Stocks continue to decline ahead of the closing bell, markets on pace for worst day of 2023

February 21, 2023 at 4:14 p.m.

Yahoo Finance markets reporter Jared Blikre breaks down a tough Tuesday for the markets following earlier retail earnings releases.

Video Transcript

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DAVE BRIGGS: All right, just a couple of minutes away from the closing bell. So let's bring in Yahoo Finance's Jared Blikre to break down some rather brutal market action.

JARED BLIKRE: Yes.

DAVE BRIGGS: Nice sweater, man. I like the sweater jacket combo.

JARED BLIKRE: Thank you. I'm going to show you some green, but we don't have a lot to show here. This is the worst day that we're looking at-- and probably not going to change-- of the year for not only the NASDAQ, but also the S&P 500 and the Dow. And here's the NASDAQ Composite intraday. You can see we are at session lows right now. So it looks like that stat is going to hold.

Now, let's take a look inside the market. All 13 sectors in the red. But what are we looking at here? The mega-cap sectors, which are comprised of XLY. That's consumer discretionary, houses Amazon. XLK, tech, we know that. Industrials as well as communications services has Meta, Verizon, as well as Netflix. All of those are underperforming to a huge degree here.

And you take a look at some of the leaders, wow, look at ARKK. ARKK is down 6%. That's our Innovation Fund. MJ, that's a cannabis ETF. That's down 5%. Retail, 5%. Meme stocks, almost 4%. Homebuilders right there, internet stocks over in China, followed by chip stocks here in the US. You look anywhere, and it is really a bloodbath.

And NASDAQ, as I've been saying, has been leading this year by a large degree. Well, now it is leading the way down. Take a look at some of these results here. Just for the day, Roblox down 8%, Shopify down 5%, Square down 4%. And then we take a look at the meme stocks, really not doing a lot better. But I will say, AMC is a standout. Up 16% today ahead of its earnings in a few days. Might be next week. Don't quote me on that. But maybe some excitement there. I can't see it just about anywhere else.