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Bonds Walloping Stocks Shows Wall Street Growth Agita Ramping Up

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(Bloomberg) -- For anyone worried about the economy, recent reports gave ample reason to fret. Flailing consumer confidence, a big jump in jobless claims, gloomy housing data, and more.

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Anxiety fueled by the latest economics reports has been taking hold across markets. While a late-day rally boosted the S&P 500 Friday, investor sentiment has been deteriorating, with even a merciful inflation report still flashing warnings on consumer spending. The result: Treasuries are off to their strongest start to a year since the crisis months of early 2020, while stocks have nearly wiped out 2025 gains.

Friday’s big bounce in equities, which pared a second straight weekly loss, was one bright spot in otherwise volatile trading stretch. Now, with the so-called Trump trade euphoria evaporating, big money managers at Manulife Asset Management and Penn Mutual Asset Management have been paring equity positions while building bond exposure.

“If the consumer weakens materially and corporations pull back on growth plans, economic growth deterioration becomes a major headwind,” said Nathan Thooft at Manulife Investment Management in Boston, which oversees $160 billion. “There is little room for policy missteps”

February was a microcosm for the cross-asset divergence. A proxy for longer-dated government bonds gained 5.3% while an ETF tracking large-cap US stocks fell 1.3%. That’s the biggest outperformance for the Treasury haven since June 2022.

Mounting concern that something — perhaps tariff threats, a stubborn Federal Reserve, or retrenching consumers — is stressing the American growth engine has been casting a risk-off mood.

Even with the sudden Friday bounce, potentially spurred by constructive tariff news, the Nasdaq 100 tumbled more than 3% to its worst week this year, while the S&P 500 fell about 1% on the week.

Bitcoin slid to the lowest level since early November and is down more than 20% from its all-time high. Ten-year Treasury yields that approached 4.8% in January now sit near 4.2%. Wall Street’s “fear gauge” — the VIX index of equity volatility — along with similar measures of credit gyrations were around their highest levels of 2025.

The US economic outlook is getting murky, with the gap between how data actually comes in versus forecasts at the lowest in seven months, Citigroup Inc. data show. Consumer confidence is the lowest since 2021, personal spending unexpectedly decreased, and virtually no reading on the American housing market has met forecasts over the last 10 days. On Friday, Atlanta Fed forecast showed that the US gross domestic product may be set for a 1.5% annualized decline in the current quarter, a sizable markdown from the 2.3% pace of growth expected just days ago.