TheDrop Market Analysis, 04/18/25

Markets saw mixed reactions as investors hand-picked their own tickers to buy, and news became as volatile as ever.

The S&P 500 index rose by 0.1%, the sole outlier of the day. Meanwhile, the Dow fell 1.3% and the Nasdaq fell 0.1%. Yet, the smaller but still significant Russell 2000 index rose 0.9%, indicating how investors primarily chose smaller companies over large companies today.

Due to tariff news, stocks were destined to fall, but due to recent streaks of bear market after bear market, undervaluation halted many of these stocks' shortcomings. This is not to say that some stocks did manage to fall today, just that the majority were at the mercy of natural market correction. In addition, some investors were triggered by Trump's war against Fed chair Jerome Powell, who wields significant power over the direction of the stock market. Quite surprisingly, we have not seen that major of a shift that shows that investors deeply care about this kerfuffle.

However, there were many isolated news stories that set different industries going alternate directions. A merger deal between Capital One and Discover saw some investors pour into the finance market; however, Tesla's delaying of its newest EV models has set the stock falling. In addition, United Healthcare's recent earnings report, which showed a drastic underperformance, set the stock down yet another cycle of the bear, reminiscing the initial Luigi Mangione incident for the company.

The Magnificent 7 generally performed sub-optimally; while Apple did rise by over 1%, Microsoft (1%), Google (1.4%), Nvidia (2.9%), and Meta (0.2%) all suffered in share price.