Trump Says Stocks Should Go Up After Strong Jobs Report Sparks Selloff
Trump said stocks should have rallied on a strong May jobs report, but the Nasdaq logged its worst day in over a year as rate-hike odds jumped to 67%.
President Donald Trump took to Truth Social on Friday to vent at Wall Street after a stronger-than-expected May jobs report triggered a sharp equity selloff instead of a rally. “With a great Jobs Report, like just announced, stocks should go up, not down,” Trump posted. “That’s the way it was for 200 years. Growth does not mean inflation!”
The market disagreed, and the move tells you everything about where the rate debate sits right now.
What the jobs report actually showed
The Labor Department reported Friday morning that the U.S. economy added 172,000 jobs in May, roughly double what forecasters projected. The unemployment rate was 4.3 percent, the same as the previous month.
April NFP was also revised upward from 115K to 179K, reinforcing the picture of a labor market that is still running hot rather than cooling.
Why stocks sold off anyway
The tech-heavy Nasdaq closed down 4.18%, its worst single session since April 2025. The S&P 500 sank more than 2% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell around 1%.
The logic is simple: hot data means the Fed stays restrictive. According to Axios, the odds of at least one rate hike by year-end jumped to 67% on Friday, up from 45% the week prior, based on CME’s FedWatch tool.
A sell-off in semiconductor stocks deepened the slide, with Broadcom tumbling more than 12% after its earnings disappointed, dragging Intel, Micron, and Advanced Micro Devices sharply lower alongside it.
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The discount-rate problem
Barclays’ Venu Krishna laid out why long-duration growth names took the worst of it. Barclays’ research has identified that the dynamic becomes especially acute as the yield approaches 5%. At 4.54%, “we are in the warning zone, but just in the warning zone,” Krishna said. “Five percent is more of a clear level.”
The pressure concentrates on companies whose valuations rest mostly on the future, “not because those business models are falling apart,” Krishna said, but “because the discount factor is going up.”
Positioning is stretched
Retail investors came rushing back to buy equities while systematic funds are also at full exposure. Barclays calls the result an asymmetric risk-reward: when nearly everyone who might buy has already bought, any good news no longer drives new demand, while bad news has a market full of potential sellers.
Barclays says markets are more euphoric than ever, tracking it through an index that scans the options market across roughly 700 stocks for signs of speculative chasing. The share of stocks showing that pattern recently climbed to roughly 10%, and the last time it ran meaningfully higher, reaching about 14% early this year, the March selloff followed.
Options market and stocks to watch
Watch AVGO for follow-through after the post-earnings drop dragged the entire semi complex lower. Watch INTC, MU, and AMD for whether the chip selloff finds a bid or extends as rate-hike odds creep higher.
Watch NVDA as the most rate-sensitive name in the hyperscaler trade given how much of its valuation sits on out-year revenue. For broader tape direction, keep an eye on SPY and QQQ flow into next week’s inflation data, which is the next real catalyst for the rate path. For more market headlines, see other news.
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