Shesa's Weekend Stock Market Updates - 3/22

Welcome to my Weekend Updates

Last week the U.S. stock market declined amid escalating U.S.-Iran war, high oil prices, and continued inflation fears. The Oil prices is almost at $100. Another critical point - Triple witching Options worth around $6 Trillion expired last Friday. The options includes stock options, index options and options on futures also expired. Almost $6 Trillion dollar options expired last Friday. This also contributed hammering the market. The Energy sectors gained slightly; tech and consumer stocks lagged. Markets volatile with geopolitical risks dominating. Most of the indexes viz. DOW and NASDAQ are almost at the correction territory. 

•  S&P 500: down -1.9%, closed at 6,506.48 (fourth straight weekly loss).
•  Dow Jones: down -2.1%, closed at 45,577.47.
•  Nasdaq: down -2.1%, closed at 21,647.61.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) voted to keep the benchmark federal funds rate anchored in a range between 3.5%-3.75%. They noted ‘uncertain’ impacts from Iran war. Expect little higher growth and higher inflation.

The Producer Price Index (PPI) - Wholesale prices rose 0.7% in February, much more than expected 0.3%.

The small-cap Russell 2000 declined more than 2% and slipped into correction territory — that is, a 10% decline from its latest high. At their lows of the day, the Dow and Nasdaq traded in correction territory, but ultimately closed shy of the 10% threshold.

The US is a net oil exporter and produces a lot domestically, but global oil is a single market—prices are set internationally. Disruptions anywhere raise costs everywhere.

During the Nvidia (NVDA) last week EO Jensen Huang said it sees $1 trillion in orders for Blackwell and Vera Rubin through ’27. Last year, the company had projections for a $500 billion revenue opportunity between the two chip technologies. Nvidia is scheduled to roll out Vera Rubin later this year. The system, which is made up of 1.3 million components, will deliver 10 times more performance per watt than its predecessor, Grace Blackwell.

Micron (MU) reported fiscal Q2 2026 results on March 18:
• Revenue: $23.86B (record, +196% YoY, beat estimates ~$19-20B)
• Non-GAAP EPS: $12.20 (beat estimates ~$8.8-9.3)
• GAAP net income: $13.79B ($12.07/share)
Driven by strong AI demand, tight supply, record gross margin 75%.
Q3 guidance: Revenue $33.5B, adjusted EPS $19.15 (strong, above expectations).
Stock fell 3-4% post-earnings on margin peak/growth concerns despite beat.

Nebius (NBIS) said that last Monday it ‌has signed a new ‌five-year deal with Meta Platforms to provide the social media giant with $12 billion of dedicated AI computing capacity across multiple locations by 2027.

Equity to watch
SHLD, XLE, VTV, TSLA, NVDA, UVXY, UVIX, SQQQ

What to expect in the Market?
Stock market always goes up in the long term. So, is the situation going to get better for investors in the short term? Honestly, I am not very optimistic. In fact, I think the situation may get worse before getting better visualizing the current situation. But nothing can be predicted with certainty. This is just my personal view. I discussed at length during my stock market update with my investment group members today. Obviously, I do not know about the future and can't predict it! Having said that, in my view it's very important to hedge the portfolio and be cautious. I have trimmed many of my positions and may continue to do so, if situation demands. This is not the time to jump in with both hand, and situation may possibly get worse before getting better. Hence, I thought of having a zoom meeting to discuss with my Investment Group members. Have a good evening!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Post

Shesa's March 2026 Investment Blog

By Shesa Nayak Welcome to Shesa’s investment Blog! U.S Stock Market Update The stock market in February was a horror for the technology investors. Nasdaq was hardest hit dropping -3.3% for the month and Dow +0.17% (9-month win streak), S&P 500 -0.86% . The stock market markets fell on hot inflation data, AI disruption fears of job cuts, private credit risks, and geopolitical scare. U.S., Israel and Iran war tensions are expected to push oil higher and thus inflation. The January’s producer price index ( PPI ) which is a measure of wholesale inflation was up 0.5% , much above 0.3% expected . The core PPI reading, which excludes food and energy prices, recorded huge 0.8% gain, much more than the 0.3% expected. The software companies stocks got obliterated and lost 20, 30, 40% in last few weeks after Anthropic launched  automation AI tools for Code, legal, finance, software models etc.  Earnings : Most of the earnings for Q4 2025 are over now. Despite Nvidia’s ( NVDA )...
Read more

Shesa's Stock Market Weekend Updates - 2|22|26

Welcome to my weekend's updates The U.S. stock market rose slightly last week this week ending February 20, 2026. All the stock indexes ended on a positive. But technology stocks still remain under pressure. Here is how the indexes performed. •  S&P 500 : up 1.1%, closed at 6,909.51 •  Nasdaq : up 1.5%, closed at 22,886.07 (snapped 5-week losing streak) •  Dow : up 0.3%, closed at 49,625.97 This week we will see the biggest earnings of the season as Nvidia ( NVDA ) reports on Wednesday, 2/25, after the close of market. More on this later.. Tariff: Meanwhile, the  Supreme Court struck down broad tariffs (e.g., reciprocal/high global ones), leading to potential refunds and invalidation of some high rates. Trump immediately imposed a new 15% global tariff on all countries (effective soon, up to 150 days) on top of remaining tariffs.  Most relief goes to countries that previously faced the highest reciprocal rates (25–50%+): •   India: ...
Read more

Shesa's Weekend Stock Market Updates - 3|8|26

Welcome to my weekend updates Congratulations to Indian Cricket team for winning the T-20 World Cup consecutively!! Last week the US stock market was extremely volatile due to Iran war, weak jobs report and more importantly  oil surged 35% for the week . This was   the biggest gain in oil futures trading history dating back to 1983. The oil price  currently traded at $91.27. It can be noted that oil price has surged almost 50% in last one month. This has panicked the Wall Street because higher the oil prices, higher would be the inflation because price of goods and commodities may go up due to higher transportation cost. Furthermore, FED can't cut interest rate on higher inflationary environment. The Gold and Silver prices surged too. The US, Israel and Iran war continues for 9th days and no sign of slowing down. The stock market goes one step forward and 2-3 steps backward. At this time of writing, the Oil futures are up another 20% to $110 a barrel, meaning up mo...
Read more