The Dow Jones was down about 2,000 points Friday as of 3:00 p.m. ET. Lamb Weston is top stock.
U.S. stock markets continued to plummet on Friday, still reeling from the announcement on Wednesday by President Donald Trump of sweeping tariffs on its trading partners.
As of 3:00 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down about 2,000 points, or 5%, after falling nearly 1,700 points Thursday.
The S&P 500 was off around 300 points, or 5.5%, after dropping 274 points on Thursday. The Nasdaq Composite fell about 890 points, or 5.4%, after slipping about 1,055 points on Thursday. Also, the Russell 2000 index plummeted about 95 points, or 5%, after tanking 135 points or 6.6% on Thursday.
The indexes were on pace for their worst week since March of 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
The Nasdaq, as of 3:00 p.m. was down roughly 9.6% for the week and 19% year-to-date, drawing closer to bear market territory. A bear market is considered a decline of 20%.
The S&P 500 tanked around 8.6% this week and is down about 13.4% YTD. The Dow Jones fell 7.3% this week and was off 9.5% YTD, while the Russell 2000 index took the biggest hit. The small-cap index fell about 10% this week and was off 18.3% YTD – also near bear market territory.
Lamb Weston is the top stock of the week
There were not many bright spots this week on the markets, but there were a few, including Lamb Weston (NYSE:LW). The leading provider of frozen French fries saw its stock rise 10% this week after reporting strong quarterly earnings.
Another strong performer was Dollar General ((NYSE:DG). The discount retail store chain was the top performing stock on the S&P 500 in March and its momentum continues into April, as it jumped 8.6% this week. Dollar General has historically performed well in bad markets, and this week’s gains certainly show that.
The third best stock on the S&P 500 this week was Molina Healthcare (NYSE:MOH). The health insurance provider saw its stock rise 7.1% this week.
The worst performer on the S&P 500 this week was APA Corp. (NASDAQ:APA), an oil and gas exploration company. It fell roughly 27% this week including a 15% decline on Friday.
The big tech stocks were all down, too, with Micron (NASDAQ:MU) off 26%, NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) down 14%, Palantir (NASDAQ:PLTR) falling 13.7%, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) dropping 13%, Meta (NASDAQ:META) tanking 12%, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and CrowdStrike (NASDAQ:CRWD) plummeting 9.9% each, and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) slipping 8.9%.
Only four stocks in the Nasdaq 100 were in positive territory for the week.
