$500B Wiped From Big Tech In One Day As Iran War Fears Weigh: Why NVDA, MSFT, META Are Not ‘Safe Haven’ Now

• Investors shift through the back-and-forth between President Donald Trump and Iran, assessing the odds of a ceasefire in the nearly month-long conflict.
• META fell 8% on Thursday, leading declines in Big Tech stocks.
• Retail sentiment for META and MSFT improved to ‘extremely bullish.’

Five of the top U.S. tech companies – Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet and Amazon – saw a combined $503 billion wiped off their market value on Thursday, as fears that the war in Iran could drag on weighed heavily on broader markets.

The benchmark S&P 500 declined 1.7%, its worst drop since Jan. 20, to close at its lowest level since early September. Nasdaq tumbled 2%, entering correction territory. The tech-heavy index has tumbled nearly 11% since its record close on Oct. 29 (a correction is a decline ​of 10% or more from a recent market high).

Meta shares tumbled 8% on Thursday, while Nvidia stock fell 4.2%. Apple stood out as the only mega-cap tech stock to finish in positive territory. Meanwhile, T-Mobile US, Adobe, Netflix and Palo Alto Networks were among the notable tech names that also managed to defy the broader selloff.
 

All stocks in the “Magnificent Seven” group are now firmly in the correction territory. Leading the declines, Microsoft's stock is down 34% from its October record high.

Traders sifted through the latest back-and-forth between President Donald Trump and Iran, assessing the odds of a ceasefire in the nearly month-long conflict. By late Thursday, Trump had pushed his deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to April 6, saying negotiations between Washington and Tehran were “going very well.” Earlier, however, he had warned of escalating military action and expressed uncertainty over reaching a diplomatic deal, adding to the pressure on stocks.

To be sure, Big Tech stocks edged higher in Thursday’s after-hours trading, with retail sentiment improving for some names.

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment for META jumped to ‘extremely bullish’ from ‘neutral,’ even as two successive unfavorable court rulings landed against the social media giant this week.

For MSFT, retail sentiment shifted to ‘extremely bullish’ from ‘bullish,’ with some traders seeing the sharp slide in the stock as a ‘generational’ buying opportunity. 

Sentiment remained ‘bearish’ for Nvidia and Alphabet, and ‘extremely bearish’ for Amazon.

Q1 Marred With Sharp Tech Selloff

The entire tech sector has fared poorly in the first three months of 2026, as investors rotated their money into defensive sectors such as energy and consumer staples amid concerns over stretched tech valuations and the question of whether heavy AI spending will deliver expected returns.

The market pressure intensified after the U.S. and Israel hit Iran and took out its supreme leader late last month, triggering volatility across global equity and commodity markets over the past month.

Tech Not A Safe Haven Now: Analysts

The rise in 10-year Treasury yields and the prospect of a longer closure of the Strait of Hormuz spelled trouble for big U.S. tech stocks that were earlier seen as a safe haven since the war, Melissa Brown, head of investment-decision research at Simcorp, told Bloomberg News.

“Today’s tech is not the safe haven,” Brown said. “Closing of the Strait of Hormuz is not just about oil. It’s about other resources and some of those resources are extremely important to tech companies.”

Jurrien Timmer, director of Global Macro at Fidelity Investments, argued on X that the Magnificent Seven stocks may have corrected enough and any further fall in stocks would only make them more attractive to acquire. 

“The Mag 7 notwithstanding, the AI playbook (led by memory stocks and data centers, with software lagging behind) has not been materially impacted by the stress in the broader market. To me, this strongly suggests that the AI boom continues to be a boom,” he said in a separate post.

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