Last night's sharp market drop was not a minor fluctuation but a warning bell ringing in investors' faces — the Nasdaq index plunged 1.4% in one day. This decline hides not only details but also a naked risk signal, like cracks in the ground before an earthquake, screaming with unease.
Firstly, this is the most severe single-day drop since the tariff turmoil in April, erasing nearly seven trading days of gains in just one day. NVIDIA plummeted 3.5% in a single day, becoming the 'boulder' that crushed the market. Ironically, even if more than 350 companies in the S&P 500 had strong gains, they couldn't withstand the collective plunge of the 'seven tech giants' due to their weight. It's like a sham competition: no matter how hard the supporting roles try, if the main characters mess up, the whole scene collapses — this directly tore apart the facade of the U.S. stock market's rise: the so-called bull market is merely a 'single-point bubble' propped up by a few tech leaders, easily burst with a poke. The daily chart closed at the lowest point? That's not inertia; it's a fierce downward trend without brakes. Even if this isn't the starting point of a crash, the 'risk landmines' hidden in the dark are already buried, ready to explode and create bigger holes at any moment.
Secondly, the market's correlation has long provided the answer: both U.S. Treasuries and the dollar are rising, and capital is madly flocking to safe assets, like startled birds crowding into tree holes — this is not 'risk adjustment'; it's clearly capital fleeing en masse. Even risk-sensitive 'thermometers' like Bitcoin are plummeting, further indicating that the market's mentality has been reduced to four words: escape first, ask questions later. When even cryptocurrencies are discarded like old shoes, this is not a minor emotional disturbance but a concrete manifestation of capital's frantic 'de-leveraging'; only when the tide recedes do we see who was swimming naked.
Thirdly, it's not the Dow Jones, this 'traditional heavyweight', that is falling, but the Nasdaq — the index hailed as the 'future of technology'. Wall Street's alarm has long sounded: this scene is a near replica of the collapse before the internet bubble burst in the 1990s. Bloomberg has directly shouted that 'Intel's valuation has soared to bubble levels'; in the options market, funds are crazily buying 'catastrophic put options', which is not hedging but clearly buying escape tickets in advance. Stop using 'profit growth' and 'AI implementation' as excuses; the deadly similarities are fermenting — the valuation bubble is inflating ten times faster than profit growth, and this bubble could burst at any moment.
Fourthly, in the past month, the volatility of individual stocks in the Nasdaq has been 19 points higher than the index itself; this is not a characteristic but a sign of market tearing apart. The so-called 'abnormal calm'? This is simply the silence before the storm. The index's volatility is playing dead while individual stock volatility is skyrocketing; this is not a divergence but rather capital trampling on each other below, with the long-short game already reaching a boiling point. Beneath the surface calm, it is already the high temperature before a volcanic eruption.
Next, the market's lifeline is in Powell's hands. However, the market's delusion of his 'dovish rescue' has reached pathological levels — firmly expecting a rate cut in September and another within the year? This unanimous expectation, where everyone is betting, is a ticking time bomb. As long as Powell dares to be even a little 'hawkish' compared to expectations or just holds back a bit, the market will explode; even if he plays dumb, the market will first drop significantly, waiting for the next piece of data to save it — this is not a repair, it's a gamble with lives.
This is not the prelude to a storm; it is the sense of oppression as the eye of the storm is coming. The tremors have never stopped, and these signals have become so glaring that they cannot be ignored — if you keep pretending to sleep, just wait to be awakened by the giant waves of the market.
