What’s News in Markets: Bearish Bets, Defiant Oil Prices, a Social Media Reckoning

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Hey listeners, it's Saturday, March 28th. I'm you Monty Moly's for the Wall Street Journal.

And this is what's news in markets. Our look at the biggest documents of the week and the

news that drove them. Let's dive in. Markets are sliding and some people are scared. Investors

piled into options contracts at bet against the S&P 500 and retail traders are getting more

timid. Their activity is on track to reach the lowest level in two years. Plus, is Big Tech having

its Big Tobacco moment? Before we get into that, let's see how the major indexes did.

The NASDAQ entered correction territory on Thursday,

falling 10% from its most recent high and finished the week down more than 3%.

The Dow Jones industrial average followed, crossing the correction threshold on Friday,

closing 1.4% lower. The benchmark S&P 500 ended 2% lower, extending its longest weekly

losing streak in nearly four years. What's interesting is that many of the companies dragging

markets lower recently were the same stocks that led them to historic highs last year.

Now let's walk through the winners and losers of this week's topsy-turvy market.

It was a rough week to be a social media executive.

Tech stocks, which include names like Facebook and Instagram Parent Meta,

and Google and YouTube Parent Alphabet, led the S&P lower this week after back-to-back

landmark legal rulings that could force the Silicon Valley Giants to change their business

practices. On Tuesday, a new Mexico jury handed Meta a massive $375 million bill for failing to

protect kids from what the state called a predatory environment that exposed miners to everything

from sexually explicit content to human trafficking. Then, on Wednesday, a California jury found Meta

and YouTube responsible for designing products that were effectively addictive to miners.

They awarded $6 million to a 20-year-old plaintiff who testified that scrolling dominated

her life and shredded her mental health. Though the monetary penalties are a small drop in the bucket

for companies that raked in more than $500 billion combined last year, legal analysts say the

rulings pose an existential threat to the companies that have built businesses around keeping

users on their apps. Some have dubbed the event's Big Tech's Big Tobacco Moment. Meta and Google

have each said they planned to appeal. Both stocks ended the week lower. Meta was down 11 percent

and Alphabet fell about 9 percent. Alphabet's legal news almost overshadowed its product launch

that shook the ground under chip stocks. Google announced a new algorithm on Wednesday that

can shrink the memory needed to run AI models by at least six times without losing accuracy.

That new scent chipmaker stocks into free fall with micron plunging 15.5 percent

and Sandisk shares sliding 13 percent.

If you filled up your tank recently, you can probably guess which sector is the week's biggest

winner. That's right, energy. Benchmark oil prices hovered around $113 a barrel and are up 85

percent so far this year. After the war in Iran jammed up the waterway responsible for

transporting 20 percent of the global oil supply. President Trump has tried to sue the market with

social media posts promising a swift end to the war, but futures contracts suggest traders believe

we still have a long way to go. Shares in Exxon mobile ended the week up 7 percent while oil giants

conical Phillips and Chevron closed up about 5 percent. While wartime is usually a pretty good

time for energy stocks, there are games typically coincide with broader pain. This week,

the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index dropped to its lowest reading of the year

as higher gas prices cut into household budgets. That could weigh on consumer discretionary stocks

going forward. Professional investors are becoming more pessimistic too. Today the market sees an

absolutely zero percent chance of an interest rate cut this year compared with up to three cuts

the market was betting on just a month ago. And now you know what's news in markets this week.

You can read more about the stocks that moved on the week's news in our live markets coverage on

WSJ.com. Today's show was produced by Anthony Bansi and Michael LaValle with supervising producer

Melanie Roy. I'm Emani Moise. Have a great weekend and catch you next Saturday.

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