The Nasdaq Just Hit Pause — Here’s What Smart Money Did Instead
Week in Review: Growth Stocks Cool, Gold Glitters, and the Dow Shows Its Muscle
Weekend Market Summary – “Tech still on top, but the week belonged to the Dow”
It was one of those weeks where the year-to-date story and the 5-day story didn’t match.
Year-to-date (YTD), the market is still telling a very clean tale:
Nasdaq 100 (NDX): ~+19% — growth and AI are still the headline act.
S&P 500 (SPX): ~+14% — broad market still having a solid year.
Dow Jones (INDU): ~+10.5% — the “old economy” isn’t that old after all.
Russell 2000 (RTY): ~+9% — small caps are positive, but still trailing the big guys.
So far in 2025, if you owned large-cap U.S. growth, you looked smart.
But this week was a little different. Over the last 5 trading days:
Nasdaq 100 was the clear laggard, down nearly 3%.
S&P 500 slipped about 1.5%.
Russell 2000 was down close to 2%.
The Dow held up the best, off just about 1.1%.
That’s a classic “rotation-for-a-minute” look — investors stepping away from the high-flyers and hiding a bit in the steadier names.
What got hit?
Tech and the mega-cap growth complex took most of the heat this week.
From your large-cap list:
Nvidia: about -7% on the week
Tesla: about -6%
Microsoft: about -4%
Alphabet (GOOGL): slightly lower
Meta / Amazon / Netflix: down, but not as sharply
That lines up perfectly with the 5-day Nasdaq underperformance — when the biggest stocks sneeze, the index catches a cold.
What’s interesting is that despite the weekly pullback, the YTD numbers are still very strong for a lot of these names:
GOOGL ~+47% YTD
NVDA ~+40% YTD
MSFT ~+18% YTD
NFLX ~+24% YTD
So this week looks more like profit-taking than a trend break — at least for now.
Sector check: still tech first, but not only tech
From the sector view:
Tech (XLK) is still the clear 2025 sector leader at about +24% YTD.
Communications (XLC) is next, around +16% YTD.
Industrials (XLI) have had a sneaky-good year too — roughly +16% YTD, which helps explain why the Dow held up better this week.
Utilities (XLU) — unusually strong, around +18% YTD. That’s notable because utilities typically don’t lead unless there’s a yield or defensive angle in the background.
Financials (XLF) are positive, roughly +9% YTD.
Energy (XLE) is up modestly on the year, ~+4–5%.
Consumer Staples (XLP) is the laggard, slightly negative YTD — tells you investors have preferred growth and cyclicals over the classic defensives.
So, even though tech dipped this week, the leadership board for the year hasn’t really changed.
ETFs & global look
A few things stand out from the ETF grid:
EEM (Emerging Markets) is actually having a very strong year — ~+30% YTD. That’s a big move and worth watching if this broadens out.
QQQ (Nasdaq 100 proxy) lines up with the index at about +19% YTD — so the growth story is real.
Gold (GLD) is up over 50% YTD and silver (SLV) is even stronger, up over 60% YTD — that is not a normal year for precious metals. That says: either inflation hedging, geopolitical premium, or just a strong momentum bid in hard assets.
IWM (Russell 2000 ETF) is up about 9% YTD — better than it has felt day-to-day, but still trailing large caps.
Brent (CO1) is down sharply YTD (~-15%), so energy equities holding slightly positive tells you companies are being rewarded more for capital discipline than just for higher crude.
And out on the risk frontier:
Bitcoin in your view is up about 10% YTD — positive, but not leading. With metals doing so well, crypto hasn’t been the only “alternative” trade this year.
1-week vs 1-year: why it matters
When you line up the 5-day chart against the YTD chart, you get this:
The long-term trend is still growth-led.
This week was a short dip in the leaders, not a full rotation.
The Dow holding up better suggests investors were trimming risk, not bailing on stocks altogether.
That’s the kind of week where portfolio managers say, “let’s take a little off the top in AI/growth, keep the year’s winners, and see what next week’s data brings.”
Three takeaways you can say out loud
“Big tech finally took a breather.” After a monster YTD run, Nasdaq names gave some back, which is perfectly normal.
“Defensive-ish and dividend-friendly areas looked better.” The Dow’s smaller loss, plus strength in utilities YTD, shows there’s still a bid for stability.
“Hard assets are the sleeper story of 2025.” Gold and silver up 50–60% YTD is not background noise — that’s a regime signal.