There’s an ugly trend developing in the stock market

Market leaders quickly becoming laggards — that’s what investors have witnessed lately, provided one looks underneath the surface of the daily market action.

Some pros warn it could be sending a near-term negative sign for the broader market, which is dealing with new concerns ranging from tariffs to the possibility of no rate cuts from the Federal Reserve this year.

Many of the best-performing stocks in the market meaningfully declined last week, 22V Research strategist Jeff Jacobson pointed out in a client note on Monday. It’s not just that many of the leaders stopped going up or outperforming, Jacobson said. In several instances, stocks that had broken out to the upside on earnings ended last week below where they trended before results were disclosed.

Two examples based on Jacobson’s work include Robinhood (HOOD) and DraftKings (DKNG) — the former has lost 16% in the past five sessions while the latter has shed 25%.

Listen: Why Nvidia looks unstoppable

Other leaders under pressure include JPMorgan (JPM), Goldman Sachs (GS), and Palantir (PLTR). All three stocks have underperformed the S&P 500’s (^GSPC) modest gain in the past five sessions. Palantir has lost the most, with a 22% plunge amid heightened worries about insider stock selling.

Interestingly, after a stunning 20-day run of gains, Meta (META) saw its worst week since July, with a drop of 7.2%. The stock fell every day last week and continued to slide today.

Jacobson said the action is an “incredible reversal of fortune.”

“If the largest, best performing, names have lost their market leadership for now, it may be hard for the indices to make new meaningful highs in the short-term,” Jacobson wrote.

He added, “In addition, continued weakness in the very names that had lifted the market to new highs could result in some further short-term pain on the index level.”

“This negative price action also comes at a seasonally weak period for the market and ahead of several potentially key catalysts,” including Nvidia earnings, the February jobs report, key inflation reports, and a Fed policy decision, Jacobson wrote. “The market will also have to deal with a potential government shutdown deadline on 3/14 and the looming tariff deadlines on products from Canada and Mexico that were pushed back from early Feb to March.”

The real leaders of the bull market also continue to perform weakly.

The “Magnificent Seven” trade of Meta (META

), Amazon (AMZN), Google (GOOG), Apple (AAPL), Nvidia (NVDA), Microsoft (MSFT), and Tesla (TSLA) has been a mixed bag in 2025.

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