Stock Market

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📉 Worst day since '22

Data: Yahoo Finance. Chart: Axios Visuals A Big Tech selloff triggered the worst day for the S&P 500 (-2.3%) and Nasdaq (-3.6%) since 2022, Axios' Pete Gannon and Nathan Bomey write. The Dow closed down 1.3%. Every Magnificent Seven company — including Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia and Meta — finished in the red yesterday, including Tesla's 12% and Alphabet's 5% drops. Profit reports from Tesla and Alphabet helped suck momentum from Wall Street's AI frenzy. Go deeper.

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📈 Stock market's astonishing returns

Data: YCharts. Chart: Axios Visuals The stock market has been on a tear of late — up 34% over the past year and up 20% year-to-date, Axios' Felix Salmon writes. Why it matters: That's the best stock-market performance in the first three quarters since 1997, and it's boosted total returns over almost any time horizon. The index's 30-year return is 1,135% — it's risen more than twelvefold in the past three decades — and currently stands at an all-time high.   ps:I believe I heard something that if Biden became president the "Stock Market would CRASH" So has that happened????????? Obviously no!!!!!!!!!!

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💰 Dow's new high

Data: Yahoo Finance. Chart: Axios Visuals The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped more than 400 points yesterday, closing at a new record high. The big picture: The Dow added 2% over the week, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq each added 1.7%, signaling a continuation of the post-election rally that had stalled last week, CNBC notes. Go deeper: How the stock market could perform under a unified GOP government

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💰 Dow dips as stocks remain on tear

Data: FactSet. Chart: Axios Visuals The Dow Jones Industrial Average is on its longest losing streak in 46 years, Axios' Ben Berkowitz and Felix Salmon write. Why it matters: Long losing streaks for a well-known index sound bad. In this case, it's mostly a technical matter that doesn't entirely reflect what's happening in the market. The Dow has now fallen nine straight trading days, its worst streak since 1978. Of the 30 stocks that go into the average, UnitedHealth Group has the second-largest weighting. It also happens to be down 21% since one of its executives was shot in the back earlier this month. Nvidia, which recently joined the Dow, is also down 10%, a small pullback in the context of more than doubling this year. 🔭 Zoom out: The S&P 500, a much broader and more important index, hasn't had the same losing streak and is down just 0.6% over the same period. Stocks remain on a tear. The S&P is up more than 25% this year and the Dow is still up more than 15%.

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Stock market

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down for its ninth-straight day on Tuesday, closing lower by 267 points, or 0.6%. The blue chips haven't closed in the red for nine consecutive days since February 1978 — when Jimmy Carter was in the White House. But the recent market slump has been mild, with the Dow losing just 3% over the prior eight trading days. The Dow's losing streak comes ahead of today's interest rate decision from the Federal Reserve. Investors widely expect the Fed to cut rates by a quarter point, although officials could signal plans to slow the pace of cuts in 2025.

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💰 Most concentrated stock market ever

Data: S&P Dow Jones Indices. Chart: Axios Visuals The value of the stock market is more heavily concentrated than ever in a handful of companies — making its performance as a whole a function of how a few mega-cap tech stocks are faring, Axios' Felix Salmon writes. Why it matters: When a few companies dominate the market, that makes passive index investors less diversified — and therefore makes their portfolios riskier. By one measure (charted above), the record for concentration was shattered in June 2020, as a handful of high-fliers started to dominate the post-pandemic stock market. It kept rising over time. The AI boom drove it higher, and the election of Donald Trump boosted it even more.

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🔎 Between the lines

Data: Yahoo Finance. Chart: Axios Visuals The pessimism about the direction of the country comes despite a fairly positive economic trajectory, Dave writes. The market soared after the election and has bounced back after a brief dip last week. The percentage of Americans who view the economy as the main problem with the U.S. has fallen steadily in recent months, per Gallup. 🛒 Zoom out: Americans are sending mixed messages across the economic spectrum. Consumer confidence surged in November as Republicans cheered Trump's victory, but then pulled back in December. Retail sales over the holiday look better than the National Retail Federation forecast, but not great for brick-and-mortar stores.

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Stock market

US stocks dropped Monday, with the Dow falling by 418 points, or just under 1%, as markets close out a record year. The S&P 500 ended the day down by just over 1%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq saw the biggest slide, down 1.19%, as traders sold off Big Tech investments such as Amazon, Tesla and Alphabet, Google's parent company. Still, the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq are all on track to book another year of gains. Of the three, the Nasdaq is set to see the biggest gains of the year, up more than 32%. As for Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency traded at $94,000 when US stock exchanges closed Monday at 4 p.m. ET. Bitcoin surged to $106,000 earlier this month on hopes that the incoming Trump administration will espouse more crypto-friendly policies.

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💰 Stocks' best 2-year stretch since '98

Data: Yahoo Finance. Chart: Axios Visuals Stocks soared in 2024 despite a rough final week that wiped out the S&P 500's post-election rally, Axios Pro Rata author Dan Primack writes. Why it matters: People with market-representative stock portfolios are still richer now than when the year began. 🧮 By the numbers: Each of the four major stock indices had strong gains, although each also lagged its 2023 performance. The S&P 500 was up 24% in 2024, compared to a 24.2% rise in 2023. It was the index's best two-year performance since the dot-com bubble of 1998. The tech-heavy Nasdaq climbed 30.8%, versus 43.4% last year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 12.8%, compared to 28.4% in 2023. The Russell 2000, an index of small-cap stocks, gained 10.9%, compared to 2023's 15.1%. The bottom line: U.S. stocks are more than two years into a bull market. Wall Street strategists generally anticipate the market's returns to ease from their recent lofty heights in coming years.

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📈 Stocks keep going up, despite pessimists

Data: YCharts. Chart: Axios Visuals The S&P 500 notched a fantastic year in 2024, closing up 25% on a total return basis (with dividends reinvested), Axios' Felix Salmon writes. Why it matters: Over longer time horizons, the performance looks even better. It's the best two-year return since the dot-com exuberance of 1998, and the best 20-year return since 2008. 👟 The long game: For most investors, what really matters isn't what happens to the stock market from day to day or even from year to year, but rather how their money grows over the long term. By that metric, stock returns have been excellent. The total return to the S&P 500 over the past decade is 242% — which means that $1,000 invested at the beginning of 2015 would be worth $3,425 today. Over 20 years, the return is 618% — $1,000 invested in 2005 would have turned into $7,175. Context: 20-year returns peaked at more than 2,500% in 2000. 10-year returns were more than 400% in March 2019. 🌐 Reality check: America is exceptional, in large part because of the performance of a handful of huge tech companies. Other countries' stock markets, lacking megacap outperformers, have been underwhelming in comparison. The MSCI ACWI ex USA index, which tracks the performance of non-U.S. markets, is up a mediocre 6.1% over one year, 25% over five years and 68% over 10 years. 💭 Our thought bubble: It's natural to assume that what goes up must come down. But anybody betting that stocks would converge back to their long-term average valuations has lost a lot of money in recent years. The bottom line: What goes up ... often goes up further.

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💸 New hot stock: Quantum computing

Data: YCharts. Chart: Axios Visuals AI stocks led markets to new heights in 2024. But some investors are already moving on to the new hotness — quantum computing, Axios' managing editor for business Ben Berkowitz writes. Why it matters: Investors who tripled or quadrupled their money on AI plays are hungry for the next big thing. 🖼 The big picture: Quantum computing is bleeding-edge stuff, applying the principles of quantum mechanics to tasks far too difficult for traditional computing. Last month, Google said its new quantum computing chip, code-named Willow, did computations in five minutes that would take today's supercomputers 10 septillion years. The technology is still in its infancy. But eager investors are nonetheless snapping up shares of small-cap stocks as the hype builds.

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Stock market

Stocks on Wall Street rallied Wednesday after an encouraging inflation report and blockbuster profits for some of America's biggest banks. The Dow surged 703 points, or 1.65%, to close at 43,222. The S&P 500 rose 1.83% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ended the day higher by 2.45%. The closing bell concluded a rally that has helped all three major stock indices recover losses and post overall gains since the start of 2025. Financial analysts say robust bank earnings for the fourth quarter are also a positive signal for the well-being of the biggest players in the financial markets ahead of the incoming Trump administration. "Businesses are more optimistic about the economy, and they are encouraged by expectations for a more pro-growth agenda," JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said in a statement.

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💰 Biden's market trailed Trump's

Data: Yahoo Finance. Chart: Axios Visuals President Biden will leave office having presided over a very strong stock market, but not quite as strong as either of his two predecessors, Axios' Dan Primack reports. The S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and Nasdaq Composite each gained more during Trump's first term than during Biden's.

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🇨🇳 New China AI prompts tech rout

Illustration: Lazaro Gamio/Axios

A global rout in tech stocks began this morning, caused by a panic linked to the new Chinese AI platform DeepSeek. Investors worldwide stand to lose more than $1 trillion today because of the sudden fear that the market-sustaining AI spending boom might have been for nothing, Axios' Ben Berkowitz writes. Why it matters: The so-called Magnificent 7 stocks are heavily leveraged to hundreds of billions of dollars in planned AI investment. The entire market, in turn, hangs on their performance. Catch up quick: Breakthroughs from Chinese AI startup DeepSeek have stunned Silicon Valley and could bring turbulence to Wall Street, as they were accomplished at a fraction of what the U.S. giants are spending and despite export bans on top-of-the-line chips. China's rapid advances suggest America's strategy of withholding technology from China might just be speeding up the evolution of its rival's AI know-how, Axios' Scott Rosenberg writes. 🚨 DeepSeek's rise is alarming Meta, which announced Friday that it plans $60 billion-$65 billion in capital investment this year as it scales up its own AI projects. It potentially could also be bad news for Nvidia, which designs the world's most advanced AI chips, because DeepSeek is proving that rapid advances are possible even with fewer and less sophisticated chips. Nvidia's stock fell almost 12 percent in pre-market trading Monday morning, implying a wipe-out of more than $400 billion in market capitalization once stocks open. 📱 DeepSeek hit No. 1 on Apple's App Store a week after the Jan. 20 release of its R1 model, which works along similar lines to OpenAI's o1. Presented with a complex challenge, it takes time to consider alternate approaches before picking the best solution — and it explains its chain of reasoning to users. These "reasoning" models are especially good at coding and math. Just last month, another DeepSeek model, v3, stunned AI experts by providing performance comparable to OpenAI's and Anthropic's most advanced publicly available general models, as Axios told you. The kicker is that DeepSeek created and released its entirely open source project for about $6 million in training costs — "a joke of a budget," in one expert's words. Go deeper: "DeepSeek Buzz Puts Tech Stocks on Track for $1 Trillion Wipeout ... 'AI dominance cannot be taken for granted'" (Bloomberg)

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DeepSeek scrambles AI consensus

Data: Yahoo Finance; Chart: Axios Visuals DeepSeek — the Chinese AI firm that sent U.S. tech stocks plummeting today — wiped out nearly $600 billion in value from chipmaker Nvidia, according to Bloomberg. It could be an extinction-level event for venture capital firms that went all in on some of the biggest American AI developers, Axios' Dan Primack writes. The big picture: DeepSeek appears to have built AI models that rival OpenAI, while allegedly using much less money, chips and energy. It has upended the consensus that the U.S. was far ahead in the AI race. 📉 The latest: The Nasdaq was down 3% today. Nvidia's share price plummeted by 17%, as investors grappled with the possibility that advanced AI models may not require Nvidia's chips after all. 💰 Between the lines: Venture capital firms poured truly unheard-of sums into American AI companies — all based on what might suddenly be a stale thesis. Investors Axios spoke to over the weekend aren't panicking. But they're clearly concerned. Don't be surprised if some deals are paused. 🥊 Reality check: There's still a ton we don't know about DeepSeek, including if it really spent as little money as it claims. Get the latest.

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☕️ Trouble brewing

Data: Yahoo Finance. Chart: Axios Visuals Coffee futures touched a new all-time high yesterday, foreshadowing significant retail pain in the months ahead. Leading producer Brazil is coming off a bad crop. 🥓 Yes, but: Pork bellies are well off the record highs they hit in the summer of 2021. So even if coffee and eggs are out of reach, at least you can keep bacon on the breakfast menu.

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🤠 NYSE coming to Texas

Illustration: Lindsey Bailey/Axios

The New York Stock Exchange is announcing plans to launch an equities exchange in Dallas, Axios' Nathan Bomey writes. Why it matters: The move comes amid growing interest from corporate America in the Lone Star State, viewing it as business-friendly. The NYSE, part of the Intercontinental Exchange, said NYSE Chicago will reincorporate in Texas and be renamed NYSE Texas. A rival effort to launch a stock exchange in Texas, known as TXSE, has raised $161 million in capital and landed investments from the likes of BlackRock, Citadel Securities and Charles Schwab. Keep reading.

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How tariffs are forecast to affect US stocks

Financial markets have whipsawed amid tariff negotiations between the US and its major trade partners. If the US implements sustained taxes on exports similar to those that have recently been proposed, it would likely cut S&P 500 Index earnings per share by 2-3%, according to Goldman Sachs Research.

https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/articles/how-tariffs-are-forecast-to-affect-us-stocks?

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🤖 Charted: Nvidia's streak continues

Chart: Axios Visuals The stock market's AI party can keep going, at least for another few months, Axios' Scott Rosenberg and Nathan Bomey write. Why it matters: That was the immediate reaction to Nvidia's earnings report yesterday, which topped analyst expectations, and continued an extraordinary run of revenue growth for the chip giant. Go deeper: Nvidia tops earnings expectations on revenue and profit. 💡Wall Street Journal "Heard on the Street" column: "Nvidia Is Far From Running Out of Road ... New Blackwell chip is off to a roaring start, while hit to profit margins should be short-lived" (gift link).

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🏦 Tariffs spook stock market

Data: Financial Modeling Prep. Chart: Axios Visuals Stocks fell today as markets reacted to President Trump's pledge that long-threatened tariffs on Canada and Mexico, as well as increased levies on China, will go into effect tomorrow. The tariffs are expected to trigger a trade war with the three largest U.S. trading partners, which could raise prices for American consumers on a broad range of products, Axios' Ben Berkowitz writes. 💬 "No room left for Mexico or for Canada," Trump said in remarks at the White House. Dow falls by almost 700 points after Trump’s tariffs threaten a dangerous trade war US stocks whipsawed Tuesday after President Donald Trump made good on his threat to levy tariffs on Canada and Mexico, paving the way for a global trade war as leaders of both trading partners threatened retaliation. https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/04/economy/global-markets-trump-tariffs/index.html?

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Stock market

US stocks slid Thursday as investors continue to grapple with further uncertainty from President Donald Trump's tariffs. All three major indexes closed lower, despite Trump announcing a nearly one-month tariff delay on products from Mexico and Canada. Since Trump took office, the Nasdaq has fallen more than 7% and the S&P 500 is down more than 4%. Meanwhile, Tesla shares are down around 40% from their December peak, giving up 96% of that post-election bump. Analysts say the drop in share price probably reflects the concern that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been a much more visible — and polarizing — figure in the Trump administration.

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Stock market plunge

US stocks plunged, bitcoin stumbled and Wall Street’s fear gauge hit its highest level this year as concerns about President Donald Trump’s economic policy led to a widespread market selloff on Monday. Stock markets across Asia sank today following mounting fears of a serious economic downturn in the world’s largest economy. US stocks slid throughout Monday and, despite a brief afternoon rally, closed in the red. The Dow closed lower by 890 points, or 2.08%, pulling back from a loss of more than 1,100 points at one point. The widespread selloff was mostly driven by anxiety about the impact of Trump’s tariffs. When asked on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo” if he was expecting a recession this year, Trump said “I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition because what we’re doing is very big.” Trump’s apparent acknowledgment that his policies, including tariffs, could cause a period of “transition” for the economy appeared to indicate that short-term pain is in the offing and that he is prepared for a country weary of high prices for groceries and housing to endure it. 

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CHART OF THE DAY

 

A tale of two presidencies. (Source: Nick Timiraos/ The Wall Street Journal)

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4. 📉 The S&P 500 entered correction territory today, closing more than 10% below the all-time high the index hit in mid-February. Go deeper.

Data: Financial Modeling Prep; Chart: Axios Visuals

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💰 Bessent market math

Data: Gateway Financial Advisors. Table: Axios Visuals Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent broke with orthodoxy yesterday when he said corrections in stocks were "healthy" and an antidote to "euphoric" market action, Axios' Ben Berkowitz writes. The big picture: Over the long run, he's not necessarily wrong. Bessent told Kristen Welker on NBC's "Meet the Press": "I've been in the investment business for 35 years. And I can tell you that corrections are healthy. They're normal. What's not healthy is straight-up — that is, euphoric markets. That's how you get a financial crisis." "It would have been healthier if someone had put the brakes on in '06-'07. We wouldn't have had the problems in '08. So, I'm not worried about the markets. Over the long term, if we put good tax policy in place, deregulation, and energy security, the markets will do great." (Full transcript) Zoom in: Corrections, or a 10% decline in the market from its recent peak, are pretty common. They've happened dozens of times in the S&P 500 in recent decades, most recently starting last Thursday. 🧮 By the numbers: In a correction, on average the market takes five months to fall from peak to bottom, and then four months to bounce back, according to Clearnomics data shared by Covenant Wealth Advisors. After that, markets tend to rise strongly. On average, between 1997 and 2020, stocks were up 32% one year after a correction, per data from Gateway Financial Advisors. Reality check: Past performance is no guarantee of future results.