February 12 Market Recap: NFP Exceeds Expectations by Double—Yet No One Is Celebrating
TechFlow Selected TechFlow Selected
February 12 Market Recap: NFP Exceeds Expectations by Double—Yet No One Is Celebrating
The nonfarm payrolls report—“twice as strong as expected”—should have been cause for market celebration, yet it ironically became a new weight dragging down tech stocks. This dissonance is the uniquely bizarre feature of the U.S. stock market in 2026.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: TechFlow
U.S. Equities: A “Perfect” Jobs Report—So Why Is No One Celebrating?
At yesterday’s (February 11) market close, the protagonist wasn’t any single stock—but a data release.
The January nonfarm payrolls report added 130,000 jobs—double the consensus expectation of 55,000. The unemployment rate simultaneously edged down from 4.4% to 4.3%. On the surface, this should have been universally welcome news. Yet U.S. equities reversed course after an initial rally: the Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 0.13%, closing at 50,121; the S&P 500 was virtually unchanged, ending at 6,941; and the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.16%, closing at 23,066.
This “counterintuitive” reaction reveals the market’s core current tension: The stronger the economy, the further away rate cuts recede—and the harder it becomes to sustain valuations.
Immediately following the nonfarm data release, markets pushed back their expectations for rate cuts this year.
A robust labor market implies the Federal Reserve has no urgent reason to ease monetary policy. Tech stocks’ lofty valuations are built on the expectation of repeated rate cuts—“cut, cut, and cut again.” Following the report, Treasury yields spiked sharply, and software stocks tumbled anew: Salesforce dropped over 4%; IBM plunged 6.44% in a single day; Zillow Group crashed 17%.
Yet upon closer inspection, the report isn’t quite “perfect.” Job growth was concentrated in healthcare and social assistance. Moreover, past two years’ employment figures underwent historic downward revisions: total net job gains for 2025 were revised down from 580,000 to just 180,000—the lowest since 2003. This looks less like economic strength and more like statistical “late submissions.”
An internal war is quietly raging across markets—and yesterday’s earnings reports delivered a microcosm of that conflict.
Vertiv (VRT) surged 25% intraday, fully recovering all its losses for the year and adding over $10 billion to its market capitalization in a single session.
The reason is simple: This provider of cooling and power systems for data centers posted a 252% year-on-year increase in Q4 orders—not 25%, not 52%, but 252%. Its order backlog now stands at $15 billion—double year-on-year—and its full-year 2026 EPS guidance of $5.97–$6.07 far exceeds Wall Street’s prior consensus of $5.51. As the CEO put it: “Our backlog provides clear visibility into growth for 2026.”
On the same day, Cloudflare jumped 11%, buoyed by strong Q4 results and an upside surprise in its 2026 revenue guidance.
Meanwhile, Mattel fell 27%, Zillow dropped 17%, and Unity Software plunged 32%—software stocks once again crushed under the weight of the AI narrative.
This is the market’s current landscape in a nutshell: Those building the AI infrastructure are reaping outsized gains, while legacy tenants occupying AI-enabled buildings are being evicted. Vertiv sells shovels; Cloudflare lays pipes—they’re winning. Meanwhile, enterprise software firms facing AI-driven automation are undergoing sustained repricing.
What to watch today: Tomorrow (late evening February 13 / early morning February 14, Beijing time), the U.S. will release its January CPI inflation data—the final “bomb” of the week and the decisive arbiter of whether rate-cut expectations can rebound. Markets currently forecast headline CPI to hold steady near 3% year-on-year. Any upside surprise would likely deliver another blow to tech stocks.
Gold & Silver: The 4,500-level floor is starting to feel solid
Yesterday (February 11), spot gold closed in the $5,063–$5,088/oz range, up over 1% on the day; silver rebounded even more sharply—rising nearly 5%—and closed near $84–$85/oz. This morning, gold stabilized around $5,063/oz.
The “epic collapse” over the prior weekend—gold’s largest single-day drop in decades and silver’s all-time biggest one-day decline—is now gradually being absorbed by the market.
Why such a swift rebound? Support is converging from multiple directions:
First, the strong nonfarm report triggered a chain reaction: stronger job growth signals greater economic resilience, which implies inflation won’t fall rapidly—and if inflation doesn’t fall, gold’s fundamental thesis remains intact. Second, the People’s Bank of China has increased gold reserves for 15 consecutive months—central bank buying provides long-term floor support. Third, while U.S.-Iran negotiations have progressed, geopolitical tensions remain unresolved, and safe-haven demand hasn’t fully withdrawn.
Silver’s situation, however, is far more nuanced. London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) silver inventories continued shrinking through end-January; global solar panel production capacity keeps expanding—structurally boosting industrial silver demand. Yet ETF inflows remain negative, and short-term speculators have been largely exhausted amid recent whipsaw price action. UBS maintains its year-end silver forecast near $85/oz; Goldman Sachs targets $5,400/oz for gold; JPMorgan’s most bullish call stands at $6,300/oz.
In short: Gold has held above $5,000/oz; silver is consolidating between $80–$85/oz, awaiting direction from the CPI print.
Crypto Market: Wearing a “Extreme Fear” label, Bitcoin hovers near $67,000
Bitcoin currently trades between $67,500–$67,700, with 24-hour volume around $26.3 billion—retracing from its brief post-nonfarm rally.
Here’s how yesterday unfolded: After the nonfarm data release, market sentiment briefly brightened, pushing Bitcoin intraday toward $69,000. But as rate-cut expectations narrowed and Treasury yields rose, Bitcoin quickly surrendered those gains—sliding back below $68,000 by session close.
More concerning than price alone is the underlying structure of market sentiment. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index currently sits in the single digits—deep in “Extreme Fear” territory.
Robinhood’s after-hours earnings report revealed a sharp decline in crypto-related revenue—confirming retail investor withdrawal. CoinShares data also shows cumulative outflows from Bitcoin spot ETFs exceeding $1 billion year-to-date. With tightening Fed rate expectations, institutional arbitrage and allocation positions are marginally retreating.
Galaxy founder Mike Novogratz told CNBC that Bitcoin is now in the “recession phase of its speculative era,” with retail interest extremely low.
Measured from its all-time high of $126,000, Bitcoin is now down nearly 50%. The last time it experienced a drawdown of this magnitude was in early 2022—when it took 28 months to fully recover.
Key variables to monitor going forward: An in-line or upside CPI surprise would further suppress rate-cut expectations—bearish for crypto. Conversely, a CPI miss could revive rate-cut hopes and open a short-term rebound window.
Additionally, Senate confirmation hearings for the new Fed chair nominee, Judy Shelton, haven’t yet been formally scheduled. Her past friendly remarks about Bitcoin—juxtaposed against her likely hawkish stance on interest rates—will become one of the key narrative threads for markets in the second half of the year.
In summary, the nonfarm report’s “double-expectation-beating” result—which should have sparked celebration—instead became fresh ammunition weighing down tech stocks. This dislocation is uniquely bizarre to the 2026 U.S. equity market.
Hardware infrastructure players are booming amid the “chip era”; software services are retreating under AI’s unblinking gaze; gold is regaining footing after panic; and Bitcoin’s “digital gold” identity now bears a giant question mark.
Tonight, the CPI dice have yet to land.
Join TechFlow official community to stay tuned
Telegram:https://t.me/TechFlowDaily
X (Twitter):https://x.com/TechFlowPost
X (Twitter) EN:https://x.com/BlockFlow_News
深潮TechFlow
