Megacap tech stocks post longest losing streak of 2023

investmentnews.com:

Megacap tech stocks slumped for a third straight week — the longest such streak in 2023 — as fears of higher global interest rates weighed on sentiment while bonds bounced off multiyear lows. 

Stocks ground higher in the final minutes of the session in moves likely exacerbated by Friday’s giant options expiration. It wasn’t enough as the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the session unchanged. The Nasdaq 100 inched down 0.2% while MSCI’s global equities benchmark notched its biggest weekly loss since the March meltdown of Silicon Valley Bank. 

While fears of an imminent recession are fading, wary investors are instead facing entrenched inflation and the prospect of more policy tightening. That hurt risk as assets as Bitcoin slid as much as 8% and oil notched its first weekly loss since June. 

“Investors are concerned that if bond yields continue going higher, the economy is too strong and the Fed will need to raise interest rates further,” said David Donabedian, chief investment officer of CIBC Private Wealth US. “And with the bond yield high enough, that poses competition for equity investors who feel the bond market is less risky than the stock market right now.” 

Bond markets bounced higher Friday on speculation losses may be overdone. In Treasuries, yield on the 10-year pulled back from Thursday’s levels that were approaching the highest since 2007. UK and German bonds advanced.

Markets are on edge ahead of the annual gathering of policy makers at Jackson Hole in Wyoming next week, according to Andrew Hunter, deputy chief US economist at Capital Economics. 

“Expectations of an economic re-acceleration have mounted,” Hunter wrote. “But with little evidence that stronger growth will threaten to