Just when the week seemed like it couldn't get any more volatile, it did. But at least this time, the big move was upward -- a relief for investors after watching the Dow Jones Industrial Average fall 10% on Thursday. On Friday, the Dow rebounded and roared 9.4% higher.
This broader market gain on Friday unsurprisingly brought a lot of stocks along with it, many tech stocks included. Some notable tech companies that saw significant gains on Friday include website building platform Wix.com (WIX 1.61%), monitoring and analytics specialist Datadog (DDOG 5.82%), real estate marketing and services company Zillow (Z 3.19%) (ZG 3.24%), and financial software provider Intuit (INTU 3.38%).
These four stocks saw the following gains on Friday.
Image source: Getty Images.
|
Stock |
Intraday High |
Change by Market Close |
|---|---|---|
|
Wix.com |
9.7% |
7.4% |
|
Datadog |
10.6% |
6.5% |
|
Zillow |
12.6% |
2.3% |
|
Intuit |
9.9% |
9.8% |
Data source: Yahoo! Finance.
Trump's address encourages investors
Optimism in the broader market on Friday was evident at market open. Some investors were likely trying to take advantage of what may be viewed as an overreaction to the economic challenges presented by the coronavirus outbreak. Thursday's pullback added to a prolonged sell-off for the market that officially put an end to the longest bull market in history, as market indices sold off more than 20% from a recent high in February.
But the market's gain accelerated toward the end of the day as investors seemed to regain some confidence in the country's ability to curb the coronavirus. During and following Trump's address, which occurred in the last hour that the market was open, the S&P 500 went from approximately a 3.5% gain to a 9.3% gain.
Tech stocks are still way down
While the market's big rise on Friday trimmed back a 27% decline for the S&P 500 since Feb. 19 to a 20% sell-off, many tech stocks are still down more than the market. Indeed, Datadaog, Wix.com, and Zillow are still down 26%, 28%, and 33%, respectively, since Feb. 19. Intuit, however, is the exception to these tech stocks. But it's still down sharply -- just not as badly as the market. Intuit stock has declined 14% since Feb. 19.
It's not surprising to see fast-growing tech companies' stocks fall more than the broader market during a downturn. Growth stocks are often more volatile than market indices because they trade at pricier valuations. Of course, investors should keep in mind that tech stocks can at times also rise more rapidly than the broader market. Tech stocks' high level of volatility goes both ways.
