Welcome back to the Rude Awakening for Monday, March 29, 2021.

While Friday closed out with gains, stocks have dipped this morning. The Nasdaq and the tech stocks are creating some renewed volatility once again.

You will see some visual representation of this in today’s video.

Yahoo Finance reports:

Wall Street opened lower on Monday, giving back a chunk of last week's gains, as the sudden unwinding of a hedge fund ricocheted across markets.

On Friday, the S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq closed higher by more than 1%, with the broader market posting its best in three weeks. However, traders were watching several big stocks like Viacom (VIA) and Discovery (DISC), after a volatile session on Friday saw several names take a hit linked to liquidation by Bill Hwang, a fund manager and the ex-head of Tiger Management's family office.

Bloomberg News reported that Hwang's firm, Archegos Capital Management, was forced by its banks to sell more than $20 billion worth of shares after some positions moved against him. In a related move, Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse (CS) warned that the volatility stemming from the firm's liquidation would force the bank to take a "highly significant" hit to its first quarter results.

The week will be mostly quiet until Friday, when the March jobs report is released. The data are expected to show the economy created a whopping 630,00 jobs — the most since October 2019 and the best the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Markets were largely calm amid news that the massive ship marooned in the Suez Canal was finally dislodged, which should pave the way for ending the blockage that's created a shipping traffic jam in one of the world's most important shipping lanes. Efforts there had put upward pressure on oil and natural gas prices, given that the canal is a busy thoroughfare for energy exports.

The past couple weeks have been marked by choppy equity trading, especially heading into some of the final sessions of the first quarter. But overall, the cyclical energy, financials and industrials sectors – or the biggest under-performers of 2020 – have outperformed strongly for the year-to-date, while last year's leading technology companies have lagged. Signs of improving economic growth have trickled in, with Thursday's bigger-than-expected drop in new unemployment claims to a pandemic-era low among the latest positive reports.

To find out about one sure winner in all the market choppiness…

Have a great trading day, folks.

See you tomorrow.

Regards,

Scott Stewart
Editor, Rude Awakening