Tech stocks sell off sharply as market looks at COVID-19 numbers, whispers ‘oh f***’

The American stock market is struggling today, with tech stocks in particular taking extra stick.

After European stocks

tanked

on the back of COVID-19 concerns, American stocks are following suit. Tech stocks in particular.

As of the time of writing, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, a venerable if dated stock market barometer, is off 2.81%. The broader and more useful SP 500 is off 2.90%. And the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite is off 3.14%.

But perhaps most importantly for startups and startup founders, the SaaS-heavy

Bessemer cloud index

is off an even sharper 3.80%.

What’s going on? Stimulus is out of the cards for a while.

COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are rising

. Deaths are picking up too. Political gridlock is the law of the land. And weak earnings from Intel

and Netflix,

and lackluster guidance from Microsoft

could be weighing on tech-bulls. (Oh, and SAP flopped as well

!)

In short, it’s a huge mess out there. More as it happens, but it’s not great day for tech stocks and the sort of bullish public-market valuations that late-stage startups are using as private-market valuation comps.

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