Major U.S. stock indexes sank on Monday after U.S. President Donald Trump declined to predict whether his tariff policies could lead to a recession, roiling investor sentiment.
The Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) slumped almost 4% after moving into a correction last week. The S&P 500 slid 2%, and the index is now about 8% down from its all-time high from February 19.
Below are investor and analyst comments about the selloff.
ROSS MAYFIELD, INVESTMENT STRATEGIST, BAIRD, LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY
"The Trump administration seems a little more accepting of the idea that they're OK with the market falling, and they're potentially even OK with a recession in order to exact their broader goals. I think that's a big wake-up call for Wall Street. There had been a sense that President Trump kind of measured his success on stock market performance, there was even somewhat of a 'Trump put' so to speak, and I think we're seeing that's not the case, so the market is starting to reflect that reality."
"(Tech stocks have) very extended valuations trading at pretty big premiums to the broader market. So you're bound to have some air pockets, and technically they don't look great. There could be more weakness to come over the near term, but I would definitely be buying these high quality growth companies on the dip."
"One place we're having to revisit is my preference for US (stocks) over international. The pressure that the Trump administration is putting on foreign governments... has actually, in a lot of cases, resulted in outperformance from those countries (such as) China and Europe. That's a place we're revisiting to decide if we think it's something more structural or just a short term trade."
AYAKO YOSHIOKA, SENIOR INVESTMENT STRATEGIST, WEALTH ENHANCEMENT, LOS ANGELES
"We've seen clearly a big sentiment shift. And part of this is just a result of the momentum that we had seen in many of the growth stocks over the last two years. They're all sort of falling a lot more so than everything else. And a lot of what has worked is not working now. I think there was just a reason to take some chips off the table. The uncertainty going forward clearly keeps people a little bit more nervous about the trajectory of the market path."
ART HOGAN, CHIEF MARKET STRATEGIST, B RILEY WEALTH
"The narrative changes on a daily basis around tariffs--that's what causing all this uncertainty. The damage around markets that has everything to do with sentiment is reflected more in the Nasdaq, because technology stocks are certainly more influenced by risk sentiment. De-risking also tends to take you out of the high beta names which are in the Nasdaq. Today is no different."
CHRIS ZACCARELLI, CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER, NORTHLIGHT ASSET MANAGEMENT, CHARLOTTE, NC
"The NASDAQ has been risk-off all year long. Today isn't anything new from what we've seen for the last couple of weeks, but it is a continuation of what we've been seeing. And so that's just the unfortunate combination of very high valuations which is where we started the year and then increased uncertainty."
THOMAS HAYES, CHAIRMAN AT GREAT HILL CAPITAL LLC
"If you want to know what's going on with the U.S. market, stop paying attention to tariffs and start paying attention to Japanese government bond yields. The carry trade is unwinding, and all that hot money was in Mag 7. So that's why tech is down."
