What Happened?

A number of stocks fell in the afternoon session after the major indices continued to retreat (Nasdaq -1.5%, S&P 500 -1.2%) amid profit-taking and renewed concerns about tariffs. 

Investors reacted to a federal court ruling that most of President Trump's global tariffs were illegal, raising uncertainty over trade policy and the fiscal impact of potential refunds. Rising Treasury yields added to the pressure, with the 10-year climbing above 4.2% and the 30-year nearing 5%, intensifying worries about stretched equity valuations. September's historically weak track record for stocks further dampened sentiment, leaving traders cautious ahead of the jobs report later in the week and the Federal Reserve's upcoming rate decision.

The stock market overreacts to news, and big price drops can present good opportunities to buy high-quality stocks.

Among others, the following stocks were impacted:

• Lending Software company Upstart (NASDAQ: UPST) fell 4.6%. Is now the time to buy Upstart? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
• Analog Semiconductors company onsemi (NASDAQ: ON) fell 3%. Is now the time to buy onsemi? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
• Social Networking company Reddit (NYSE: RDDT) fell 3.5%. Is now the time to buy Reddit? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
• Advertising & Marketing Services company Magnite (NASDAQ: MGNI) fell 2.6%. Is now the time to buy Magnite? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
• Online Retail company Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) fell 1.9%. Is now the time to buy Amazon? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.

Zooming In On Upstart (UPST)

Upstart’s shares are extremely volatile and have had 73 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.

The previous big move we wrote about was 6 days ago when the stock gained 3.2% on the news that MongoDB reported impressive earnings report. The data analytics company saw its shares jump nearly 40% after announcing much stronger-than-expected results, including a revenue beat and an optimistic outlook for the upcoming quarter. This performance suggested robust demand for its cloud-based database services, leading investors to believe the broader data storage and SaaS sectors are experiencing similar health. The positive sentiment created a ripple effect, with peers like DigitalOcean and Snowflake also seeing significant gains and outperforming the general market.

Upstart is up 15.4% since the beginning of the year, but at $70.15 per share, it is still trading 21% below its 52-week high of $88.77 from February 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Upstart’s shares at the IPO in December 2020 would now be looking at an investment worth $2,380.

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