The stock market descended into chaos on Friday, with the major indexes taking a severe beating as a tornado of worrisome forces slammed into investors. Rampant inflation anxieties, disappointing earnings from heavyweight banks, and an increasingly combustible geopolitical situation in the Middle East formed a perfect storm that left equities reeling.
By midday, the iconic Dow Jones Industrial Average had surrendered over 1% in a dizzying downdraft. The S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq indexes found themselves in similarly dire straits, both plunging around 1% as the selling indiscriminately mowed down stocks across sectors.
Leading the charge lower was JPMorgan Chase, the colossus of American banking. Despite trumpeting profits and revenues that cleared the low bars set by analysts, JPMorgan’s shares went into an utter freefall, plummeting over 4%. The culprit? A underwhelming performance on the crucial metric of net interest income, followed by a worrying forecast that this key number may see barely any uplift this year.
“While the headline numbers looked solid, JPMorgan’s interest income shortfall and lukewarm outlook took the air out of the stock,” said King Lip at Baker Douglass. “With banks serving as the proverbial canary for the economy, investors saw JPMorgan’s results as an ominous sign of harder times ahead.”
JPMorgan wasn’t alone in catching investors’ ire. Even the mighty asset manager BlackRock, which eclipsed forecasts and corralled a staggering $10.5 trillion into its portfolios, saw its shares ditch over 2% in value.
The rout raged on in the chip arena, with semiconductor titans Intel and AMD both crumbling upwards of 3% on reports that China has ordered its massive state telecom firms to swear off using foreign-made semiconductors amid intensifying US-China tensions.
Meanwhile, allegations that arthritis medications produced by Zoetis may be rendering man’s best friend seriously ill sent the animal health firm’s stock into a near 5% nose-dive.
Amid the carnage, a few sectors managed to eke out gains as the specter of intractable inflation boosted demand for hedges. A record-smashing surge in gold that launched prices beyond $2,400 an ounce powered Newmont Mining and peers to higher ground. Likewise, escalating Middle East tensions stoked a 2%+ spike in crude, fueling rallies for Occidental Petroleum and other energy players.
But these pockets of resilience did little to soothe the queasiness gripping the broader markets. As volatility expert Tyler Gelinas at ACV Advisors bluntly put it, “This whipsaw action reflects the angst hanging over the economy’s murky direction. Until the fog clears, investors should brace for more roller-coaster sessions.”
