Image Source: Pexels

Barring a major turnaround in the final hours of the trading day on Friday, stocks are going to finish the week lower, reversing course after some forward momentum last week.

As of 3:00 p.m. ET on Friday, all of the major indexes were trending lower for the week, fueled by a stock market rout on Friday.

The S&P 500 was down about 109 points, or 1.9%, on Friday, while the Dow Jones sank 736 points, or 1.7%. The Nasdaq took the biggest hit, dropping 470 points on Friday, or 2.6%, while the Russell 2000 plunged about 49 points, or 2.4%.

The catalysts were a hail of bad economic news, as core PCE inflation rose, and consumer sentiment cratered, according to the University of Michigan’s Survey of Consumers. Consumer sentiment was down 11.9% in March, and consumers expect inflation to hit 5% a year from now.

Investors were also jittery about the planned tariffs that are expected to take effect on April 2. Friday saw auto stocks hurt by new tariffs on auto imports and new concerns about retaliatory tariffs from Canada and Europe.

On top of that, a new IPO from AI stock CoreWeave failed to excite investors.  

And this was all just Friday.

Nasdaq drops nearly 3% for the week

For the week, much of the same themes played out, with nervousness about tariffs and sinking consumer confidence taking their toll.

The S&P 500 was on pace to be down for the week, falling about 1.5% as of Friday afternoon to 5,581. It would be the fifth negative week in the last six weeks, after rising slightly last week.

The Nasdaq Composite was off about 2.7% for the week, to around 17,326. This would be the fifth down week in six weeks for the Nasdaq, too, after rising last week.

The Dow Jones was off about 0.9% for the week to around 41,595. It is the third negative week in the last four for the Dow.

Finally, the Russell 2000 ended the week down about 1.7% to about 2.022 – the fifth losing week in the last six.

Tesla bounces back

Most big tech stocks were in the red last week as NVIDIA, Alphabet, and Palantir were all down 6%, Broadcom was off 12%, Arm fell 10%, and Microsoft and Meta each dropped 3%.

But surprisingly, the hardest hit tech stock of them all, Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) was one of the week’s top gainers. Tesla surged 5.3% for the week to $263 per share, and if it weren’t for Friday’ s selloff when it dropped 4%, it would have been much higher. It had gone as high as $291 per share during the week before dropping sharply over the past two days on the auto tariffs news.

Tesla stock is still down 35% YTD and 7% over the past month.

The big winner on the S&P 500 this week was insurance company WR Berkley (NYSE: WRB), which saw its stock rise 12.5%. The stock is now up 21.6% YTD. The catalyst was the news that a Japanese insurer, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance, was taking a 15% stake in the company.

Dollar Tree (Nasdaq: DLTR) also had a good week, rising 8.7%. It is still down 3.1% YTD. Dollar Tree got a lift from a strong earnings report and the news that it was selling the underperforming Family Dollar chain.

More By This Author: