The Dow snapped a five-day winning streak as weaker guidance and fresh Hormuz tensions weighed on sentiment. Oil climbed above $82 and SpaceX absorbed its first lockup expiration.
Wall Street finally paused after five straight winning sessions.
Investors continued rewarding strong execution but punished weak guidance. Datadog (DDOG) dropped roughly 19% after lowering its outlook. HubSpot (HUBS) fell 22% after cutting revenue guidance, while UWM Holdings (UWMC) lost 35% following an earnings miss.
Airbnb (ABNB) provided the bright spot. The company reported second quarter earnings of $1.37 per share, ahead of the $1.25 consensus, sending shares about 7% higher after hours.
Outside earnings, Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported 33,429 announced job cuts in July, the lowest monthly total in two years. That suggests layoffs remain limited even as hiring slows.
The market's biggest story arrived before the opening bell. July nonfarm payrolls unexpectedly fell by 23,000, missing expectations for an 83,000 gain. June was revised to a 20,000 job loss, while May was revised down to 63,000, cutting another 66,000 jobs from prior estimates. The labor market is no longer slowing. It is beginning to contract.
The Signal
Markets are no longer rewarding earnings alone. Investors now demand higher guidance while watching every development in the Middle East.
For 15 Consecutive Months, Physical Silver Has Been Leaving COMEX Warehouses at Volumes the Exchange Has Never Processed.
December alone: 65 million ounces. A single-month record.
All of 2025: 474 million ounces delivered — against 203 million the year before.
Silver has traded in backwardation. Buyers paying MORE for metal today than for a promise of metal next month.
Backwardation is the fire alarm of commodity markets. It only rings when people stop trusting the promise.
Silver's supply has run a deficit five years straight. The government stockpile that used to backstop it is gone.
The gold story gets the headlines. The silver story might be more violent — because the market is a fraction of the size and the exit door is smaller.
One junior miner is sitting on one of the highest-grade silver veins discovered in the last decade.
Oil reversed sharply as optimism around Hormuz faded.
Brent crude settled at $82.49, up 3.8%, while WTI climbed 2.8% to $77.29 after Iranian state media published a draft proposal that would ban U.S. and Israeli vessels from using the Strait of Hormuz.
The proposal would also require some countries to compensate Iran before passage and impose penalties worth up to 20% of cargo value for violations. The proposal immediately complicated negotiations that appeared close to producing an interim agreement earlier this week.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had suggested a deal restoring freedom of navigation could arrive within days. Instead, the draft proposal introduced new political conditions that Washington quickly rejected.
Iran and Oman continue discussing separate inbound and outbound shipping lanes, and no agreement has been finalized. Meanwhile, Houthi forces claimed another attack on Saudi positions, reminding traders that regional risks remain elevated.
Energy Signal
Diplomats are discussing reopening Hormuz while lawmakers debate new restrictions. Oil is trading the legislation, not the negotiations.
July nonfarm payrolls fell by 23,000, far below expectations for an 83,000 increase.
June was revised to a 20,000 loss, while May was cut to 63,000 from its previous estimate. Together, the revisions reduced the 12-month average monthly job gain to just 34,000.
The unemployment rate edged down to 4.1%, but for the wrong reason. Labor force participation fell again to 61.4%, the lowest level in more than five years. Fewer people were working or looking for work.
Local government education lost 50,000 jobs, retail shed 19,000, and financial activities lost 14,000. Healthcare added 22,000, though that remained below its recent trend. Average hourly earnings rose just 2 cents, slowing annual wage growth to 3.2%.
Three Fed officials argued last week that rates should rise immediately. This report makes that argument much harder to sustain unless inflation surprises sharply higher.
Macro Signal
The labor market has moved from cooling to contracting. That shifts the Fed debate away from another hike and back toward protecting growth.
Porter Stansberry's Critical New Warning:
Trump Is Replacing The U.S. Dollar
"The last time America reset its money, it created 1,300 millionaires every day. This could be bigger."
SpaceX passed its first major market test.
The company's first lockup expiration released roughly 911.5 million insider shares, worth about $100 billion, into the market. Instead of triggering another sharp decline, SpaceX (SPCX) rebounded as much as 6% during Thursday's session after falling nearly 14% following earnings.
The move suggested investors viewed the lockup as a technical event rather than a change in the company's long-term outlook. SpaceX also reiterated that it remains on pace to reach roughly $100 billion in annualized revenue by year end despite heavy AI infrastructure spending.
Software companies received a much colder reception.
Datadog, HubSpot and UWM Holdings all showed that investors are no longer satisfied with earnings beats if future guidance disappoints. Peloton (PTON) also traded sharply lower before the open after issuing weaker revenue guidance despite beating quarterly expectations.
Capital Signal
SpaceX absorbed a massive increase in supply. Software companies discovered that cautious guidance matters more than strong quarters.
Bitcoin remains steady even as institutional buying accelerates.
Bitcoin traded near $64,400 before Friday's payroll report. The bigger story continues beneath the surface. Santiment data shows wallets holding between 10 and 10,000 BTC accumulated more than 20,000 bitcoin, worth roughly $1.2 billion, since July 29.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs tell a similar story. Funds have attracted roughly $755 million this week, putting them on pace for their strongest weekly inflow since April after several difficult months.
Retail behavior looks very different. The ongoing Coldcard wallet exploit has now been linked to roughly $130 million in stolen bitcoin across multiple attackers. That has encouraged many smaller holders to move coins back onto exchanges while institutional buyers continue accumulating.
Legislation remains another obstacle.
The CLARITY Act still lacks a procedural path before the Senate begins recess, reducing expectations that comprehensive crypto legislation will advance this year. Strategy (MSTR) has also gone six straight weeks without adding bitcoin after selling 1,638 BTC to support its preferred-share obligations.
The Verdict
Institutions continue buying while retail investors remain cautious. Eventually one side will prove right, but for now Bitcoin continues holding its range.
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Friday brings together the week's three biggest stories.
The labor market already reshaped expectations for the Federal Reserve. A second straight month of negative payrolls, combined with large downward revisions, has weakened the case for another near-term rate hike.
Hormuz negotiations continue, but Iran's latest proposal shows that reopening the strait may be far more complicated than markets expected earlier this week.
Crypto investors are also watching Washington as the Senate approaches recess with the CLARITY Act still waiting for procedural progress.
SpaceX showed that markets can absorb a major increase in supply when investors still believe the long-term growth story. Bitcoin is facing a similar test as institutional money continues flowing into ETFs while retail investors remain defensive.
The payroll report now becomes the reference point for every inflation release and every Fed speech through September.
