The Nasdaq has posted its worst week since the start of the pandemic, wiping billions from the wealth of tech billionaires, and Bitcoin is down nearly half from its peak level.
The sell-off comes as investors try to decrease risk ahead of a key Federal Reserve policy meeting next week, amid fears over how aggressively the central bank will move to raise interest rates.
But for some it marked the early sign of a markets doomsday. British investor Jeremy Grantham, a notorious life-long bear who persistently declares corrections are imminent, this week claimed that the US is in an asset ‘superbubble’ that will soon collapse spectacularly.
With investors expecting the Fed to begin raising rates as soon as its March policy meeting, shares in pricey tech companies and other expensive growth stocks have started to look relatively less attractive.
Telsa CEO Elon Musk saw his net worth drop $25.1 billion, or more than 9 percent, on the week as a sell-off in the tech sector sent the Nasdaq to its worst week since the pandemic onset
The tech-heavy Nasdaq is down 14.3 percent from the record high set on November 19, and has fallen for four straight weeks and is now more than 10 percent below its most recent high, putting it in what Wall Street considers a market correction.
And the benchmark S&P 500 has now slipped three straight weeks to start the year.
It fell 5.7 percent this week, its worst weekly decline since March of 2020 when the pandemic sent stocks into a bear market.
‘As always, once the volatility starts, investors pile on exacerbating the downward volatility,’ said Nancy Tengler, CEO of Laffer Tengler Investments.
The tech sell-off has hit the nation’s top tech billionaires hard, with Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg losing a collective $67 billion in the past week.
Telsa CEO Musk took the biggest hit, with his net worth dropping $25.1 billion, or more than 9 percent, on the week, according to the Bloomberg…
