Nasdaq closes lower for a fifth day, its longest losing streak since October 2022
By Lisa Kailai Han and Sarah Min for CNBC
The Nasdaq Composite closed lower on Thursday for a fifth consecutive session — its longest losing streak since October 2022.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dipped 0.56% to end at 14,510.30. Since the Dec. 27 close, the index has lost nearly 4%. The S&P 500
slid 0.34%, marking a fourth day of declines, finishing at 4,688.68. The Dow Jones Industrial Average
was the outlier, eking out a 10.15-point gain, or 0.03%, to close at 37,440.34.
Mega-cap tech stocks such as Apple are underperforming to start the year, as overstretched valuations and uncertainty around when the Federal Reserve will begin to cut rates have investors worried that markets have gotten overly optimistic.
Apple stock is down more than 5% this week. Shares of the tech giant fell more than 1% on Thursday following a downgrade by Piper Sandler, two days after Barclays also lowered its rating on the name.
The recent performance on Wall Street comes in stark contrast to how the market ended 2023. The S&P 500 ended last year up more than 24% while enjoying its best weekly win streak going back to 2004.
But Steven Wieting, chief investment strategist of Citi Global Wealth, doesn’t believe that the recent pullback will have many long-term repercussions on the market.
“Whether any of this lasts, I wouldn’t really look to the last few days as mattering very much,” he told CNBC. “It’s really a statistical coin toss.”
In fact, Wieting thinks the S&P 500 could end the year around the 5,000 level, which would indicate more than 6% upside from her
