It was a rough Friday for stocks. The kind of day where you check your portfolio and then maybe go for a walk. U.S. equities tumbled to their lowest levels in nearly seven months, and the headline event was the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ), the ETF that tracks the Nasdaq 100, officially slipping into correction territory. That's Wall Street's polite term for being down more than 10% from a recent high.
So, what spooked everyone? A familiar cocktail of geopolitics and interest rate worries, served with a side of weak economic data. Investors were chilled by fresh escalations in the Middle East. Iran pushed back hard against ceasefire options, reiterating that the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to shipping and warning of potential strikes on targets in the Gulf and Israel. This was a sharp rejection of the 10-day diplomatic window that President Donald Trump had announced just a day earlier.
The immediate market reaction was written in oil prices. WTI crude surged 3.9% to $98.18 per barrel, and Brent crude climbed 3.3% to $111.61. For the month, Brent was up a staggering 42%.
Against this tense backdrop, the major indices couldn't find footing. The S&P 500 fell 0.9% to 6,417. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 465 points, or 1%, to 45,495. And the Nasdaq 100? It fell 1% to 23,342, now down over 10% from its January peak. The small-cap Russell 2000 shed 1.1% to 2,466.
Within the so-called Magnificent Seven, Meta Platforms Inc. (META) had a particularly brutal session, extending a steep three-day rout. It fell another 3.4%, bringing its cumulative loss since Wednesday's close to 10%. The market is still processing the company's mass layoffs and a recent court ruling that labeled its platforms addictive to minors. For the month, the social media giant is down nearly 20%, on pace for its worst month since October 2022.
The macro data didn't help the mood. The final University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment reading for March tumbled to 53.3—near record lows and below the preliminary estimate. Even more concerning for the Federal Reserve, one-year inflation expectations jumped to 3.8%. This combo—weak sentiment and rising inflation fears—is the textbook definition of a stagflationary signal.
Speaking of the Fed, the bond market is sending a very clear message. Treasuries sold off broadly, and the yield on the 30-year bond climbed to 4.958%, threatening to breach the psychologically significant 5% level for the first time since July 2025. This move reflects a dramatic repricing of interest rate expectations. Traders now assign nearly a 50% probability to a Fed rate hike by December. That's a complete reversal from earlier this year when the market was pricing in two rate cuts for 2026.
In this environment, it's no surprise that investors sought safe havens. Gold surged 3.5% to $4,532.52 per troy ounce. On the riskier end of the spectrum, Bitcoin (BTC) tumbled 4.6% to $65,810 as the "risk-off" rotation out of speculative assets accelerated. The classic fear gauge, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), climbed 7.6% to 29.53.
