On Thursday, Nasdaq (QQQ) dropped by 2.78%. Bulls thought that the index found support at near 19,000 at noon. However, the stock selling accelerated throughout the afternoon. The sellers spared neither the Dow Jones nor the S&P 500 (SPY).
Nvidia’s (NVDA) strong revenue growth failed to meet the market’s expectations for more. NVDA stock dropped by 8.48% on the day, taking the market capitalization below the magical $3 trillion. Apple (AAPL) retook the most valuable company title with a $3.565 trillion market capitalization. Tech investors should ignore those figures since Apple is a low-growth giant that trades at a 37.7 times price-to-earnings ratio. It is relying on inexpensive iPhone 16e devices to increase unit sales.
Consumers are strapped for cash. Sentiment is worsening as weekly jobless claims rose. This increased by 22,000 to 242,000. This is the largest increase in five months. It increased as the government started cutting Federal jobs. Still, economists blamed the extreme winter weather for the rise in initial claims.
Expect the job market to worsen in the months ahead. DOGE, or Department of Government Efficiency, run by billionaire Elon Musk, could see more cuts ahead. Reuters reported that chief economist Joseph Brusuelas at RSM US expects federal employee job cuts of up to 300,000.
Watch out for Tesla (TSLA), Broadcom (AVGO), AMD (AMD), Qualcomm (QCOM), and Oracle (ORCL). The weak tech sector would push those leading stocks lower.
