On Wall Street in New York, the three major indexes were falling together early on the 5th (local time). Investor sentiment weakened on the continued drop in silver prices, and tech stocks and bitcoin were also soft, analysts said.
As of 9:38 a.m., the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which focuses on blue chips, was down 348.27 points (0.70%) from the previous session at 49,153.03.
At the same time, the Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500, centered on large caps, was down 51.62 points (0.84%) from the day before at 6,825.10. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite was down 198.06 points (0.86%) from the previous session at 22,706.52.
Spot silver fell nearly 15% from the previous day to $74.87, and spot gold also fell more than 2%.
As commodity prices wobbled and risk-off sentiment intensified, bitcoin also broke below $69,000 (about 101.5 million won).
Tech stocks also weakened for a second day. Alphabet shares fell more than 4% on the day. Although it released results that beat market expectations the day before, concerns that capital spending is excessive drove the decline. Alphabet's 2026 capital expenditures (CAPEX) were expected at $175 billion (about 256.4975 trillion won) to $185 billion (about 271.1545 trillion won), roughly double last year's. That far exceeds market expectations, which were for less than $120 billion (about 174.885 trillion won).
A lower guidance from Qualcomm also weighed on sentiment. Qualcomm guided adjusted earnings per share (EPS) for this quarter at $2.45–$2.65 and revenue at $10.2 billion–$11.0 billion, both below market expectations. Qualcomm shares fell more than 9%.
Labor market indicators were also all weak.
The U.S. Labor Department released that initial jobless claims for last week (Jan. 25–31) were 231,000, up 22,000 from the prior week. That far exceeded the market forecast of 212,000. Job openings for December last year, released through the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), were about 6.54 million, well below the market estimate of 7.2 million.
U.S. layoff plans also surged. According to a layoff report released by Challenger, Gray & Christmas (CG&C), U.S. corporations' layoff plans in January totaled 108,435. That was up 205% from the previous month.
By sector, technology, communications, consumer discretionary and energy were weak, while consumer staples and utilities were strong. Coinbase shares fell more than 10% as bitcoin's price plunged. ARM Holdings, a semiconductor and software design firm, rose more than 3% after its fourth-quarter guidance topped market expectations. Peloton fell more than 20% as fourth-quarter results missed expectations due to sluggish sales of new products.
European stocks also fell across the board. The Euro Stoxx 50 was down 1.04% from the previous day at 5,908.26. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 and France's CAC 40 fell 0.64% and 0.71%, respectively. Germany's DAX fell 0.96% from the previous close.