It's 25 years on from the peak of the dot-com bubble, and tech stocks are plunging. That's a worrying coincidence, but this selloff doesn't have to go the same way as its historical predecessor.

The Nasdaq Composite is down 13% since its record high on Dec. 16. The index had its worst day on Monday since 2022 as investors fled the so-called Magnificent Seven group of megacap stocks and those tied to the wider artificial-intelligence trade.

However, the signs point to a dampening of the market euphoria around President Donald Trump's reelection and AI hype rather than a broader crisis. The S&P 500 was recently trading at 21 times its expected earnings over the next 12 months, above its 10-year average of 18 times. Consecutive gains of more than 20% over the past two years led by a small group of stocks have left the market vulnerable to a sudden pullback -- more indicative of a correction than the prolonged decline of a bear market.

There is still time for interest-rate cuts, planned tax reductions, and a potential softening of the trade-war rhetoric to bring calm to the markets. History since the dot-com bust is on the side of a brief dip -- of the 18 times since 2000 that the S&P 500 has breached its 200-day moving average during a selloff it has bounced back quickly 11 times, according to Ritholtz Wealth Management.

That doesn't mean policymakers and investors should be complacent. Delta Air Lines' caution that consumer and corporate confidence is being shaken is a warning that a brief scare has the potential to turn into something bigger. But for now, it's probably still better to be greedy than fearful.

-- Adam Clark

***

The S&P 500 Has a Major Case of the 'Monday Blues'

The Monday blues wrought havoc. The S&P 500 suffered its biggest decline since September in an all-too familiar pattern yesterday. Since President Donald Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20, investors have seen three Mondays when the S&P 500 opened with over 1% in losses and finished lower for the day.

   -- Monday's session for the index ended 2.7% lower as investors fled riskier 
      assets. Tech shares were particularly hard-hit, with the Nasdaq sinking 
      4% and the Magnificent Seven stocks shedding $760 billion in market 
      value. Fears about Trump's trade policies and their inflationary effects 
      rippled through markets. 
 
   -- Reporters asked the White House to comment on the selloff. Since the 
      election "industry leaders have responded to President Trump's America 
      First economic agenda of tariffs, deregulation, and the unleashing of 
      American energy with trillions in investment commitments that will create 
      thousands of new jobs," a spokesman said. 
 
   -- The Cboe Volatility Index, also known as Wall Street's "fear gauge," 
      soared nearly 20%. Stocks could be in for a bumpy week with a wave of key 
      labor market, inflation, and sentiment data rolling out in the days 
      ahead. 

What's Next: Stocks are weighed down by concerns of a U.S. recession as tariffs kick in. Wall Street once viewed them as a political negotiation tool, but with retaliations from China and Canada, that narrative has largely faded. Tariffs threaten to fan inflation when consumers are still reeling from price pressures.

-- Karishma Vanjani and Liz Moyer

***

Delta Slashes Its Guidance, Citing Sinking Consumer Confidence

Delta Air Lines warned that consumer and corporate confidence have been hit by macroeconomic uncertainty, as the carrier cut its outlook Monday. It's another worrying sign of weakness in the U.S. economy.

   -- The Atlanta-based carrier lowered its first-quarter revenue growth 
      forecast to between 3% and 4%, down from its earlier forecast of 7% to 
      9%. It also slashed its forecast for adjusted earnings to between 30 
      cents and 50 cents a share, from an earlier forecast range of 70 cents to 
      $1 a share. 
 
   -- "The outlook has been impacted by the recent reduction in consumer and 
      corporate confidence caused by increased macro uncertainty, driving 
      softness in domestic demand," Delta said in a filing ahead of a Tuesday 
      morning presentation at the J.P. Morgan Industrials Conference. 
 
   -- Investors weren't impressed by the guidance cut. Delta stock was dropping 
      ahead of Tuesday's opening bell, having already slid 5.5% the previous 
      session. 
 
   -- The somber update is another bit of bad news for the broader market, 
      which had already been fretting that President Donald Trump's tariff 
      plans could drag down consumer spending and spark a flare-up in 
      inflation. 

What's Next: United Airlines and American Airlines will also present at the J.P. Morgan conference and investors will be eager to see whether they are also seeing an impact on consumer and corporate demand, and just how bad the broader weakness might be.

-- Janet H. Cho and George Glover

***

Tesla's Elon Musk Feels the Heat From Multiple Sides

Billionaire Elon Musk is battling many fronts at once, and told a Fox Business interviewer that he is managing his various businesses "with great difficulty" while straddling his work with the Department of Government Efficiency. A cyberattack hit X on Monday, and Tesla shares tumbled on fears about sales.

   -- Musk said he's likely to spend another year on DOGE business. That could 
      unnerve Tesla investors, who have already worried he's too distracted by 
      activities outside the EV maker. Tesla shares fell 15%, their biggest 
      one-day percentage drop since 2020. Since their Dec. 18 high, Tesla's 
      market value has fallen $825.83 billion or 53.61%, Dow Jones Market Data 
      said. 
 
   -- "Frankly, I can't believe I'm here doing this," Musk told Fox about DOGE, 
      where he has clashed with administration officials. When asked about the 
      outages at his social media platform X, Musk said the IP addresses 
      appeared to originate from the region around Ukraine. 
 
   -- Musk earlier said X was dealing with an unusual surge of outages that 
      could be the work of a large group, or a country. Outage reports about X 
      soared to nearly 40,000 over 24 hours, according to the analytics 
      platform Downdetector. 
 
   -- UBS analyst Joseph Spak cut his 2025 delivery forecast for Musk's Tesla 
      to 1.7 million cars, far below forecasts. Musk's recommendations for deep 
      cuts at federal agencies has sparked a backlash against Tesla, and 
      protesters have set fire to Tesla charging stations and fired shots at a 
      dealership. 

What's Next: Musk's DOGE will likely continue to court controversy as Congress draws closer to a potential federal shutdown this Friday. In the Fox interview, Musk said most government spending is entitlement payments (such as Social Security and Medicare) and they are "the big one to cut."

-- Al Root, Janet H. Cho, and Liz Moyer

***

Oracle Optimistic About AI Cloud Growth Prospects

Oracle missed estimates for its February quarter but it offered a positive outlook on artificial intelligence cloud spending, saying it signed cloud agreements with several major tech companies, including ChatGPT parent OpenAI, Meta Platforms, and Nvidia that would drive a 15% revenue increase next fiscal year.

   -- The company reported fiscal third quarter adjusted earnings of $1.47 a 
      share on revenue of $14.13 billion. Cloud services and license support 
      revenue was $11 billion, increasing 10% from the previous year but 
      missing forecasts. 
 
   -- Oracle co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison said they 
      are on schedule to double data center capacity this calendar year with 
      record customer demand. Remaining performance obligations -- contracted 
      revenue that has not yet been recognized -- jumped 62% from the prior 
      year to $130 billion. 
 
   -- CEO Safra Catz said RPOs should "continue to grow rapidly" as the company 
      awaits its first Stargate contract. The $130 billion in RPOs doesn't 
      include any contracts from Stargate, a $500 billion program to invest in 
      AI infrastructure over the next four years. SoftBank and OpenAI also 
      signed on. 
 
   -- Catz said during a conference call that she expects fiscal 2025 capital 
      spending to be a little more than double what it was last year, at around 
      $16 billion. That's slightly different than on the last earnings call, 
      when she said fiscal year 2025 capex will be "double," what it was in 
      fiscal year 2024. 

What's Next: One major concern on Wall Street is the Trump administration's trade policy, and what tariffs on imports from China and other countries could mean. For software and information tech, there is a risk of customers pulling back their budgets as the economic environment remains uncertain.

-- Angela Palumbo

***

Energy Secretary Promising Increase in Natural Gas Production, Exports

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said that the Trump administration is clearing the way for an upsurge in natural gas production and exports, including pushing for new gas pipelines in places like Alaska and New England, and approving permits to ship natural gas overseas.

   -- At the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston, Wright signed a permit 
      extension for a liquefied natural gas export terminal in Louisiana known 
      as Delfin, the administration's fourth LNG-related approval in its first 
      50 days. 
 
   -- Previously considered a "transition fuel" to prepare the world for 
      renewables, natural gas is now becoming "the fuel of choice," said Jack 
      Fusco, CEO of Cheniere Energy, America's largest exporter of LNG. 
 
   -- Natural gas prices have surged more than 40% since the end of January, in 
      part because of demand through uncommonly cold winter weather for the 
      fuel used for heating and electricity. Producers are also benefiting from 
      the administration's support for new projects. 
 

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March 11, 2025 06:55 ET (10:55 GMT)

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