Stocks Fall For A Third Week In A Row As Tech Sell-Off Continues

Topline

The market finished lower in volatile trading on Friday, posting a third straight week of losses as investors continued to unload shares of large tech companies.

Tech stocks continued to drag the market lower.

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Key Facts

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.88%, nearly 250 points, on Friday, while the S&P 500 fell 1.12% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.07%.

The major averages posted a third straight week of losses, their longest weekly losing streak in about a year.

Tech stocks again dragged the market lower: Shares of Apple, Amazon and Google-parent Alphabet all fell by over 2%, while Netflix and Facebook lost more than 1%.

Shares of Oracle, which is trying to buy a minority stake in TikTok-parent ByteDance, declined 0.6% after the Trump administration said it would block all TikTok and WeChat downloads in the United States on Sunday.

Market sentiment also took a hit from ongoing uncertainty around the next fiscal stimulus bill from Congress, as Republicans and Democrats are still struggling to agree on the size and provisions of the relief package.

What’s more, there are also rising fears of a second wave of coronavirus cases, much like what appears to be currently happening in Europe, which is facing a “very serious situation” as countries like Spain and France see an alarming rise in new cases of coronavirus, according to the WHO.

Crucial Quote

“The urge to find a fundamental scapegoat is sending people back to usual sources of negativity, including COVID and the Fed, but tech is still the main culprit,” said Adam Crisafulli, founder of Vital Knowledge, in a note. “The tech façade was breached back on 9/3 and the Nasdaq has been trading poorly ever since… there’s still summer excesses in the index that have to be wrung out and given the enormous weighting of that industry, it can’t descend without creating collateral damage.”

Key Background

Friday’s losses followed a volatile session on Thursday, in which tech stocks also struggled and dragged the market lower. Dow fell by 0.5%, the S&P 500 by 0.8% and the Nasdaq by 1.3%.