Which stocks are still in the green as Wall Street continues its selloff? Nvidia, Apple, Lockheed Martin....

Global markets are in turmoil.

Japanese markets, as measured by the Nikkei 225, have suffered their worst day since 1987. The news comes as the Yen, Japan’s currency, strengthened against the US dollar, causing foreign investors to sell off many of the assets they had purchased.

The July Employment report and concerns over the Sahm rule

In the United States, where markets are only beginning to open, the aura on Wall Street is not positive, and concerns of a recession taking hold of the economy are increasing. The US Federal Reserve opted to maintain the federal funds rate at its current position at their FOMC meeting on Wednesday. On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the July Employment report, which showed that unemployment increased from 0.2 percent in one month to 4.3 percent. Compared to July 2023, the number of unemployed workers has increased by 1.2 million.

The July report from the BLS startled investors, as the Sahm Rule has popped into focus. Claudia Sahm identified a trend in modern economics that a recession in the US always takes place when the three month unemployment rate average rises 0.5 percent above the rate captured a year prior.

A look at the market...

So far, even major industry groups are seeing stock prices down. As geopolitical tensions rise in the Middle East, with Israel awaiting retaliatory action for strikes that killed top Hezbollah and Hamas commanders last week, interest in the stock price of defense contractors like Lockheed Martin has come into focus. While, in the early hours of trading, the stock price was down, it was still in the green when looking across the last five days.

Additionally, Kellanova, or Kellogg’s, is trading in the green, with the food corporation seeing the value of its stock rise 25.51% over the last five days. And, although tech companies overall are feeling the brunt of the sell-off, some companies in the semiconductor manufacturing business, like ON Semiconductor, are also trading in the green today.

Tech companies feel the pressure

One of the main sectors being impacted by the sell-off by traders is tech, with the Nasdaq, a much more tech-heavy index, falling nearly four percent within the first hour of markets being open. Over the last month, the value of the index has dropped around 12 percent, but those numbers could shift in either direction as the week continues.

Experts are speculating that heavy investments in AI-led technology companies are overpriced, and investors are now seeing that their returns are going to come further down the line if they come at all. NVIDIA, one of the tech stocks to see a massive rise over the last year, has been hit hard by the run on tech stocks. In the last month, the company’s stock has fallen by 20 percent.

Apple’s stock has also fallen, in part pushed down by another major sell off by Berkshire Hathaway, the multinational conglomerate started by billionaire Warren Buffet. Over the last five days, the price has fallen 7.19 percent.

However, it could be that investors are seeing that many of these stocks were overvalued, and that what is being seen today is a short-term readjustment and not reflective of a structural issue within the economy that could lead to a prolonged recession.