Staff Reports
Wall Street is throwing a tantrum this Monday, and the reason is as familiar as it is frustrating: fears of a slowing U.S. economy. Early trading reports show the S&P 500 taking a nosedive of 4% right out of the gate. Honestly, it’s hard not to chuckle while imagining the investors’ faces as they watch their portfolios shrink faster than a balmy day in January. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted by a staggering 1,197 points—yep, you read that right, that’s 3% gone before 9:35 a.m. And over in the tech-heavy Nasdaq, the market experienced a glorious plunge of 5.5%, firmly knocking it 15% below last month’s peak. Meanwhile, Japan’s Nikkei 225 joined the party with a cringe-worthy 12.4% drop, the worst since that infamous Black Monday back in 1987.
Fox Business essentially reported this is what it looks like when the market freezes in terror. Changing gears from potato chips to panic, some of the biggest tech giants have felt the sting of this economic whip early on. Names like Nvidia, Meta, and Apple are seeing their stocks slide down the proverbial slippery slope, each losing about 6% of their market capitalization just before the coffee breaks.
JUST IN: The NASDAQ hits a record, down 1000 points on the day, something that has never been done before.
“Never been down a thousand points ever. Not even intraday on the NASDAQ,” Fox News reported on Monday.
The development comes as investors are fearful of a… pic.twitter.com/Y03HqDjqEK
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) August 5, 2024
Adding salt to the wound, Apple is still dealing with the shock of billionaire investor Warren Buffett deciding to cut his stake in the tech behemoth by a hefty 50%. To top it all off, the Oracle of Omaha also dumped $3 billion worth of shares in Bank of America last week. It seems Buffett is as concerned about this economy as the average American and with good reason.
The crypto market didn’t escape scrutiny either. Monday’s market meltdown scrapped over 17% off Bitcoin’s value and a staggering 21% drop in Ethereum. In total, the global digital currency market felt like it was in the midst of an apocalypse, losing around $1.79 trillion from its overall market capitalization in a short 24-hour rollercoaster. Maybe they should’ve been paying attention to those inflation signs, too, instead of just riding the crypto wave.
It’s worth pondering that just last week, President Joe Biden proudly declared he had effectively “cured” the economy. The irony drips like syrup when looking at the chaos unfolding now. With recession buzzing like an annoying fly, one can’t help but wonder if this is what four more years of the Harris-Biden administration would look like. Spoiler alert: It doesn’t look good. The Democrats have been jubilantly boasting about economic success while ignoring the ticking economic time bomb that is inflation. Holding them accountable for the coming hardships is crucial because, let’s face it, someone has to pay for their lack of economic acumen—and that someone is all of us.
