A Selling Climax?

A Selling Climax?

Panic selling and billions lost. Stocks moved higher until Thursday morning when Fed Chair Powell remarked "I would say 50 basis points will be on the table for the May meeting." Most thought that this was already clear from his past comments, but the markets were not, as the stock market reversed to the downside. The S&P 500 went from being up 1% to closing down 1. 5% as interest rates soared. The 36. 8% decline in Netflix NFLX (NFLX) stock that started after it reported earnings on Tuesday did not help boost investor sentiment. The real earnings test will come this week when 180 of the S&P 500 stocks report earnings including Apple AAPL Inc. (AAPL), Microsoft MSFT (MSFT), Amazon. com (AMZN), and Alphabet (GOOGL). The Nasdaq 100 was under the most pressure again last week as it closed down 3. 9% followed by a 3. 2% decline in the iShares Russell 2000. The S&P 500 dropped 2. 8% for the week after being up 1. 6% as of Wednesday's close. This was the third weekly decline in a row. All three are down double digits year-to-date (YTD). The Dow Jones Industrial and Dow Jones Utility Average were down