IXIC: Nasdaq Composite Dives into Correction, Erasing 10% from Peak Levels

Meta turned out to be the biggest loser, dropping $119 billion in market cap.

📉 Correction Confirmed. The Numbers Are Ugly.

• The Nasdaq Composite IXIC slid 2.4% Thursday, entering correction territory with a decline exceeding 10% from its most recent high.
• The S&P 500 SPX fell 1.7% and the Dow Jones DJI dropped 469 points, or 1%. Both the S&P and Nasdaq suffered their largest single-day declines since the war began and closed at their lowest levels since September.
• A correction is defined as a decline of 10% or more from a recent peak. It is distinct from a bear market, which requires a 20% drop, but it is a threshold that triggers systematic de-risking from institutional investors whose mandates include volatility limits and drawdown rules.
• The Dow is now on pace for its largest one-month percentage decline since 2022. Earlier this week stocks rallied on Trump's social media post about postponing Iranian power plant strikes.
• By Thursday the mood had fully reversed, a pattern that has repeated itself so many times this month that fading the relief rallies has become the more defensible trade.

📱 Meta's $119 Billion Thursday

• Meta stock META fell nearly 8% after back-to-back jury verdicts found the company liable for harmful impacts of its products on young people.
• The selloff erased $119 billion in market capitalization in a single session, pushing Meta behind Tesla to become the tenth-largest company by market cap for the first time since September 2023.
• Losing that much in a single session while simultaneously announcing a $9 trillion market cap target for 2031 is the kind of juxtaposition that only exists in markets.

🥇 Metals Extend Their Slide

• Gold XAU/USD futures dropped 3.8% Thursday, reaching their second-lowest close of the year and extending a selloff that has defied every conventional assumption about how gold behaves during geopolitical crises.
• The metal that was supposed to be the war trade has become one of the worst-performing assets since the conflict began.
• Silver dropped 6.5% to its lowest level since December, an even sharper move than gold that reflects silver's dual nature as both a precious metal and an industrial commodity.