Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW.

It's a daily podcast on Macro, Bitcoin, and the Big Picture Power Shifts remaking our world.

What's going on, guys? It is Friday, April 5th, and today we are talking macro. Before we get into that,

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All right, friends, really a tale of two

markets last couple days. We start, of course, on Thursday afternoon where we saw a dramatic

plunge in U.S. stocks, adding more volatility to an already shaky week. The NASDAQ index fell by

2.5% while the S&P 500 dropped by 1% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average saw a 1.7%

decline. All 11 sectors of the S&P 500 saw

drawdown suggesting that this was a broad-based macro route. It was the first time in the last month

that all three major stock indices closed down by at least 1% on the day. The explanations for the

drawdown were numerous and varied, including inflation risk, geopolitical risk, and Fed policy. All of these

explanations layered on top of each other to create conditions where risk was being shifted

to the downside. In some ways, that may have been to be expected. This year started off with a hot

run for stocks, extending the strong rally that began in November. Both the S&P 500 and NASDAQ

indices are up around 8.5% for the year,

and the returns are even more clear if you zoom in on the hottest tech stocks, the Magnificent

7. CNBC's Mag 7 index has risen by 16.7% so far this year, led by a 78% gain for

NVIDIA. This all means that asset managers, particularly those who came into the year

overweight tech, have an opportunity to sell everything, lock in a healthy annual gain, and get a jumpstart on their summer vacation.

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