Executive Mosaic’s GovCon Index ended slightly higher at $4,943.86 following a modest 0.63% gain. Risk-off sentiment prevailed Thursday, with all major indexes closing in the red. The Nasdaq Composite fell 1.08%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.86%) and S&P 500 (-0.60%) dropped to 2-week and 4-week lows, respectively.
A tech slump, led by NVIDIA’s (Nasdaq: NVDA) 3.77% decline, pulled Nasdaq from its recent record high. Salesforce (Nasdaq: CRM) was the biggest loser, sinking 19.74%. The cloud-based software company reported lower Q1 fiscal 2025 sales and a lower than 10% growth forecast in the second quarter.
Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) in the consumer cyclical sector jumped 13.42%. The consumer electronics retailer reported better-than-expected earnings and a growing paid membership base in the first quarter.
The GovCon Index survived the market selloff, aided by 25 gainers compared to only one on Wednesday. Palantir Technologies (NYSE: PLTR) led the recovery with 3.77%, like NVIDIA. Mercury Systems (Nasdaq: MRCY) was the second-best performer with 3.61%.
Jacobs (NYSE: J) rose 2.42% on news that it won an engineering services contract with the City of Hamilton in Ontario, Canada, for the Woodward Avenue Wastewater Treatment Plant Phase 2 Expansion. Accenture (NYSE: ACN), the top decliner among five stocks, slid 3.05% to $284.80, extending its losing streak to five trading sessions.
Raytheon, one of three businesses of defense conglomerate RTX (NYSE: RTX), secured a $301.7 million modification to a previously awarded fixed-price-incentive, cost-plus-incentive-fee advanced acquisition contract with the U.S. Navy. The modification involves procurement and delivery of propulsion systems for the F135 afterburning turbofan.
The U.S. Army awarded General Dynamics Land Systems, a business unit of General Dynamics (NYSE: GD), a $50.7 million modification to a previous contract for engineering and logistic services. This Army Contracting Command contracting activity concerns foreign military sales to Australia and Poland.
The Commerce Department released GDP data showing the U.S. economy grew at a 1.3% annual pace from January through March, the weakest quarterly rate since the spring of 2022. Consumer spending grew 2% annually, although lower than in the last two quarters.
“Slowing consumption and economic growth could be just the news we need to see in order for the rate of inflation to keep coming down and allow the Fed to reduce interest rates after all,” said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Independent Advisor Alliance.
However, New York Federal Reserve Bank President John Williams predicts the central bank will hit its 2% inflation target in early 2026 with a rate cut before hitting the goal. He said Thursday before the Economic Club of New York, “We want to be able to move before inflation is all the way to 2%.”
