🎯 Nasdaq-100 down 9.5%

Welcome back to Trendline!

Today’s post is focused on charts highlighting the impact US president Trump’s policies is having on US consumers and investors. Let’s dive in 👇️ 

1) Nasdaq 100 is close to “correction” territory: Trump’s trade war and government layoffs is having its effect on the US stock market. Nasdaq 100 (Ticker: QQQ) has suffered -9.5% drawdown while S&P 500 (Ticker: SPY) has dropped -6.5% from its peak, as of Mar 6, 2025.

Note: -10% drop in prices is considered a correction. Nasdaq 100 is the index consisting of the 100 most valuable companies listed on Nasdaq stock exchange.

2) Investors in US are worried about more losses: Investors hate uncertainty and Trump’s back-n-forth on tariff policies isn’t helping. Investors are protecting their downside by buying S&P 500 put options in record volumes (PS: If you don’t know what put options are, read here)

3) US consumers are putting off their spending plans: “The biggest downside risk is that policy uncertainty could create a sudden stop in the economy where consumers stop buying cars, stop going to restaurants, and stop going on vacation, and companies stop hiring and stop doing capex”

4) More than 172,000 people were laid off in Feb: Government cut the most jobs in Feb - 62.2k, followed by the Retail and Tech industry. If you are interested in seeing which govt department has laid off the most employees, head over to this link.

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5) Big Tech stocks have taken a big beating: The drawdown has impacted different sectors and stocks differently. While Big Tech stocks are down a lot YTD (e.g. Nvidia -17.6%, Tesla -34.7%), some Healthcare stocks (e.g. Eli Lilly +18.2%, JnJ +14.6%) and consumer staples stocks are doing well (e.g. Costco +12.4%)

The heat map below shows YTD performance of S&P 500 stocks as of Thurs Mar 6, 2025. Some interesting buying opportunities below.