Topline
Stocks nosedived across the board Thursday as Wall Street largely panned the highly aggressive tariffs announced by President Donald Trump, sending major indexes toward what could be their worst daily losses in years, and several prominent names were hit particularly hard by the latest tariff developments.
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange at the start of President Donald Trump’s … More
Key Facts
The blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2.9%, or 1,240 points, the bellwether S&P 500 sank 3.6% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq cratered 4.3% in premarket trading.
That would make Thursday the worst day for all three indexes since September 2022.
Among the hardest hit stocks premarket were the “magnificent seven” big tech companies: Shares of Apple fell 7%, Alphabet 4%, Amazon 7%, Meta 6%, Microsoft 3%, Nvidia 6% and Tesla 6%.
Also struggling were retail stocks, as shares of Walmart, Costco and Home Depot lost 3.5% or more, while shares of athletic wear companies Lululemon and Nike each tanked close to 15% due to each firm’s manufacturing reliance on China and Vietnam, countries heavily targeted by the latest tariffs.
Shares of financial services companies from American Express (-5%) to JPMorgan Chase (-4%) to Robinhood (-11%) also flailed.
U.S. government bonds rallied as investors fled to assets perceived as safer in times of economic uncertainty, and yields for the benchmark 10-year Treasury declined by more than 15 basis points to just above 4%, the lowest level since before the election (lower bond yields signify more valuable bonds).
Why Is Apple Stock Down So Much?
Shares of Apple lost more than any other of the magnificent seven. The Asia-focused Liberation Day tariffs “could blow up Apple” due to its heavy non-U.S. manufacturing mix, explained Rosenblatt analyst Barton Crockett in a Thursday note. Apple alone would face $39.5 billion in tariff costs, according to Crockett, equating to a whopping 32% earnings hit. “It’s hard for us to imagine Trump blowing up an American icon,” wrote Crockett, speculating a carveout may be in order for Apple, before bemoaning “this looks pretty tough” for the iPhone maker.
What Wall Street Strategists Say About Tariffs
The odds of a bear market, in which stocks decline by 20% or more, is “going higher,” warned UBS strategists led by Bhanu Baweja in a Thursday note to clients, setting a 5,300 target for the S&P, which implies a 4% further decline from the premarket drop. “There is no tariff playbook,” bluntly stated Savita Subramanian, Bank of America’s top U.S. equity strategist.
When Do Markets Open?
Normal stock trading on the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq exchange begins at 9:30 a.m. EDT, though the equity market’s official Thursday movement will be heavily influenced by activity in more limited off-hours trading late Wednesday and early Thursday. Most bond markets opened at 8 a.m.
