Chips Bounced, Then Thinned | Bitcoin Sat Out the Rally | Agencies Moved Crypto Rules Forward | 165,000 Jobs Revived the Hike Bet

Chips won back part of Thursday's rout, and the rebound thinned as the day went on.

The Nasdaq rose about 1.3% late Friday, and the S&P 500 about 0.6%. The Dow slipped about 0.3%, and the VIX eased to near 24.5.

AMD (AMD) rose about 11% and Lam Research (LRCX) 9%. TSMC (TSM) gained about 6%, Micron (MU) 5% and Nvidia (NVDA) 3%.

The rebound began before the open, even as Tokyo and Seoul fell about 6%. By StockTitan's count, eight large chipmakers had won back about 40% of Thursday's loss by 9 a.m. By 1 p.m., that share was down to about 26%.

Cloudflare (NET) rose about 11% and Airbnb (ABNB) 12%. AppLovin (APP) added about 10% after jumping 31% Thursday. Vistra (VST) gained about 11% after raising the midpoint of its 2026 profit forecast. Axon (AXON) fell about 18%, Atlassian (TEAM) 15% and Microchip (MCHP) about 11%.

A Bounce Is Not a Bid

Investors bought the chips Thursday sold hardest, then let them drift. Buyers treated the rout as a sale, not a turn. Next week tests whether they hold.

Tech bounced, and bitcoin sat it out.

Bitcoin was little changed near $75,800 after briefly dipping near $75,000. Ether held near $2,230. Spot bitcoin funds had about $430 million of net outflows Thursday, and the coin missed Friday's tech rally.

The split ran through crypto stocks. IREN (IREN) jumped about 18% after its AI cloud revenue nearly tripled to $200 million. Cipher (CIFR) and Hut 8 (HUT) rose about 16%, Riot (RIOT) 13% and TeraWulf (WULF) 12%. Coinbase (COIN) fell about 1% after touching a new 52-week low. Circle (CRCL) lost about 2%, Robinhood (HOOD) gained 3%, and Strategy (MSTR) was little changed.

Strive (ASST) bought 15,124 bitcoin in October, lifting its stack to 43,124. It paid about $83,310 a coin on average, about 10% above Friday's price. A $609 million preferred offering paying 15% helped fund the buying. Its $509 million third-quarter profit came almost entirely from unrealized gains.

Miners kept shrinking their piles. Core Scientific (CORZ) sold 816 bitcoin in the third quarter and held 32 at the end of September. TeraWulf's mining revenue fell 69% as AI leases reached 83% of sales.

Elliptic says Binance's hackers have turned about $124 million of stolen assets into bitcoin. About $3.1 billion still sits untouched, and about $2.85 billion is frozen or seized. Binance is reopening withdrawals in stages.

Miners Shrink, Treasuries Stack

Investors priced miners as AI landlords and Coinbase as a bitcoin proxy. Miners are shrinking their bitcoin piles while treasury companies keep adding to theirs. Strive's October buying, funded partly by 15% preferred stock, already sits below cost. That leaves the steadiest bid resting on demand for high-yield preferred paper.

Regulators moved several crypto rules forward this week.

FinCEN and the Fed withdrew a 2020 plan to cut the travel-rule threshold to $250. The $3,000 line for cross-border transfers stays. The agencies said no similar rule will come without new public comment.

A final Labor Department rule reached White House review Thursday. It would give 401(k) fiduciaries a safe harbor for alternative assets, including crypto. An SEC proposal on crypto rules for broker-dealers has been there since Nov. 3.

Democrats won both chambers on Tuesday, and crypto's bill in Congress got harder to pass. Agency rules don't need a vote.

Russia's central bank cleared bitcoin, ether and USDT for ordinary investors from Nov. 17. Purchases are capped at 300,000 rubles a year per broker. Moscow Exchange, which is under U.S. sanctions, plans to list them Dec. 1.

Rules Can Move Faster Than Votes

Agencies are moving crypto rules while the bill in Congress stalls. A finished rule takes more effort to undo than a stalled bill. If the 401(k) rule is published as proposed, it would ease a legal worry, not create a mandate to offer crypto. Plan sponsors still decide whether the door opens.

A hot jobs report pushed the hike bet back up.

Employers added 165,000 jobs in October. Forecasts were near 59,000 to 65,000. Unemployment slipped to 4.1%. Hourly pay rose 0.4%, and August and September were revised up by 84,000.

Kalshi's December hike contract rose from 68 cents early Friday to 78. The sharpest move, from 71 cents to 77, came within seconds of the 8:30 a.m. release. CME FedWatch put the odds above 76%. The two-year yield rose about 4 basis points to near 4.51%, and the 10-year sat near 4.86%. Gold slipped about 1% to near $4,072.

DraftKings (DKNG) fell about 21% after cutting its profit forecast to fund prediction markets. Its 2026 EBITDA outlook fell by nearly three quarters, to $175 million to $275 million. The old range was $700 million to $900 million. Kalshi faces a Utah court date Dec. 4 on 14 state counts.

The Venue Is the Prize

Prediction markets priced the jobs surprise within seconds, and DraftKings is spending big to own part of that business. It is giving up most of this year's expected EBITDA before courts settle who may sell the contracts. The hike bet now sits near three in four. Tuesday's inflation report tests whether it holds.

Private buyers set prices the public market wouldn't.

Axon (AXON) shares fell about 18% after it cut its growth forecast. A day earlier, it agreed to put about $1.2 billion into drone maker Skydio. The deal sets a $5.2 billion pre-money valuation, about 18% above Skydio's April round. It includes buying shares from existing holders and lifts Axon's stake to 37%.

Goldman Sachs BDC (GSBD) said loans on non-accrual rose to 7.3% of its portfolio at cost, from 5.0%. Net asset value fell 3% to $11.70 a share, and the stock traded near $8.64.

Brookfield Asset Management (BAM) raised $25 billion in the third quarter, $12 billion of it for credit. It said it realized meaningful carried interest for the first time since its spinout.

Reuters reported that Silver Lake and Saudi Arabia's PIF discussed buying Unity (U) at about $25 billion. Unity rose about 8%.

The Money Flows, the Marks Slip

Big managers keep raising credit money while a listed lender's bad loans climb. Goldman's BDC trades about 26% below its stated book value. Skydio's sellers got a strategic buyer's price without waiting for an IPO. Private capital is still paying where public investors hesitate.

Friday paid for what earns now and marked down what waits.

Chips, AI-leasing miners and DraftKings repriced within hours. Bitcoin waits on Tuesday's inflation report.