Bears Prowl Wall Street As Magnificent 7 Tumble; Bitcoin Sinks After Record High: What's Driving Markets Tuesday?

Volatility knocked on the doors of Wall Street on Tuesday, with major indices all in the red during midday trading as mega-cap tech stocks plunged simultaneously.

All the Magnificent Seven names experienced losses. Tesla Inc. TSLA nosedived over 4%, while Apple Inc. (NASDAQ AAPL) shed 2.7%, marking its fifth consecutive session of losses. This decline followed a report indicating a 24% drop in iPhone sales in China during the first six weeks of 2024.

On the data front, signals were mixed. The ISM Services PMI reported a lower-than-expected expansion in February, and factory orders sharply declined in January.

Elsewhere, Bitcoin continued to seize headlines. The largest cryptocurrency surged past all-time highs above $69,000 before plunging by 6% just minutes after reaching the milestone, reflecting some profit-taking behavior among investors.

Meanwhile, Treasury yields experienced a modest downturn as investors pondered the increasing likelihood of Federal Reserve interest rate cuts for the first half of 2024. This ignited gains in long-dated Treasuries, with the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF TLT up 1.2%.

Gold rallied for the fifth consecutive day, reaching an intraday high of $2,141/oz, effectively flirting with the all-time highs reached last December at $2,146.

Tuesday’s Performance In Major US Indices, ETFs

Major Indices	Price	1-Day %Chg
Russell 2000	2,047.85	-0.4%
Dow Jones	38,678.32	-0.8%
S&P 500	5,085.84	-0.9%
Nasdaq 100	17,913.42	-1.7%
CBOE VIX	14.38	6.6%

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY fell 0.9% to $508.02, the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average DIA fell 0.7% to $387.42 and the tech-heavy Invesco QQQ Trust QQQ tumbled 1.7% to $436.45, according to Benzinga Pro data.

The Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund XLE, was the outperformer, up by 1.3%, while the Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund XLK sharply underperformed, down 2.4%.

Tuesday’s Stock Movers

New York Community Bancorp, Inc. NYCB rose 17% after KBW analysts noted plans to sell mortgage-servicing rights, boosting capital to bolster its balance sheet and mitigate potential real estate loan losses.
Target Corp. TGT rose over 12% after better-than-expected quarterly results.
Albemarle Corp. ALB declined by more than 11% following a nearly 7% drop on Tuesday, triggered by the company’s disclosure of plans to raise capital through a $2 billion issuance of depositary shares.
GitLab Inc. GTLB shares tumbled 22.4% to $57.80 after the company issued FY25 earnings guidance below estimates.
Other companies reacting to earnings were Paymentus Holdings, Inc. PAY (up over 24%) and Stitch Fix, Inc. SFIX (down over 19%).
SoFi Technologies Inc. SOFI plummeted over 13% as the fintech company unveiled intentions to offer $750 million of convertible senior notes due in 2029, thereby heightening dilution risks for shareholders.
Nordstrom, Inc. JWN, Ross Stores, Inc. ROST, Box, Inc. BOX, CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. CRWD and ChargePoint Holdings, Inc. CHPT will report after the close.