It has not been a good month for the Nasdaq Composite . The tech-heavy index entered Friday’s session down 5.5% for February. If that decline holds through the end of the day, it will mark the benchmark’s biggest one-month pullback since September 2023, when it tumbled 5.81%. The S & P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average were also on pace for monthly declines. The former is down nearly 3% for the month, while the Dow has slipped more than 2%. Driving a chunk of those losses is the uncertainty around global trade and its effect on economic growth and profits. President Donald Trump this week threatened to impose additional tariffs on Chinese imports, with China saying it would retaliate against those duties. Trump also said levies on Canadian and Mexican imports would take hold after a 30-day moratorium ends next week. “The Trump put is fading,” wrote Andrew Brenner of NatAlliance Securities in a note to clients. He pointed out that “80% of the rally since the election has now reversed with over half the S+P down since the election.” “The Tariff Rhetoric has become daily and extreme. Sentiment is awful and trading is on edge,” he added. These jitters are reflected in Thursday’s market reversal. The major averages started the day on a high note, but then turned sharply lower toward the close. “Investors have had to contend with fast-moving headlines over the past few weeks and months — the Federal Reserve’s signal of a slower pace of monetary easing, sticky inflation readings, the emergence of low-cost AI models like DeepSeek, weaker consumer confidence and still-elevated geopolitical uncertainty in the Middle East and over the war in Ukraine,” Ulrike Hoffmann-Burchardi of UBS wrote in a note. “Indeed, data points are showing that investor sentiment is poor,” she added. “But while we have cautioned that volatility is likely to be higher this year due to policy uncertainty and trade frictions, we reiterate our view that the bull market is intact, and we expect U.S. equities to end the year higher.” Correction: A previous version misstated the Dow’s month-to-date decline.
