Former U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi made comments about the Dow Jones Industrial Average during a tense House Judiciary Committee hearing seven weeks before President Donald Trump announced via social media that she would be leaving the Department of Justice. Her remarks not only drew laughter from Democrats but also sparked widespread online discussion, quickly evolving into various memes.

While debating with House Democrats, including Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, regarding the Justice Department's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files and investigation methods, Bondi abruptly shifted the conversation to the performance of the U.S. stock market.

"Because of Donald Trump... the Dow Jones, the Dow is now, over... the Dow is now over 50,000 points... I don't know what you're laughing about, I hear you're quite the stock trader, Raskin. The Dow is over 50,000 points, the S&P 500 is near 7,000, and the Nasdaq is hitting new records. Americans' 401(k)s and retirement savings are soaring," Bondi stated, adding, "That's what we should be talking about."

At the time, many speculated whether Bondi had inadvertently called a market top. In retrospect, her comments on February 11th appear to have marked at least what one Wall Street professional termed a "phase peak." According to Dow Jones Market Data, from that day's close until the afternoon session this Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had fallen 7.5% to 46,370 points. The blue-chip index had set a closing high of 50,188.14 points on February 10th, the day before Bondi's testimony.

Joseph Saluzzi, Co-Head of Equity Trading at Themis Trading, noted that immediately after the remarks, people began discussing whether Bondi had brought bad luck to the market.

"This certainly has nothing to do with the market sell-off—if you want to call it that, it's just the 'jinx' effect," Saluzzi said. "It's like the 'magazine cover curse'—once those words were spoken, everyone thought, 'Oh no, this is bad,' and sure enough, the market has been declining ever since."

At the time, Bondi was clearly attempting to redirect the inquiry of a congressional subcommittee overseeing the Justice Department's work towards a discussion of the U.S. stock market, which was indeed climbing steadily. During that period, funds were flowing out of previously high-flying technology stocks like Broadcom, NVIDIA, and Microsoft and into "old economy" blue-chip stocks such as Caterpillar and McDonald's.

Subsequently, the outbreak of war involving Iran has caused global stock markets to stumble and trend significantly lower. Although the S&P 500 performed better in March than many international market indices, it still recorded its worst monthly performance in a year. Other major indices, including the Dow, have also underperformed.

On Thursday, U.S. stock markets were mixed, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite posting slight gains while the Dow closed lower. Despite this, all three major indices ended a five-week losing streak. U.S. markets were closed on Friday.