US Stocks Tumble, Magnificent 7 Wipe Out $570 Billion As Mega-Tech Earnings Disappoint, VIX Spikes: What's Driving Markets Wednesday?

Wall Street experienced a turbulent session on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 index heading toward its worst performance in over a year and the tech-focused Nasdaq 100 eyeing its fifth decline in the last six sessions.

The Magnificent Seven group — Microsoft Corp. MSFT, Apple Inc. AAPL, NVIDIA Corp., Alphabet Inc., Amazon Inc. AMZN, Meta Platforms Inc. META and Tesla, Inc. — wiped out over $570 billion in their combined market valuation by midday trading in New York. The Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF MAGS fell 4.9%, marking the worst daily performance since the fund’s inception last year.

Tesla shares plummeted over 11% after missing earnings expectations, with revenue dropping 7% year-over-year to $19.9 billion. This marks its second consecutive quarter of year-over-year sales declines and the first sequential decline in quarterly sales volume.

Despite posting stronger-than-expected numbers, Alphabet also saw a significant drop, falling 5%, weighed down by its YouTube advertising revenue, which failed to meet analyst expectations.

The Nasdaq 100 fell 3%, eyeing a similar decline to the one witnessed a week ago. The drop in tech companies also impacted the chipmaker industry, which heavily depends on AI-related investments from mega-cap tech giants. The iShares Semiconductor ETF SOXX fell 3.3%, approaching its lowest close since early June.

The CBOE Volatility Index or VIX, commonly referred to as the market fear index, rallied 16% to 17 points.

On the macro front, flash PMI surveys revealed the strongest pace of growth for the services sector in 28 months, while manufacturing activity returned to contraction in July.

Treasury yields fell, sending a trade-weighted U.S. dollar gauge down 0.3%. Notably, the dollar fell 1.4% against the Japanese yen, eyeing levels last seen in early May.

Gold showed its resilience against market turbulence, rising 0.6%. Bitcoin BTC/USD rose 0.4%.

Wednesday’s Performance In Major US Indices, ETFs

Major Indices	Price	1-day %chg
Russell 2000	2,242.07	-0.3%
Dow Jones	40,045.39	-0.8%
S&P 500	5,461.51	-1.7%
Nasdaq 100	19,171.24	-3.0%

According to Benzinga Pro data:

• The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY was 1.8% down to $543.94.
• The SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average DIA edged down 0.8% to $400.13.
• The tech-heavy Invesco QQQ Trust (ARCA: QQQ) fell 3% to $466.46.
• Sector-wise, the Utilities Select Sector SPDR Fund XLU outperformed, up by 1.3%, while the Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund XLK and the Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR Fund XLY lagged, both down 3.2%.

Wednesday’s Stock Movers

Stocks moving on earnings were:

• Visa Inc. V, down over 4%.
• Texas Instruments Inc. TXN up 0.6%.
• Chubb Ltd. CB, down 0.4%.
• Capital One Financial Corp. COF, up 2.3%.
• Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. TMO up 3.2%.
• AT&T Inc. T up 5.4%.
• Boston Scientific Corporation BSX down 2%.
• Fiserv Inc. FI up 2.2%.
• CME Group Inc. CME up 0.8%,
• General Dynamics Corporation GD down 4%.
• Roper Technologies Inc. ROP down 9%.
• Old Dominion Freight Line, Inc. ODFL up 2.9%.
• GE Vernova Inc. GEV up 0.7%.
• Vertiv Holdings Inc. VRT down 9%.
• Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. CHKP up 7%.

Those reporting after the close include:

• International Business Machines Corporation IBM
• ServiceNow, Inc. NOW ORLY)
• KLA Corp. KLAC
• Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. CMG
• Republic Services Inc. RSG
• Newmont Corp. NEM
• Edwards Lifesciences Corporation EW
• Ford Motor Co. F
• Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings Inc. KNX
• Las Vegas Sands Corp. LVS
• Meritage Homes Corporation MTH
• Whirlpool Corporation WHR
• O’Reilly Automotive, Inc. ORLY.

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