President Donald Trump lashed out at financial markets on Friday after Wall Street responded to a stronger-than-expected jobs report by selling off sharply, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq closing down 4.18% — its worst single session since April 2025. The president, who has repeatedly tied his political fortunes to economic performance, posted his reaction to Truth Social shortly after the Bureau of Labour Statistics released its May 2026 employment figures.
'With a great Jobs Report, like just announced, stocks should go up, not down. That's the way it was for 200 years. Growth does not mean inflation! How else can a Country attain GREATNESS???' Trump wrote. The post drew widespread attention as indices across Wall Street moved in the opposite direction to what the president had demanded.
172,000 Jobs and a Market That Did Not Care
The BLS reported that 172,000 jobs were added to US nonfarm payrolls in May, nearly double the forecast of around 88,000. The unemployment rate held steady at 4.3% for the third consecutive month. Revisions to March and April figures added another 93,000 jobs to prior estimates, pointing to a labour market that has recovered significantly from the stagnation seen through much of 2025.
Despite those numbers, investors reacted with alarm rather than enthusiasm. The S&P 500 sank more than 2%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell around 1%, and the Nasdaq Composite lost over 3.8%, its steepest single-day drop since April 2025. A sell-off in semiconductor stocks deepened the slide, with Broadcom tumbling more than 12% after its earnings disappointed, dragging Intel, Micron, and Advanced Micro Devices sharply lower alongside it.
Strong Jobs Data Fuels Rate Hike Bets, Hitting Growth Stocks
The market's logic, while counterintuitive to Trump's framing, reflects a concern investors have wrestled with for months. A robust labour market, in the current environment, raises the spectre of prolonged high inflation and, with it, the possibility of further interest rate increases rather than cuts.
According to Axios, the odds of at least one rate hike by year-end jumped to 67% on Friday, up from 45% the week prior, based on CME's FedWatch tool. The 10-year Treasury yield climbed above 4.5%, putting additional pressure on growth stocks.
The jobs data lands at a particularly sensitive moment for the Federal Reserve. Newly installed Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, sworn in on 22 May 2026, now faces an early and complicated test. Bloomberg reported that the blowout report reinforces arguments among some Fed officials that rates may need to rise, even as the White House has consistently pushed for cheaper borrowing costs.
Kansas City Fed President Jeffrey Schmid, speaking at an economic forum in Oklahoma on Thursday, flagged the dilemma openly. 'Our inflation numbers have probably crept up into the 3.50% range, which nobody likes,' Schmid said. 'Is it temporary... Or do we act?'
BREAKING: President Trump says “stocks should go up, not down” after today’s jobs report.
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) June 5, 2026
“Growth does not mean inflation,” Trump says. pic.twitter.com/KSlx0aDLFi
A '200-Year' Argument Investors Are Not Buying
Trump's Truth Social post argued that strong job growth historically translated into rising share prices, a claim that held more weight in eras before modern central banking became the dominant force shaping market movements. In today's environment, a strong jobs print typically signals that the Fed will keep rates higher for longer, which depresses valuations of growth-oriented companies.
Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, acknowledged the underlying strength of the data. 'After several months of bumpy employment growth, it's encouraging to see three months of stronger growth,' she wrote on social media following the report's release. She cautioned, however, that 'real wages will continue to fall and workers and their families will find it increasingly difficult to make ends meet.'
Still, one shadow hangs over the headline figures. The proportion of long-term unemployed Americans — those out of work for 27 weeks or more — now stands at 2 million, up by 524,000 over the past year.
The divergence between Trump's public optimism and the market's reaction underscores a persistent tension in his second term. The president has staked much of his political messaging on economic strength heading into the 2026 midterms, yet Wall Street's response to Friday's data suggests investors are more worried about the inflationary consequences of that strength than reassured by it. How Warsh navigates his first Federal Open Market Committee meeting, scheduled for 16-17 June 2026, could prove decisive for both markets and the administration's economic narrative.
