Wall Street ends sharply lower as jobs data fuels rate hike fears

STORY: Wall Street’s nine-week winning streak came to an abrupt halt on Friday, with the Dow dropping about one-and-a-third percent, the S&P 500 sliding more than 2.6% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq tumbling nearly 4.2%, its largest one-day percentage loss in more than a year.Selling was concentrated among chip stocks and other technology favorites that have surged in recent weeks as the Nasdaq and S&P 500 rose repeatedly to fresh highs.The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index erased more than $1 trillion in stock market value on Friday, suffering its largest one-day percentage plunge since March of 2020.Eric Lynch, managing director and co-portfolio manager of Suncoast Equity Management, said tech stocks tanked due to rate-hike and AI spending concerns."The first factor is the blowout jobs report this morning. That has taken the chances of another Fed cut off the table for 2026. That hits long-duration, most exciting speculative stocks the most. [FLASH] But also there's been grumblings about AI, just some concerns about whether or not the token usage is really translating to great returns. And you've seen some consternation kind of bubbling up."Among individual movers, AI chipmaker Nvidia, the largest company by market value, lost more than 6%, while Intel, Micron, AMD and Broadcom all slid between about 8% and 13.5%.Shares of Lululemon Athletica slumped about 8.5% after the athletic apparel maker cut its annual profit forecast and projected second-quarter earnings well below Wall Street estimates.And a more than 4% drop in bitcoin hit cryptocurrency firms, with shares of Coinbase and Strategy each tumbling about 7%.