🧠 Consumer and homebuilder sentiment drops amidst high rates, tariffs and inflation

🌎 Financial News

• Inflation 💸 'Stagflation' fears haunt US markets despite Trump's pro-growth agenda – Reuters: Even as markets remain upbeat on his pro-growth agenda, stubborn inflation and the Trump administration's hard-line trade policies have rekindled similar fears of stagflation – the worrying mix of sluggish growth and relentless inflation – that haunted the US in the 1970s.

• Consumer Sentiment 🛍 Consumer Sentiment Drops 9.8% Amid Fears of ‘Tariff-Induced Price Increases’ – PYPMNTS: Consumer sentiment in February drove -9.8% month-over-month and -15.9% year-over-year declines, over concerns that tariffs will lead to higher prices.

• Homebuilder Sentiment 🏡 Homebuilders Near S&P 500 Bottom on High Rates and Tariff Fears – Bloomberg via Yahoo! Finance: Investors are ditching US homebuilder stocks as elevated borrowing costs bruise the industry’s prospects and signal that the shares may have further to fall.

📊 Markets & ETFs

• United States 💵 Dow drops 700 points as investors dump stocks on worries over the state of the U.S. economy – CNBC: Stocks sold off on Friday as new U.S. data sparked fear among investors over the state of the U.S. economy, leading them in a search for safer assets.

• Europe 💶 European defense stocks rise as leaders look at spending boost – Reuters: European governments faced pressure to hike military spending following calls from Washington ahead of talks between the U.S. and Russia on a possible Ukraine peace deal.

• Asia 💴 China tech stocks cap best winning run in five years on earnings surprises, fund rotation – Reuters: Chinese tech stocks listed in Hong Kong advanced on Friday for their best weekly winning streak since 2020, as earnings surprises and optimism about the artificial intelligence sector drew global investors rotating funds into the sector.

• Index ETFs 🏰 VOO Overtakes SPY as World’s Largest ETF – ETF.com: With $631.8B assets under management, Vanguard’s S&P 500 ETF has taken the top position from State Street Global Advisors SPDR (SPY), the oldest US ETF and industry bellwether since its 1993 introduction.

 📈 Stocks

• $UNH 🩺 UnitedHealth tumbles 9% on WSJ report the DOJ is investigating Medicare billing practices – CNBC: Shares tumbled after the Wall Street Journal reported that the medical insurer is under a Justice Department investigation to evaluate Medicare billing protocols.

• $WMT 🛒 Walmart shares drop as retailer says profit growth will slow – Yahoo! Finance: The retailer topped earnings and revenue estimates following strong gains in e-commerce and memberships, but said its profit growth will slow in 2025. Still, CFO, John David Rainey, said the company wouldn’t be “immune” from looming tariffs on Mexico and Canada.

• $TOL 🏠 Builders fall as Toll Brothers sees rates crushing demand – Yahoo! Finance: Toll Brothers’ earnings, soft forecast spark broad selloff, as analysts urge caution on the rate-sensitive group ahead.

• $LUV ❤️ Southwest Airlines's 15% of corporate layoffs dent its worker-first culture – Rueters: The first company-wide layoffs in the airline’s nearly 54-year history are aimed at shoring up profits, but they run the risk of undermining a company culture of putting employees first that made it stand out from rivals and cultivated a loyal fan base.

• $NVO 💊 FDA says shortage of Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Ozempic drugs is resolved – CNBC: The long-running U.S. shortage of Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster weight loss injection Wegovy and diabetes treatment Ozempic is resolved after more than two years.

• 🧠 Upgrade your PortfolioGPT account for an ad-free experience with unlimited daily portfolio generations!

🚀 Magnificent 7

• $NVDA🧇 Jensen Huang says investors got it wrong over DeepSeek stock selloff that wiped $600B from Nvidia – Fortune via Yahoo! Finance: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang addressed the market panic over DeepSeek’s R1 reasoning model. He emphasized that AI will continue to rely on Nvidia’s chips despite concerns that demand could decrease.

• $MSFT 🖥️ Microsoft quantum breakthrough promises to usher in the next era of computing in ‘years, not decades’ – GeekWire: Microsoft says it has developed a new quantum processor based on a novel state of matter, giving it a clear path to achieve quantum computing’s long-term promise of solving some of the world’s most difficult problems.

• $AAPL 📱 Apple unveils cheaper iPhone 16e powerful enough to run AI – CNBC: Apple announced a new, low-cost iPhone model, as the company seeks growth for its most important product category following mixed sales in recent quarters.

• $AMZN 🛒 Amazon surpasses Walmart in revenue for the first time – CNBC: Walmart reported $180.5B in sales during the most recent quarter while Amazon reeled in $187.8B. Walmart still leads the way in annual sales, though Amazon is gaining ground

🚀 Meme Stonks

• $BABA 🚢 China's Alibaba sees revenue surge on back of artificial intelligence, e-commerce – Yahoo! Finance: Chinese e-commerce firm posted its fastest revenue growth in more than a year, beating analyst expectations as it capitalizes on the AI boom in China with its Alibaba Cloud technology offering.

• $HIMS 💊 Shares of Hims & Hers tumble 26% after FDA says semaglutide is no longer in shortage – CNBC: Following the announcement, shares of Hims & Hers Health, which prescribes compounded semaglutide, closed down about 26%.

• $BLOC 💱 Block shares plunge 17%, head for worst day in 5 years after earnings miss – CNBC: Shares of Block plunged on Friday and headed for their worst day since 2020. The sell-off followed fourth-quarter earnings that missed expectations. The company faces increased competition in the point-of-sale market.

• $PLTR 📊 Palantir Falls On CEO Share Sale Plan, Possible DOD Budget Cut – Investor.com: Palantir stock fell early Thursday on news that CEO Alex Karp plans to sell more than $1 billion worth of his shares and that the Pentagon is considering budget cuts over the next five years.

💱 Crypto Currencies

• Crypto Hack ‍💻 Crypto Exchange Bybit Reports Hack, Analysts Estimate $1.5B Loss – PYMNTS: A hacker took control of an ETH cold wallet on the Dubai-based Bybit exchange on Feb. 21, stealing over $1.4B in what analysts are calling the “largest incident ever, not just crypto”.

• $ETH 🔹 Ethereum falters due to massive short positions – Cointelegraph: Bad news is good news as a mixed US employment outlook sends BTC price action back to above $100k.

• NFTs 👾 SEC Drops OpenSea Investigation Easing Pressure on NFT Market – Coindesk: The regulator’s decision comes after Coinbase said the SEC will vote on a deal to abandon its enforcement case against it.

• $COIN 💱 SEC agrees to drop enforcement case against Coinbase – Yahoo! Finance: The SEC has agreed in principle to dismiss its lawsuit against Coinbase, marking a major legal win for the exchange and a turning point for US crypto regulation.

🏖️ Retirement

• Gen Z 🙃 Young traders don’t care if stocks and crypto are in a bubble. They could get a rude awakening.  – Rueters: A new survey found that the majority of active traders are bullish, despite some thinking the market is in a bubble.

• Taxes 🧾 Here’s how IRS layoffs could impact your tax filing and refund this season – CNBC: The IRS staffing reduction could impact millions of taxpayers expected to file returns before April 15. Experts say that while taxpayer service could be impacted, filers can avoid issues by filing a complete, accurate electronic return.

• Inflation Hedges 💸  With tariffs ramping up, TIPS inflation-protected bonds can provide protect against inflation – CNBC: The threat of tariffs on imports is causing some investors to consider increasing their exposure to Treasury inflation-protected securities (issued by the U.S. Treasury) to help buffer their portfolios against inflation. TIPS are inflation-protected bonds that are.

We’ll be back next Saturday morning to recap the week’s financial news.

Thanks to moomoo for sponsoring.

✨ Happy Unprompting,

Rawee
[email protected]

_{PortfolioGPT may earn commission or revenue on some items through the affiliate links in this newsletter.}