S&P 500 falls 0.4% after 162,000 jobs as semiconductor funds rise

A hotter jobs report made a September rate hike more likely than not. The close did not sell the assets a hike is supposed to hurt. Long Treasurys, small caps, and semiconductor funds all finished higher, on some of the lightest S&P 500 fund volume in 20 sessions, with U.S. exchanges shut Monday for Labor Day. The S&P 500 still fell 30 points, or 0.4%, to 7,717.81.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said employers added 162,000 jobs in August, more than three times the Dow Jones consensus of 53,000, with the unemployment rate unchanged at 4.1%. Average hourly earnings rose 0.3% to $37.75, up 3.1% from a year earlier, and the bureau lifted the combined June-July level by 55,000 jobs. It was the last labor report before the Federal Reserve's September 15-16 meeting. Fed-funds futures implied a 58% chance of a quarter-point increase at that meeting on Friday morning, up from about 50% before the print. The 10-year yield was 4.78% and the two-year 4.37%. Volume in the S&P 500 fund ASPY ran at 0.79 times its 20-session median, among the lightest readings in that stretch.

The index-level damage sat in three megacaps. Across 4,637 U.S.-listed ETFs that priced, 2,435 closed lower and 2,074 closed higher.

Apple, Tesla, and a 2.1-point sector gap

Apple fell 2.5%; Tesla dropped 5.9%. Micron Technology, SanDisk, and Advanced Micro Devices were the offsets on the other side.

In the Nasdaq-100 fund AQQQ, Micron's 6.1% gain contributed 0.29 percentage points, more than the fund's entire 0.2% rise. Advanced Micro Devices added 0.15 points. Apple and Tesla gave most of that back. The fund closed higher for a third straight session.

The consumer-discretionary sector fund AXLY fell 1.3%, the weakest of the 11 SPDR sector funds, and Tesla did most of the damage. The electric-vehicle maker is a 17.7% holding; its decline subtracted 1.05 percentage points. Lululemon Athletica, down 17.4%, was a much smaller weight and a much smaller drag. The equal-weight retail fund BXRT rose 1.0%, so Friday was not a broad consumer washout. It was a Tesla day inside a cap-weighted sleeve.

Only three of those 11 sector funds finished higher. Industrials AXLI extended a three-session run; utilities AXLU a fourth straight gain. The 2.1 percentage-point gap between technology and consumer discretionary ranked in the 6th percentile of the past 32 sessions.

The Dow industrials lost 272 points, or 0.5%, to 53,414.25. Caterpillar was the largest lift inside the Dow fund ADIA; Microsoft and Apple were the largest weights working the other way. The Russell 2000 fund AIWM rose 0.3% for a third session, and the gain was not a handful of names: the top eight holdings explained almost none of it.

Memory chips ignore the payrolls

Fifteen of 16 semiconductor funds closed higher, a median 3.6%. ASMH, which holds U.S.-listed chipmakers, gained 2.6% to $567.01 even though Nvidia, 23.8% of the fund, rose only 0.8%. Micron contributed 0.34 percentage points. KLA added 0.28, Taiwan Semiconductor 0.28, and Marvell 0.27. Those four accounted for 1.17 percentage points of the 2.6% rise; all 25 holdings, covering 99.9% of assets, summed to 2.63 percentage points.

Nvidia agreed Thursday to buy Hugging Face for $12.9 billion. That deal was already in Thursday's session. It does not account for the group-wide rise. The chip rally also did not fade when the jobs report repriced September. ASMH is still 16% below its 52-week high and is down 0.8% over the past month.

Quantum and photonics funds, a much smaller group, closed higher across all five members, a median 2.5%.

Lululemon, Tesla, Adobe, UiPath

Lululemon fell 17.4% to $100.61 after second-quarter results and a cut to its full-year outlook, and it traded as low as $97.99, the weakest print in a year. Revenue was $2.4 billion, down 4%. Comparable sales fell 9%. Diluted earnings were $2.92 a share, a figure that includes $0.86 from tariff refunds. The company now expects 2026 revenue of $10.350 billion to $10.500 billion, a decline of 5% to 7%, and diluted earnings of $9.48 to $9.73 a share. The 2x Lululemon fund BLULG dropped 35.1% and traded at 43 times its 20-session median volume, the session's sharpest volume spike among U.S.-listed ETFs.

Tesla fell 5.9% to $354.08 a day after its Cybercab event. Palantir Technologies dropped 4.5% and was a meaningful drag on AQQQ. Adobe fell 6.7% after naming Anil Chakravarthy, president of its digital-experience business, as the next chief executive, succeeding Shantanu Narayen on December 1. UiPath fell 16.6% after a quarter that beat on revenue and still implied a slower stretch ahead; Canaccord Genuity cut the stock to Hold.

Gold, bitcoin, and a paused oil bid

The gold fund BGLD fell 0.8%, giving back part of Thursday's 1.8% rebound. All 52 crypto-spot funds, a group that spans bitcoin, ether, solana, and multi-asset baskets, closed down, a median 2.5%, and BIBIT lost 2.4% after a 5.8% jump on Thursday. High-yield credit BHYG slipped 0.1%. Investment-grade credit ALQD was unchanged. The dollar fund CUUP rose 0.2% on 1.5 times its 20-session median volume, among its heaviest readings in that window. Oil paused: BUSO was flat after a 9.5% five-session climb. The Cboe Volatility Index settled at 14.53, up 1.5%, still in the mid-14s.

Over five sessions, ASPY is up 0.1%. Thursday's 1.0% bounce, the one that followed Governor Christopher Waller's remarks leaning toward holding rates, was the week's large move. Friday took some of it back and left the index 1.2% below its 52-week high. The next appointment is the Federal Reserve's September 15-16 meeting. The tape that would overturn Friday's read is BTLT closing below its 52-week low of $81.17, or ASMH reversing through Thursday's close of $552.60.