What Happened?
A number of stocks fell in the afternoon session after a surprisingly weak August jobs report revealed the U.S. economy added far fewer jobs than anticipated.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that non-farm payrolls rose by just 22,000, significantly missing the 75,000 expected by economists. Compounding the concerns, the unemployment rate climbed to 4.3%, its highest level in nearly four years. The report also included downward revisions to previous months' data, with June now showing the first net job loss since 2020. While a cooling labor market could encourage the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, investors reacted negatively. The sharp slowdown in hiring sparked fears of a broader economic downturn, causing stocks to fall as the market weighed whether the Fed's potential actions would be enough to prevent a recession.
The stock market overreacts to news, and big price drops can present good opportunities to buy high-quality stocks.
Among others, the following stocks were impacted:
- Renewable Energy company Array (NASDAQ:ARRY) fell 2.8%. Is now the time to buy Array? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
- Aerospace company Woodward (NASDAQ:WWD) fell 2.8%. Is now the time to buy Woodward? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
- Construction and Maintenance Services company Limbach (NASDAQ:LMB) fell 4.2%. Is now the time to buy Limbach? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
- Engineering and Design Services company MasTec (NYSE:MTZ) fell 4%. Is now the time to buy MasTec? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
- Aerospace company Astronics (NASDAQ:ATRO) fell 3.4%. Is now the time to buy Astronics? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
Zooming In On Limbach (LMB)
Limbach’s shares are extremely volatile and have had 35 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The previous big move we wrote about was 17 days ago when the stock dropped 3.2% on the news that investors took some profits off the table as markets awaited signals on future monetary policy from the Federal Reserve's Jackson Hole symposium later in the week. The downturn in the market was largely attributed to a significant sell-off in megacap tech and chipmaker shares. Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), and Broadcom all saw notable drops, dragging down the VanEck Semiconductor ETF. Other major tech-related companies like Tesla, Meta Platforms, and Netflix were also under pressure.
A key reason for this trend is that much of the recent market gains have been concentrated in the "AI trade," which includes these large technology and semiconductor companies. So this could also mean that some investors are locking in some gains ahead of more definitive feedback from the Fed.
Limbach is up 22% since the beginning of the year, but at $107.98 per share, it is still trading 27.8% below its 52-week high of $149.53 from July 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Limbach’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $13,847.
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