Caught up on what happened in the stock market today back in late February and honestly the tariff situation was wild that week. The S&P dropped over 1% to 6,837, Nasdaq fell 1.13% to 22,627, and the Dow took a brutal 1.66% hit down to 48,804. That 822 point Dow drop was basically all about Trump's tariff announcement pushing from 10% to 15% globally.

What's interesting looking back is how the stock market today played out differently across sectors. Multinationals and financials got hammered - we're talking American Express, Visa, JPMorgan Chase all sliding. IBM got crushed partly because of Anthropic's new AI tools spooking people about legacy IT disruption. Meanwhile Novo Nordisk tanked on bad obesity drug data while Eli Lilly climbed on weight-loss drug leadership. Nvidia actually held up better than expected, up nearly 1% despite the broader selloff.

The real story though was everyone waiting on Nvidia's earnings that Wednesday. That stock market today sentiment was basically all about whether AI spending would actually pay off long-term. A solid Nvidia beat would've reignited the whole tech trade, but disappointment would've dragged the Nasdaq down further. That's the kind of event that drives volatility for days - you had two sessions of uncertainty leading into that report. Looking at how markets moved after shows how much that earnings call actually mattered for the broader stock market today trajectory.