Nasdaq leads Wall Street losses as Dollar rallies, Dow Jones falls 200 points

The sell-off in technology shares continued on Wall Street for the second-day running leading to the Nasdaq declining nearly 1% during Friday’s trading session. The S&P 500 also fell 0.4%, extending the drop after briefly crossing the 7,000 mark early last week.

Dow Jones, which at one point, was down nearly 500 points, recouped half of those losses, ending with losses of just under 200 points.

Despite the fall on Friday, benchmark indices on Wall Street managed to eke out gains for January. The Dow ended 1.7% higher for the month, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq gained 1.4% and 1% respectively. The Russell 2000 index, focused on Smallcap stocks, outperformed its larger index peers, gaining 5% for the month.
While earnings reactions, including that from Apple, were muted on Friday, oil majors ExxonMobil and Chevron Corp. logged their best month since October 2022, with gains of 18% and 16% respectively in January.

US President Donald Trump’s nomination of Kevin Warsh as the new Fed Chair triggered a rally in the US Dollar, which had its best day in nearly nine months. The Dollar upmove upstaged the rally in precious metals like Gold and Silver, which saw the steepest sell-off in decades. Spot Silver prices plunged as much as 37% overnight, the highest on record.

“This has been the hottest asset for day traders and other short-term traders recently,” Matt Maley of Miller Tabak said. “There has been some leverage built up in silver. With the huge decline today, the margin calls went out.”

Next week will be an important one for Wall Street, as the start of a new month will bring in reports across the employment spectrum, eventually culminating in the non-farm payrolls report for January on Friday, February 6. Developments related to Iran, Russia, Ukraine and tariffs will also continued to be monitored by the street.