Today, the Nasdaq Composite looked like a V: down more than 4% by lunchtime, closing off just 1%.
Nobody knows exactly why.
Around noon, the AI jitters came back, and traders dumped the highest-beta names—the frothiest, most volatile stuff, like Strategy (MSTR), the leveraged bitcoin vehicle that had popped Monday; AppLovin (APP); the photonics maker Lumentum (LITE).
But the densest cluster was the chipmakers: Marvell, which dropped 10% a day after jumping 10% on news it’s joining the S&P 500, and the rest of what strategist Ben Emons has dubbed the “Parabolic 7,” after a chip index that ran up nearly 100% in a matter of weeks.
Rather than fleeing equities altogether—treasuries barely moved—the market rotated into peanut butter and paint. Smucker jumped double digits; Home Depot and Sherwin-Williams led. Real estate, staples, and utilities finished up: the classic ballast against tech froth.
