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Stocks tumble with Nasdaq 100 posting largest weekly loss since April tariff sell-off

Fridays have been the worst day for the S&P 500 since the war began.

The ongoing Mideast war continues to leave investors jittery and unwilling to hold stocks over the weekend.

The S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 all suffered heavy losses on Friday, with the tech-heavy gauge down nearly 2% as front-month West Texas Intermediate futures climbed toward $100 per barrel.

Since the initial US-Israeli strikes against Iran, the final two trading days of the week have been the worst for the S&P 500, with the steepest drops coming on Fridays. Traders have tended to build in a risk premium ahead of the weekend — when they’d be unable to react to any potential escalation in the war — before reversing some of that move at the start of the next week.

Moving higher:

Energy shares continues to benefit from rising crude oil prices, with gas driller APA Corporation, oil field services company Halliburton, and integrated giant Exxon gaining.
Consumer staples stocks such as Campbell’s, Altria, Kraft Heinz, and McCormick rallied as traders flocked to a sector known for relative safety during rough economic periods.
Entergy rose after making a deal with Meta to fund the creation of seven natural gas-fired power plants. The news also boosted other AI-linked utilities plays, including Constellation Energy, Vistra, and NRG.
Argan spiked on a massive Q4 sales beat after reaching “substantial completion” on its Trumbull Energy Center project early.
Unity Software rose following strong Q1 preliminary results and news it will exit its nonstrategic ad business.
Peloton jumped after EMJ Capital’s Eric Jackson said he was long the fitness company at $4.

Moving lower:

Cyber stocks Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike, Cloudflare, Fortinet, Zscaler, and Okta plunged after a leaked document stirred concern that Anthropic’s new model will enable indefensible online attacks.
Crypto, which had shown some resilience to the general market downturn, turned sharply negative on Friday, with bitcoin sinking and altcoins from ethereum to XRP roundly suffering.
Consumer discretionary stocks sank. Cruise lines Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, and Carnival all fell. Less oil-exposed bellwethers like Airbnb, DoorDash, and Starbucks also slipped.
Fundrise Innovation Fund plummeted for the second session in a row amid valuation gap concerns.

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Luke Kawa3h

Peloton spikes after Eric Jackson says he’s long the stock at $4

Peloton jumped to session highs to trade up more than 7% after EMJ Capital’s Eric Jackson said he was long the fitness company at $4.

Jackson has a big following in the retail community after serving as the architect of the parabolic rally in online real estate company Opendoor Technologies from July through September.

His tweet at 11:56 a.m. ET coincided with a spike in the share price as well as volumes traded (which may well imply that algos are geared to buy any stock he comments favorably on). Shares of other companies he’s announced a bullish view on since the Opendoor episode have also seen a massive announcement effect, including Better Home & Finance in September and Nextdoor in December.

All three of those stocks are currently down 50% or more from their 52-week highs.

In a thread on X, Jackson indicated that Peloton screens as very cheap based on how much free cash flow it generates, and he sees recent insider purchases as an important vote of confidence in the company from its management team. In an updated tweet, he noted that what he previously thought were insider purchases were actually options exercises, but said that this had no impact on his outlook.

Correction: the Form 4 filings I referenced were option exercises, not open market purchases. I've updated the full piece. Thanks to @mylesgrote for flagging.

The thesis is unchanged — $345M FCF, 5x multiple, improving churn, Chewy comp. But the insider framing was wrong and I…
— Eric Jackson (@ericjackson) March 27, 2026

Matt Phillips4h

Sandisk bounces off 50-day moving average amid reprieve for memory stocks

Sandisk shares bounced off their 50-day moving average Friday, ending a multiday bloodbath for the stock that sent it down as much as 15% from where it closed last week.

The worst of the slump came as Google Research disclosed details this week of its TurboQuant AI algorithm, which Google said could allow AI language models to operate more efficiently, cutting demand for memory storage at AI data centers.

Sandisk tumbled in response, along with other AI memory trade stocks such as Micron, Western Digital, and Seagate Technology Holdings, which have been some of the market’s top performers this year.

Friday’s reprieve comes as analysts have emphasized the so-called Jevons Paradox implications of the TurboQuant news.

That is, if the Google algorithm lowers the amount of memory required for AI operations, it could make data centers more affordable and cheaper to use, resulting in more investment and thus more sales of memory products over time.

“In this scenario, lower memory requirements could then be offset by higher overall AI adoption and ultimately support inference-led storage demand rather than weaken it,” Citi analysts wrote in a note published Thursday after meeting with Sandisk executives. “This is counter to the initial market reaction, which was instead focused on the short-term view that more efficient AI models would simply reduce memory demand.”

Matt Phillips6h

Trump’s Hormuz deadline delay fails to soothe markets amid signs of US and Iranian escalation

There’s little sign of relief in the markets from President Trump’s announcement yesterday of a 10-day delay of the deadline he imposed on Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Crude oil prices are climbing and stocks are once again slumping, with the S&P 500, Nasdaq Composite, and Russell 2000 small-cap index all in the red early Friday.

Consumer discretionary stocks sank. Cruise lines Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, and Carnival — which cut its profit outlook on climbing fuel costs as part of earnings Friday — are falling. Other bellwethers of discretionary consumer spending that are less oil-exposed, like Airbnb, DoorDash, and Starbucks, are sinking.

On the other hand, consumer staples stocks — which typically hold up better during tough economic times — rallied.

Soup giant Campbell’s, cigarette seller Altria, ketchup behemoth Kraft Heinz, and spice maker McCormick are climbing.

Energy shares bounced along with rising crude oil prices, with gas driller APA Corporation, oil field services company Halliburton, and integrated giant Exxon gaining.

The energy trade, of course, keyed off the climb in crude oil prices, with benchmark US West Texas Intermediate rising to roughly $98 a barrel, despite Trump’s assurances as part of his deadline delay on Thursday that talks to end the war “are going very well.”

Those comments were largely brushed aside by the markets, a starkly different reaction from the president’s previous delay of the same deadline on Monday. That announcement generated a massive relief rally in crude oil prices and stocks on the hopes that substantive negotiations would begin shortly, or already had.

But Iran’s rejection of an initial US peace plan on Thursday, along with reports that the administration is considering sending another 10,000 US troops to the region and that Chinese ships trying to transit the Hormuz choke point had turned back, seemed to undercut that message.

“Any further statements by Trump about a deal are white noise to the markets,” market analyst Jim Bianco wrote in a post on LinkedIn on Friday. “Only if the IRANIANS say the talks are going well will it impact markets.”

President Trump extends Strait of Hormuz opening deadline to April 6

Trump delays Strait of Hormuz deadline as Wall Street has biggest loss of war

On the other hand, consumer staples stocks — which typically hold up better during tough economic times — rallied.

Soup giant Campbell’s, cigarette seller Altria, ketchup behemoth Kraft Heinz, and spice maker McCormick are climbing.

Energy shares bounced along with rising crude oil prices, with gas driller APA Corporation, oil field services company Halliburton, and integrated giant Exxon gaining.

Luke Kawa7h

Meta’s energy deal with Entergy boosts AI-linked utilities stocks

Shares of Entergy are soaring on Friday after Meta agreed to fund the creation of seven natural gas-fired power plants to secure energy for its mammoth Hyperion data center project in Louisiana.

The news is also boosting other AI-linked utilities plays, with Constellation Energy, Vistra, and NRG also trading well to the upside on Friday.

In a press release, Entergy said the deal was “structured to ensure Meta pays its full cost of service.” Electricity prices have become a hot-button political issue, with President Trump pushing tech giants to “pay their own way” on the costs associated with fueling data centers in a bid to avoid having households shoulder any of this burden.

J. Edward Moreno8h

Fundrise’s venture fund falls amid concerns about valuation gap

Fundrise Innovation Fund, a publicly traded venture capital fund with stakes in private companies like Anthropic and SpaceX, is coming back down to earth after swelling to more than 25x the value of its assets early this week.

Shares of the fund, which went public on March 19 and uses the ticker VCX, closed at $262 on Thursday and had sunk to $189.26 shortly after market open on Friday. The stock closed at $533 on Wednesday.

The fund is still trading well above its net asset value (NAV), which was $18.26 per share as of March 2, 2026, according to its IPO documents. That means retail investors, desperate for exposure to high-flying private companies but left with no other ways in, are paying a hefty premium.

The gap between its NAV and the stock price led Citron Research to go short on the stock, the firm revealed Thursday.

Ben Miller, Fundrise cofounder and CEO, pushed back on the short report in an interview on CNBC Friday morning, saying his firm can’t control the stock price and noting that pre-IPO investors were actually worried the fund would end up trading at a discount, not a premium.

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