Markets
Luke Kawa
3/31/25

S&P 500 turns massive losses into solid gain

It was shaping up just like Thursday and Friday — a tumble in AI darlings leading the market down — until it wasn’t.

The S&P 500 was down more than 1.5%, yet managed to recover those losses and then some, gaining 0.6%. The Nasdaq 100 nearly erased a loss of 2.5% to finish effectively flat. The Russell 2000 ended down 0.6%.

Even so, there was a defensive tinge to the tape on Monday. Consumer staples was the best-performing S&P 500 sector ETF (and other traditionally defensive sectors performed well), but financials weren’t too far behind in second place. Tech was the laggard, though all sector ETFs advanced.

Apple was a relative standout in the tech space, booking a solid gain amid reports of some sales success in China.

Moderna was the worst performer in the S&P 500 following the resignation of the FDA’s top vaccine regulator.

Fresh off the heels of its announced acquisition of Redfin, Rocket Cos is at it again, with the mortgage giant unveiling plans to buy the US’s largest mortgage servicing company, Mr. Cooper, in an all-stock deal.

Energy drink maker Celsius received an upgrade to “buy” from “hold” by Truist, sending shares sharply higher.

The announcement by MARA Holdings that it would issue stock to buy bitcoin was not warmly received by traders, and the shares slumped despite a rally in bitcoin.

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Tesla jumps after Elon Musk discloses buying 2.57 million shares, worth more than $1 billion

Tesla soared in early trading on Monday after CEO Elon Musk disclosed a purchase of 2.57 million shares in the company, according to a new SEC filing.

Per the filing, the "Elon Musk Revocable Trust,” for which the Tesla and SpaceX chief is the trustee, reported acquiring 2.57 million shares, taking its total ownership to 413.36 million shares as of September 12, 2025. The block of equity was bought at prices ranging from $371.38 to $396.54.

Earlier this month, the board of directors proposed an eye-watering pay package that could award the tech billionaire up to $1 trillion, assuming that very ambitious market cap and fundamental milestones are met.

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Hims & Hers falls after FDA commissioner says its Super Bowl ad breached regulations

Hims & Hers is falling in premarket trading after its Super Bowl ad from February was singled out as the “most overt” example of “brazen” marketing tactics among online pharmacies by FDA Commissioner Marty Makary.

The claim, made in an opinion piece written by Makary and published in the JAMA Network on Friday, highlighted the agency’s stricter enforcement policies on pharmaceutical advertisements.

“Equally brazen, online pharmacies are advertising drugs with only upsides mentioned, contributing to America’s culture of overreliance on pharmaceuticals for health,” wrote Makary. “This breach of FDA regulation was most overt earlier this year when Hims & Hers ran a Super Bowl ad highlighting the benefits of glucagon-like peptide-1 drugs without any mention of side effects or disclaimers.”

Hims’ Super Bowl ad touted its direct-to-consumer weight loss medications as “life-changing,” “affordable,” and “doctor-trusted,” billing its approach as “the future of healthcare.”

Google searches for the company spiked after the ad appeared during The Big Game.

Last week, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to crack down on TV drug ads. It was initially unclear whether that order applied to telehealth companies.

Compounded drugs aren’t subject to the same regulatory burdens over their advertisements as branded, FDA-approved drugs made by pharmaceutical companies. For example, Hims can advertise generic Prozac for climax control (an off-label use) while the company that made the drug, Eli Lilly, cannot.

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Nvidia falls after Chinese regulator said it violated the country’s antitrust laws in 2020 deal

Nvidia dropped as much as 2.9% in early trading on Monday after China's State Administration for Market Regulation ruled that the chipmaker violated the country's antitrust laws after acquiring Mellanox Technologies, an Israeli-American network solutions supplier.

In 2020, Beijing approved Nvidia's ~$7 billion acquisition under the condition that the chipmaker would not discriminate against Chinese companies. Since then, Nvidia has had to redesign its chips to comply with the US government's regulations that temporarily banned the company from selling its advanced chips, including the H100.

Monday's preliminary finding from the SAMR comes amidst ongoing trade talks between US and Chinese officials in Madrid, with the tariff truce between the world's two largest economies set to expire in November.

As Sherwood’s Luke Kawa noted in August, China has appeared determined to “wean itself off of any dependence on Nvidia and US technology to develop its AI capabilities.”

According to Reuters, under Chinese antitrust law, companies can “face fines of between 1% and 10% of their annual sales from the previous year.” Nvidia’s sales in China generated $17.1 billion of revenue in its most recent fiscal year. Assuming the maximum penalty, the impact would be ~$1.7 billion, less than 1% of Wall Street’s forecast for Nvidia’s total revenue this fiscal year.

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Rocket lab soars to new record close amid rally for retail faves

Rocket Lab ripped by roughly 10% Friday to close at a new all-time high, riding an upturn of retail enthusiasm for a coterie of tech-themed favorites, even as the broader market was more or less flat on the day.

Goldman Sachs’ basket of “retail favorites” — its heaviest weights are Reddit, AppLovin, and Tempus AI — was the second-biggest gainer among the company’s flagship US equity baskets on Friday, rising about 1.6%. The S&P was almost dead flat.

It’s not Rocket Lab’s first retail rodeo, as the money-losing company has more than doubled this year and is up nearly 700% over the last 12 months.

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