No way to sugarcoat what happened to stocks last week. A rebound that set in on Feb. 14 and lasted eight days abruptly stopped and tipped as tariffs worries retook Wall Street.
The market snapshot gets more concerning.
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The Standard & Poor’s 500 and Nasdaq Composite indexes have each fallen in seven weeks of the last nine.
Twice so far in March, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen more than 700 points in a day. The last time that’s happened was in the spring of 2022. The catalyst: The post-Covid inflation bubble burst into a real problem.
Related: Analyst reboots Tesla stock price target ahead of deliveries
But at least it’s not March 2020 when the Dow fell or rose more than 1,000 points on eleven out of 22 trading days. But that was because of that ugly pandemic.
Which brings us to the week ahead where there are only a few reports of consequence but two important economic events:
The unemployment report for March due Friday. This will offer a first look at how government payroll cuts under Elon Musk’s direction are affecting overall joblessness. It will be not be a complete picture but a sudden uptick will unnerve skittish investors. First up, however, is the Trump Administration’s announcements on reciprocal tariffs, reportedly due Wednesday. This is the event that has Wall Street and much of American business, on edge.
If the tariffs numbers are big, there will certainly be retaliation by just about all nations affected. And financial markets will react, maybe not at first, but within a few days.
Related: Trump auto tariff: a ‘hurricane-like headwind’
Analysts are starting to trim their year-end targets
After that, it depends on who is doing the talking. Many financial writers and analysts have been trimming their S&P 500 year-end targets. Barclays trimmed its target to 5,900 from 6,600. Yardeni Research recently dropped their target to 6,400 from 7,000.
Still, a FactSet survey of analysts, released Friday, showed there is still a great deal of optimism about how the market will look after the tariff storm dissipates.
More Wall Street Analysts:
Analysts revisit Apple stock price targets as Cook courts BeijingAnalysts retool Southwest Air stock price targets on cost-cuttingAnalyst reboots Delta, American, Alaska Air price targets on uncertainty
In the aggregate, they see the S&P 500 index up 21.3% over the next 12 months. Perhaps not surprising, tech analysts are the most bullish, seeing a 30% gain over that time frame. Consumer staples analysts are less optimistic but were projecting an 11.1% gain.
A caveat: FactSet collected its data as of Thursday, a day ahead of the big selloff that saw the S&P 500 fall 2%, the Nasdaq slump 2.7% and the Dow slid 1.7%.
There was one initial public offering last week, and it didn’t go well: Coreweave (CRWV).
The size of the offering had to be trimmed because the financials didn’t impress. So, it went public at $40, when projections were for $45 to $57. Worse, the stock opened Friday afternoon at $40 and closed at $40.
A floor trader glumly works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange during Friday’s market tumble.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Where some stocks showed some strength
Just one of 11 S&P 500 sectors was positive at Friday’s close: utilities.
Reason: While maybe not sexy, their businesses are stable, and most utilities pay dividends. Five utility stocks were among the S&P’s top 10 performers Friday:
American Water Works (AWK) , up 2.2%.American Electric Power (AEP) , up 1.7%.Centerpoint Energy (CNP) , up 1.6%.Edison International (EIX) , up 1.55%PPL Corp. (PPL) , up 2.1%.
Related: Oh no! Gasoline prices are moving higher
If there’s more volatility next week, you’ll see stocks like these at least holding their own.
The losing sectors on the day were:
Technology Sector, down 2.4%. Includes Apple (AAPL) , Microsoft (MSFT) and Nvidia (NVDA) .Communication Services Sector, down 3.8%, Includes Google-parent Alphabet (GOOGL) ; Facebook parent Meta Platforms (META) . Consumer Discretionary Sector, down 3.3%. Includes Amazon.com (AMZN) , Tesla (TSLA) , Ford Motor Co. (F) and General Motors (GM) .
The three sectors have been also been 2025’s weakest S&P 500 performers. They led the index in 2024.
Who’s on top as first quarter ends
But it has been a weak month in the aggregate for the index. Just 126 S&P 500 stocks are higher on a price basis only in March through Friday.
Military shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) is the S&P 500 leader, up 16.9%.
Delta Air Lines (DAL) is the biggest decliner, down 27.1% after warning that bookings have been falling off this spring.
Related: Veteran fund manager unveils eye-popping S&P 500 forecast
