Rancorous geopolitics continues to grab most headlines again this week, but it's creeping anxiety about a slowing U.S. economy that's unnerving investors most about Wall Street stocks. Wary of Wednesday's results from megacap chip giant Nvidia, the S&P500 lost its 6,000 handle for the first time in three weeks on Monday and both the tech-heavy Nasdaq and small cap Russell 2000 are now negative for the year to date. Even the meagre 1% gain in the S&P500 for 2025 so far is a third of MSCI all-country and far below the 13% gain in Germany's blue-chip DAX, which was emboldened this week after the election results there and hopes for some fiscal easing.