• Retail sales from December due early Tuesday could provide insight into consumers' holiday spending. Excluding autos, analysts expect a 0.4% month-over-month retail sales gain, while the annual rise is seen at 2.9%, sequentially below the previous month's 3.3%.

Though correlation isn't causation, this two-day chart of the Nasdaq Composite ($COMP—candlesticks) versus Amazon (AMZN—purple line) shows how Amazon's earnings-related plunge late Thursday was immediately followed by the Nasdaq's 2% Friday gain. Though Amazon remained weak all of Friday, the tech sector revived on ideas that the same heavy spending from Amazona and Alphabet worrying investors about those stocks might boost many other tech stocks, particularly in AI.