Wall St. mixed as tech slump offsets other gains

Major U.S. stock indexes closed mostly lower Monday as another rise in bond yields helped set off more heavy selling in technology companies.

The S&P 500 fell 0.5% after having been up 1% earlier. Because of their huge size, drops by Apple, Google’s parent company and other major technology stocks helped drag the S&P 500 into the red, even though more stocks rose than fell in the benchmark index.

The selling, which accelerated toward the end of the day, left tech-heavy Nasdaq composite down 10.5% from all-time high it reached Feb. 12. A drop of 10% or more from a recent peak is known on Wall Street as a “correction.”

Bond yields rose broadly. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note climbed to 1.60% from 1.55% late Friday.

Yields have been marching higher with rising expectations for the economy’s growth and for the inflation that could accompany it. Higher yields put downward pressure on stocks generally, in part because they can steer away dollars that had been headed for the stock market into bonds instead. That makes investors less willing to pay as high prices for stocks, especially those that look the most expensive, such as technology stocks.

Investors can expect more market volatility as long as bond yields keep rising, said Sylvia Jablonski, chief investment officer at Defiance ETFs. “I do think it’s something that’s going to be temporary.”

Still, she said, pullback in tech stocks offers an attractive entry point for investors to snap up shares in big names, like Apple and Amazon, at a better price.

The S&P 500 fell 20.59 points to 3,821.35. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 306.14 points, or 1%, to 31,802.44. The index briefly climbed more than 650 points. The Nasdaq lost 310.99 points, or 2.4%, to 12,609.16.

Donald Trump showed up at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, and reminded everyone why, with all his provocations, so many are still on board with him.

Our country IS in trouble — big trouble.

No parent reading this would not be up in arms if his or her children were threatened.

Well, all Americans, including our children, are being threatened — threatened by the militant left now holding the reins of power. It’s why passions are running high. Trump wasted no time getting to the heart of the matter.

“(W)e’re in the middle of a historic struggle for America’s future, America’s culture and America’s institutions, borders and most cherished principles,” he said. “Our security, our prosperity and our very identity as Americans is at stake, like perhaps at no other time.”

The reason Trump stirs up so many is because he is right.

And it’s the reason why those on the left hate him so much.

Last year, I wrote about Black Lives Matter intimidating billboard company Clear Channel Outdoor to take down a billboard my organization posted in a poor Milwaukee neighborhood to encourage work, marriage and education as the path out of poverty.

BLM, whose business is about blaming everyone else, would have none of this personal-responsibility message about dealing with poverty. And Clear Channel Outdoor immediately caved.

It’s what’s happening across the country, and we’re losing our nation.

Our largest corporations are selling out to “woke” politics and undermining the very values of capitalism that built every one of those firms.

The Wall Street Journal points out that in the $1.9 trillion spending bill that Democrats now want enacted, COVID-19-related provisions tally up to some $825 billion. The rest, another trillion-plus, is simply expenditures for Democratic pet programs along for the ride.

Last year, government spending at the federal, state and local levels came to 43.3% of the U.S. economy. Almost $1 out of every $2 produced by the nation’s economy went to government.

Now Democrats want to add another $1.9 trillion on top of it.

Here’s Trump again: “The future of the Republican

Party is as a party that defends the social, economic and cultural interests and values of working American families of every race, color and creed.”

“Trumpism,” he said, “means low taxes and eliminating job-killing regulations.”

“We are committed to defending innocent life, and to upholding the Judeo-Christian values of our founders and of our founding,” he said.

Democrats and the left have succeeded in redirecting attention from the accomplishments of Trump’s four years as president — 55% of Americans polled told Gallup last September that they were “better off now” than they were four years earlier — to one unfortunate incident on Jan. 6.

But what some rowdies who got out of hand did to bricks and mortar for a few hours Democrats and the left have been doing to our whole country for years.

One needn’t agree with Donald Trump 100% of the time or be happy all the time with the way in which he delivers his message. But at a time when America as a free nation under God is under siege, when a nation like Iran appears to be developing nuclear weapons, when China is shutting down the bastion of democracy in Hong Kong, we need strong, tough leaders.

Donald Trump is strong, tough and right.