Treasury Secretary Scott Bescent will speak to reporters outside Westwing after a television interview on the North Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C. on March 13, 2025.
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Treasury Secretary Scott Bescent said Wednesday that the stock market sale was due to a sharp pullback in the biggest tech stocks, not protectionist policies that come from the Trump administration.
“I’m trying to become the Secretary of the Treasury, not a market commentator, especially since Nasdaq peaked on Deepseek’s day, so it’s not a Mag 7 issue, but a Mag 7 issue.”
Bessent was referring to Chinese AI startup Deepseek, whose new language model caused a defeat in US technology stocks in late January. The advent of Deepseek’s highly competitive, potentially much cheaper models has raised questions about the billions that the largest US high-tech companies spend on AI.
The so-called seven spectacular stocks (Apple, Amazon, Tesla, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, Nvidia) have started selling out dramatically, bringing the technology-rich Nasdaq composite into the correction area. Tech Heavy’s benchmark fell by about 13% from its record high on December 16th.
However, the secretary downplayed the impact of President Donald Trump’s sudden tariffs. This caught many investors off guard, prompting fears of re-accession inflation, slow economic growth, and even recession. Many investors have denounced the rollout of tariffs for easily driving the S&P 500 into the revised territory from records reached in late February. Wall Street has defined the correction as a 10% drop from the recent high.
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S&P 500, YTD
Trump signed an aggressive “mutual tariff” policy at the White House Wednesday evening, further increasing his duties at least 10% in some countries. The action sparked a major overnight sale on the stock market as S&P 500 futures fell nearly 4% and the Blue Chip Dow Jones industrial average fell 1,100 points. There are likely losses, but the S&P 500 will return to the corrections territory with Thursday’s session.
“If you’re in the best financial situation, you’ll be fine,” Bescent said in another interview with Fox on Wednesday evening. “When I went back, the stock market actually peaked. [DeepSeek] Announcement of AI in China. So much of what we saw was merely the sale of singular technology. ”
