By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com – The S&P 500 fell sharply Tuesday, as rising Treasury yields soured investor sentiment on sectors of the market with high valuations like tech.
The S&P 500 fell 0.36%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.20%, or 70 points, the Nasdaq gained 1.44%.
Tech and communications services – growth sectors of the market that tend to include stocks with higher valuation – fell out of favor as rising U.S. Treasury yields weighed on sentiment.
The selloff in tech has been driven by the “re-steepening in the yield curve as the spread between the two year and the 10-year Treasury yields moved back to 105 basis points in a relatively short order,” Mark Luschini, chief investment officer at Janney Montgomery Scott, told Investing.com in an interview on Tuesday.
Crowdstrike (NASDAQ:CRWD), DocuSign (NASDAQ:DOCU), Peloton Interactive (NASDAQ:PTON), Zoom Video Communications (NASDAQ:ZM), were some of the hardest hit growth names, with the latter also pressured by concerns about future growth.
Zoom Video Communications (NASDAQ:ZM) fell more than 17% after warning of a slowdown in revenue growth as the pandemic-fueled boost to user growth is expected to slow as employees return to the office.
“While we're positive on Zoom's strategic initiatives and investments in key growth areas, we find it tougher to like a stock with more sharply decelerating growth and incremental pressure on profitability,” Deutsche Bank said in a note as it slashed its price target on the Zoom to $280 from $350.
Big tech including – Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Google-parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) – was also caught up in the rising rate storm, but are expected to be bought on the dip.
“[W]hen somewhat frothy expectations build valuations up to the point where names that are among the leadership in tech are increasingly vulnerable to a pullback in their share price, [investors] should use those opportunities to add to positions if they're underweight or have established positions,” Luschini added.
Consumer discretionary also led the sector, paced by a 13% slump in Best Buy after the electronics retailer’s weaker-than-expected holiday comparable sales offset third-quarter results that beat on both the top and bottom lines.
Cyclical concerns of the market including financials, energy and industrials racked gains amid a rotation from value to growth.
Energy jumped more than 3% as oil prices rallied despite President Joe Biden saying Tuesday the U.S. will release 50 million barrels of oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve in tandem with other major oil consuming countries to curb rising energy prices.
On Monday, OPEC said it would reassess its plan to slow production cuts if major oil consuming countries move ahead with plans to tap emergency oil reserves.