Just noticed something interesting about last month's market action - stocks took a pretty solid hit across the board, and bank stocks got absolutely crushed. The whole sector was down hard, with names like American Express and Goldman Sachs dropping over 7%. Curious why bank stocks drop that hard? Well, there was this UK private lender collapse that spooked everyone about rising defaults. Combined with worries about credit quality in general, investors just started bailing on financials.

But it wasn't just banks tanking. Tech had a rough day too - semiconductors were sliding, cybersecurity stocks got hammered, and software companies retreated. Nvidia down over 4%, Zscaler down 12%, the usual suspects getting hit. Then you had airlines selling off hard because oil jumped to a 7-month high, which obviously kills their margins.

The weird part was the mixed economic signals. PPI came in hotter than expected, which killed any rate-cut hopes in the near term. But then the Chicago PMI surprised to the upside and construction spending beat, so you had this tug-of-war happening. Bond yields actually fell to 4-month lows though, which supported things a bit. Meanwhile, geopolitical tensions with Iran were adding to the risk-off mood. Dell was the bright spot - up 21% on strong AI server guidance. Overall just one of those days where bad bank news cascaded into broader weakness.