The stock market sell-off restarted on Thursday. Markets whipsawed in afternoon trading as valuation concerns returned to the conversation.

Three Chinese nationals were charged with smuggling Nvidia and HP products to China, according to charges unsealed by the Justice Department on Thursday. Starting in September of 2023, Hon Ning Ho, Brian Raymond, Cham Li and Jing Chen allegedly exported chips to China.

Nvidia shares were initially up after an earnings report that included raised revenue guidance for the next quarter. But shares closed 3% lower.

Steady payroll growth combined with rising unemployment offers a rare and confusing combination that, as it happens, investors could not take in stride. Strong hiring makes the Fed less eager to ease, but softer employment data could potentially tighten financial conditions all on its own.

U.S. technology stocks failed to hold on their initial gains on Thursday, as a rally driven by Nvidia ran out of steam with concerns of lofty valuations in the technology space coming back to the fore.

Prosecutors have accused Brian Raymond, founder of AI infrastructure and consulting company Bitworks, and three others of selling coveted Nvidia chips to unspecified Chinese companies.

Katie Martin So the general rule of thumb is that when there is some sort of pop in markets for like whatever reason, like Covid, or “liberation day”, crazy tariffs or, whatever it is, investors don’t necessarily sell what they want to sell. They sell what they can sell, like whatever is still liquid.

Stocks rallied in early trading on Thursday, just hours after blockbuster earnings from chip giant Nvidia and a stronger-than-expected jobs report. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped nearly 600 points, or 1.2%, while the S & P 500 climbed 1.8%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq soared 2.5%.

Peter Thiel's Thiel Macro sold all 537,742 Nvidia shares it had, which were valued almost $100 million at the end of the quarter. SoftBank Group is selling its whole 32.1 million-share holding in Nvidia for around $5.8 billion and using that money to make big expenditures on OpenAI and AI infrastructure.