The economy added 172,000 jobs in May. Wall Street wanted about half that. The result was a bloodbath across virtually every risk asset class, from tech stocks to Bitcoin, as traders recalibrated their expectations for what the Federal Reserve does next.
The Nasdaq Composite dropped roughly 4% to 4.2% on June 5, its worst single-day decline in more than a year. The S&P 500 fell over 2.6%, snapping a nine-week winning streak. Bitcoin slid to the $61,900 range, with some exchanges showing brief wicks below $60K.
A jobs report nobody wanted
Economists had penciled in somewhere around 80,000 to 85,000 new nonfarm payrolls for May. The actual number came in at 172,000, more than double the consensus estimate. The unemployment rate held steady at 4.3%.
The CME FedWatch Tool reflected the shift almost immediately, with traders marking up the odds of the Fed raising rates later in 2026.
