The Nightcap: futures steady after the worst day since April 2025, but Asia's chip rout and Friday's jobs report loom

The biggest story tonight is whether Thursday's AI rout carries into Friday. Asia says yes: SK Hynix fell more than 8%, Samsung 7%, TSMC 9.6% and SoftBank 11.6%, CNBC reported. US index futures, by the two quote feeds we checked, are not following. That makes the October jobs report at 8:30 AM ET the next test, and with volatility at 28, the reaction could be large either way.

Futures and gold at about 8:52 PM ET

Futures, gold and the 10-year yield from CNBC's quote feed at 8:52 to 9:02 PM ET; Yahoo Finance's futures prices matched within a few points. Percent changes against settlement are from the feed. Futures carry a premium over the cash index, so we compare with settlement, not the 4:00 PM cash close. Cash closes from Yahoo Finance and CNBC.

One caution on direction

CNBC's live blog, last updated 8:54 PM ET, described S&P 500 futures as down 0.6%, Nasdaq-100 futures down 0.8% and Dow futures down 291 points. Our two feeds show something different. Yahoo's 15-minute series has S&P futures near 7,350 (about 0.45% under settlement) around 6:15 PM, then a rebound to 7,390 by 8:45. We cannot reconcile CNBC's wording with those readings, so the honest summary is: futures dipped, pared losses, and the direction is unsettled. Check them before the open.

What is hitting the market tonight

Asia's chip sell-off. Advantest fell 12.2% and Tokyo Electron 7.3%, while Taiwan's Foxconn dropped 9.4%, per CNBC. Goldman Sachs strategist Timothy Moe attributed part of the move to investors unwinding positions and stop-loss selling, and said potential political opposition to US data center construction may hurt demand for Asian AI hardware makers. We have the Nikkei bear market and the Kospi halt in a separate report.

The political line. CNBC and Fox Business tie Thursday's selling to worries that Democratic gains slow data center building. President Trump blamed Democrats on Truth Social, writing the market had "one of the Worst Days in History," per Fox Business. Texas Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa said on CNN that the state could work with Elon Musk's companies only "on our terms," and asked Texas Parks and Wildlife to pause talks on a land sale to SpaceX, CNBC reported. No data center moratorium has been enacted.

The breadth behind Thursday. CNBC counted 174 S&P 500 stocks, or 34.6%, at least 20% below their 52-week highs, and decliners outnumbered advancers on the NYSE almost 6 to 1. The S&P technology sector fell 7.30%, its worst day since March 16, 2020. Our full tally is in the close story.

Gold slips, Bitcoin hurts

Gold futures are down $38.40 from settlement, undoing part of Wednesday's gain. We found no headline explaining Thursday evening's slide, so we will not guess at a cause. Bitcoin is $76,063 on Coinbase, down 5.5% from its level 24 hours ago ($80,496), after touching $75,035 in that window. We covered the seven-week low earlier.

What to watch at the open

• 8:30 AM ET, October payrolls: the Dow Jones consensus is 59,000 jobs and a 4.2% unemployment rate, per CNBC. See our preview.
• Memory and chip names: Micron and AMD each fell 17% Thursday; CNBC reports one strategist sees "a good discount," a view we do not share or endorse.
• Dow versus Nasdaq: the Dow is off 0.5% on the week against 4.4% for the Nasdaq, per CNBC. Tonight the Nasdaq-100 contract is up while the Dow contract is down.

Sources: CNBC live updates; CNBC on Asian tech stocks; CNBC market statistics; Fox Business; Yahoo Finance; Coinbase. Quotes may be delayed. This is market information, not investment advice.