{"id":24727,"date":"2025-03-26T15:15:08","date_gmt":"2025-03-26T20:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eoption.com\/market-review-march-26-2025\/"},"modified":"2025-03-26T15:15:08","modified_gmt":"2025-03-26T20:15:08","slug":"market-review-march-26-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eoption.com\/market-review-march-26-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Market Review: March 26, 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Closing Recap<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Wednesday, March 26, 2025<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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Index<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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Up\/Down<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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%<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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Last<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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DJ Industrials<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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-132.71<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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0.31%<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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42,454<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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S&P 500<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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-64.45<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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1.12%<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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5,712<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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Nasdaq<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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-372.84<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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2.04%<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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17,899<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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Russell 2000<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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-21.60<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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1.03%<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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2,073<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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US<\/span> equity futures faded then recovered overnight just to fade again into the morning economic releases. A better Core Durable Goods report caused another dip but quickly reversed back to about unchanged. Another early roll in futures gave the day an early risk-off tone as the Fear and Greed Index continued to register Fear (30\/100 today) versus Fear yesterday but Extreme Fear a week and a month ago. The Fed’s Kashkari didn’t do much to improve the tone, commenting that we’ve made a lot of progress bringing inflation down but there remains more work to do, and policy uncertainty is complicating the Fed’s job. He also stated the Fed ought to be able to reduce interest rates further in the next year or two. That’s not bullish in what seems an impatient market eager for rate cuts. Early breadth favored decliners by about 3:2 as eight of the eleven S<\/span>&P sector ETF<\/span>’s fell. Energy, Consumer Staples and Real Estate were early outperformers, while Communications, Consumer Discretionary and Technology led the underperformers. Small caps outperformed but were still in the red with IWM<\/span> leading SPY<\/span> and QQQ<\/span>.<\/p>\n

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In data of interest today, it feels appropriate that Goldman should reduce its year-end target for the S&P 500 from 6,500 to 6,200, noting its economics team now expects the US effective tariff rate to rise by roughly 10pp to 13%, leading them to lower their 2025 US GDP growth forecast from 2.4% to 1.7%. They see the potential for the tariff rate to rise by about 15pp in an upside risk scenario. GS<\/span> strategists also see a lower GDP growth forecast, higher tariff rate and higher equity risk premium on elevated uncertainty. On a more positive note, while the last few days of March have seasonally been softer historically into quarter-end, the early part of April has historically been stronger (though historically we also have not had this tariff overhang). Lastly, per @KobeissiLetter, the ratio of companies with insiders buying versus selling their own stock rose to 0.5 in March, marking the highest since June 2024 and a nice reversal from the 0.2 in January (lowest since 1988). Perhaps they see something others do not?<\/p>\n

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After new rounds of headlines noting potential auto tariff announcements as early as today rattled markets around midday, markets really never recovered and remained near lows. Heading into the final hour of trading, breadth widened and continued to favor decliners by almost 3:1 though Smallcaps were slightly outperforming in a generally down day with IWM<\/span> (-1.04%) versus SPY<\/span> (-1.19%) and QQQ<\/span> (-1.84%). Sectors remained tilted negative with rotation to relative safety as Consumer Staples (+1.56%), Utilities (+0.68%) and Energy (+0.55%) were outperformers among S<\/span>&P sector ETFs, while Communications, Consumer Discretionary and Technology were the largest underperformers with four sectors gaining versus seven declining. On a growth versus value basis, it was also a red day with value the outperformer but to the downside. The Russell 1000 Value faded by 0.23% while its Growth counterpart gave up 2.39%.<\/p>\n

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Economic Data<\/p>\n

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  • The U.S. government will risk defaulting on some of its $36.6 trillion in debt as soon as August unless Congress acts to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office forecast on Wednesday. The CBO’s forecast of the so-called "X-date" when the Treasury Department would no longer be able to cover its obligations follows an estimate by the Bipartisan Policy Center that the U.S. could face the risk of default sometime mid-July and early October. The CBO said the date would "probably" come in August or September.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n
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    • February Durables orders rise +0.9% (above consensus -1.0%) but down from January\u2019s +3.3%; February Durables ex-transportation orders +0.7% (cons +0.2%) vs Jan +0.1%; Feb Durables ex-defense orders +0.8% vs Jan +3.7% (prev +3.5%); Feb Durables shipments +1.2% vs Jan +0.7%; Feb nondefense cap shipments ex-aircraft +0.9% vs Jan -0.2%. Next up tomorrow, GDP data and then PCE on Friday! <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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      Commodities, Currencies & Treasuries<\/p>\n