U.S. tech stocks slid while government bonds advanced as traders unwound bets the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates this year.
The Nasdaq 100 slid for a second day Monday after suffering its worst week since March. Profit-taking in the technology sector continued as some of the year’s hottest names including AI-favorite Nvidia and Facebook-parent company Meta Platforms dipped. Tesla slumped 6.1% after Goldman Sachs joined the list of brokers turning less bullish on the electric-vehicle maker after this year’s blistering rally.
“It makes sense that there should be some pullback early-, intermediate-term given how big this move has been, especially relative to the rest of the investment universe,” said Matt Stucky, senior portfolio manager at Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management.
Traders are finally relenting on their bets that the Fed will cut rates this year after Fed Chair Jerome Powell last week warned the U.S. may need one or two more rate increases in 2023. Investors have been growing more anxious that central banks determined to extinguish inflation will keep pushing rates higher and risk breaking fragile economies.
“Bulls should be happy with flat markets, especially in light of what happened over the weekend,” said Alec Young, chief investment strategist at MAPsignals after markets largely shrugged off the biggest threat to President Vladimir Putin’s almost quarter-century grip on power in Russia. “It continues to be a very data-driven market.”
Russian officials met key partners a day after Yevgeny Prigozhin halted the advance of his Wagner mercenary group toward Moscow. Putin will give a television address to the nation late Monday.
Tom Essaye, a former Merrill Lynch trader who founded “The Sevens Report” newsletter, wrote that the political strife in Russia is likely to have little market impact.
“Looking forward, obviously this injects more geopolitical uncertainty into the world, but as long as commodity prices don’t spike higher, the markets will largely ignore Russian political volatility,” he wrote.
Amid a global bond rally early gains in Treasuries faded with the yield on the policy-sensitive two-year at 4.72%, the 10-year bond was at 3.71%.
“It’s hard to be really positive looking forward because the Fed is trying to engineer a slowdown,” JPMorgan’s Stephanie Roth said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “They’re going to get a slowdown one way or another, and if we don’t get that slowdown, the Fed’s just going to have to keep hiking. So risks remain quite high.”
Oil advanced, with traders alert to the risk that any prolonged turmoil in Russia could reverberate through global crude markets. The country’s war in Ukraine has already upended trade flows, with major consumers in Asia including China boosting imports of Russian energy.
