Stocks came under pressure as a trio of tech heavyweights slid, with traders wading through mixed economic data in the run-up to Jerome Powell’s testimony to Congress.

Equities lost traction after a rally that has spurred concern about sky-high valuations — especially in megacaps, leaving the group vulnerable to big moves in the face of bad news. Apple Inc.’s iPhone woes in China deepened, while Advanced Micro Devices Inc. hit a U.S. roadblock in selling an artificial-intelligence chip to the Asian nation. And Tesla Inc. extended its rout as China shipments slumped.

Bullish positioning in U.S. technology stocks is at the highest in three years — raising the risk of a pullback, according to Citigroup Inc.’s Chris Montagu. Long positioning in Nasdaq 100 futures is “extremely extended,” he said.

“Trees don’t grow to the sky,” said Kenny Polcari at SlateStone Wealth. “What is starting to concern some investors is whether or not some of these tech companies that have gotten stretched can in fact live up to the ‘lofty valuations’ that investors have placed on them.”

Wall Street also weighed data showing the U.S. service sector cooled — even as orders and business activity picked up. Caution prevailed, with Powell heading to Capitol Hill for his semiannual testimony before Congress, where the Federal Reserve chief is expected to reiterate the lack of urgency to cut rates.

The S&P 500 dropped 1 per cent, while the Nasdaq 100 saw its biggest drop since January. Tesla extended a two-day slide to 11 per cent, while Apple posted its fifth straight loss. Nvidia Corp. rose. Treasury 10-year yields slipped eight basis points to 4.13 per cent. In the latest sign of market exuberance, Bitcoin hit a record — before erasing gains. Gold also touched an all-time high.

The “Magnificent Seven” — comprising Apple, Microsoft Corp., Nvidia Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Meta Platforms Inc., Alphabet Inc. and Tesla — have powered the S&P 500 to all-time peaks this year, partly fueled by the AI frenzy.

The rally has left strategists scrambling to lift their 2024 targets — while raising questions on whether tech is seeing a boom or a bubble.

To JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Marko Kolanovic, the dramatic rally in U.S. equities and Bitcoin signals accumulating froth — conditions that typically precede a bubble when asset prices rise at an unsustainable pace. Meanwhile, David Kostin at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is among those who argue big tech’s lofty valuations are supported by fundamentals.

The so-called Magnificent Seven saw its average earnings per share rise 55 per cent in the fourth quarter compared to a year ago, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Most of that group helped drive the Nasdaq 100 to its fourth consecutive monthly gain.

“The AI craze is a modern gold rush, and the tech ‘picks and shovels companies’ are seeing earnings explode as companies buy chips and cloud space to fuel the boom,” said Tom Essaye, founder of The Sevens Report. “But if AI doesn’t result in increased profitability for the rest of the S&P 500 over the coming years, then demand for AI chips will evaporate as will AI-related cloud demand.”

With generative AI set to be the growth theme of the decade, UBS’s Chief Investment Office continues to believe that U.S. tech stocks should make up a substantial portion of investors’ equity allocations. However, the firm says investors with excessive exposure should consider broadening tech exposure to capture the next growth opportunities.

“While we see further room for the current tech rally to run, we think investors should review and optimize their exposure to technology to protect against potential declines and benefit from opportunities beyond big tech,” said Solita Marcelli at UBS Global Wealth Management.

“Although we see pockets of speculation and the tech sector could be due for a breather, we don’t see a bubble,” said Keith Lerner at Truist Advisory Services. “Valuations are rich on most metrics, but with tech, comparative earnings momentum tends to be a more important near-term driver. And profit trends remain strong and are at new highs.”

The three-year outperformance of the tech sector to the S&P 500 is just above 30 per cent, Lerner said. This is roughly in line with the 30-year average and far from the peak of just above 250 per cent seen in March 2000, he added.

“Comparisons to the dot-com bubble should be expected given the concentration of gains in the tech sector and proliferation of excitement around a new technology,” said Ross Mayfield at Baird. “But from 1996 to 1999, the average three-year trailing return was 96 per cent. We are not yet close to those levels. There’s room to run.”

Valuations, earnings trends and market sentiment all refute speculation that an AI-driven tech bubble has reemerged in U.S. large caps, according to Bloomberg Intelligence strategists led by Gina Martin Adams.

“Our theme universe of AI stocks shows sales generally supporting price gains, with multiples in the middle of their five-year range,” they wrote. “Unless fundamental shortfalls emerge, high-market-cap concentration for mega-cap tech and strong returns for AI may not present material risk to the S&P 500.”

The largest five companies in the S&P 500 trade at less than half the multiples of the “Four Horsemen” — Intel Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., Microsoft and Dell Technologies Inc. — in March 2000, which surpassed 80 times on a forward price-to-earnings basis, according to BI.

Additionally, valuations appear to be relatively contained across accelerating technology themes — such as AI, future of finance, cloud and robotics — with most baskets trading at or beneath five-year average price-to-sales multiples, they said.

“While we stand by our argument that U.S. stocks are not in a bubble, the confluence of a prospective Fed easing cycle and an attention-grabbing new technology does raise the risk that one might form later this year and into 2025,” said Nicholas Colas at DataTrek Research. “The easiest way to sidestep this problem would be for the Fed to delay rate cuts as long as possible.”

While stock prices are not part of the Fed’s official mandate, Colas says he’s wondering whether Powell will try to dampen the market’s recent enthusiasm by delivering a more hawkish than expected message this week.

“The AI frenzy combined with expectations for rate cuts in 2024 renewed ‘bubbly’ investor behavior,” according to the GMO Asset Allocation team. “If the projected Fed cuts fail to occur or growth companies fail to deliver on aggressive expectations, growth investors will likely wind up disappointed.”

Corporate Highlights:

• Target Corp.’s fourth-quarter profit beat estimates, as the retailer continued its improvements in inventory management and said its decline in traffic slowed.
• Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger is “extremely confident” that the company will meet its goal of showing a profit in its streaming TV businesses in the fourth quarter of this fiscal year.
• A Citigroup Inc. reorganization aimed at streamlining the bank and making it more competitive with its peers has gone swifter than expected, Chief Executive Officer Jane Fraser said, as she set out positive guidance for the year ahead.
• New York Community Bancorp climbed after the stock tumbled 43 per cent in prior two sessions after a pair of rating downgrades.
• Zillow Group Inc. fell after short seller Spruce Point Capital Management said it was betting against the stock and highlighted challenges facing the company, including antitrust litigation targeting broker commissions in the U.S. housing industry.
• Nio Inc.’s annual loss widened last year as the Chinese electric-vehicle maker faced fierce competition in the world’s biggest EV market.
• Novo Nordisk A/S’s diabetes drug Ozempic cut the risk of a range of bad health outcomes linked to kidney disease by 24 per cent, less than analysts had expected.
• Bayer AG forecast another year of falling profit and opted to stick with its conglomerate structure for now as it works to get on top of billions of dollars of legal woes that threaten the company’s long-term future.

Key Events This Week:

• Canada rate decision, Wednesday
• Eurozone retail sales, Wednesday
• U.S. ADP employment, JOLTS job openings, Wednesday
• Fed Chair Jerome Powell testifies before the House Financial Services Committee, Wednesday
• Fed issues Beige Book, Wednesday
• Fed’s Neel Kashkari (Minneapolis) and Mary Daly (San Francisco) speak, Wednesday
• China trade, forex reserves, Thursday
• European Central Bank’s rate decision, Thursday
• U.S. initial jobless claims, trade, Thursday
• President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address, Thursday
• Fed Chair Jerome Powell testifies before the Senate Banking Committee, Thursday
• Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester speaks, Thursday
• Eurozone GDP, Friday
• U.S. nonfarm payrolls, unemployment, Friday
• New York Fed President John Williams speaks, Friday
• ECB Governing Council member Robert Holzmann speaks, Friday

Some of the main moves in markets:

Stocks

• The S&P 500 fell 1 per cent as of 4 p.m. New York time
• The Nasdaq 100 fell 1.8 per cent
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1 per cent
• The MSCI World index fell 0.8 per cent

Currencies

• The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed
• The euro was little changed at US$1.0858
• The British pound rose 0.1 per cent to $1.2705
• The Japanese yen rose 0.4 per cent to 149.92 per dollar

Cryptocurrencies

• Bitcoin fell 7.9 per cent to $62,170.83
• Ether fell 4.7 per cent to $3,415.67

Bonds

• The yield on 10-year Treasuries declined eight basis points to 4.13 per cent
• Germany’s 10-year yield declined seven basis points to 2.32 per cent
• Britain’s 10-year yield declined 11 basis points to 4.01 per cent

Commodities

• West Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.7 per cent to $78.16 a barrel
• Spot gold rose 0.7 per cent to $2,129.88 an ounce