Wall Street stocks finished lower on Thursday, with the Nasdaq confirming it has been in a correction since December, weighed down by market jitters over the current uncertainty surrounding U.S. trade policy.
Market Snapshot
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 427.51 points, or 0.99%, to 42,579.08, the S&P 500 lost 104.11 points, or 1.78%, to 5,738.52 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 483.48 points, or 2.61%, to 18,069.26.
Market Movers
Electric-vehicle maker Tesla, meanwhile, was down 5.6% after closing with a gain of 2.6% in the previous session. Tesla sales have been declining across the globe as anger grows over the political activities of CEO Elon Musk.
Data released Wednesday showed that vehicle registrations fell 76% in February in Germany, Europe’s largest economy. Analysts at Baird reduced their price target on Tesla to $370 a share from $440, and added the stock as a “Bearish Fresh Pick.”
Shares of Marvell Technology, which sells a portfolio of chips and hardware products for the data center, 5G infrastructure, networking, and storage markets, fell 20% after the company’s earnings and revenue proved better than expected in the fourth quarter. Its financial guidance for the fiscal first-quarter guidance was mostly in line with expectations, disappointing investors who had thought the company might offer even more positive forecasts.
Nvidia, the leading maker of artificial-intelligence chips, fell 5.7% after Marvell’s disappointing guidance. Nvidia closed with a gain of 1.1% on Wednesday.
Broadcom’s stock rose about 12% in extended trading. Sales will be about $14.9 billion in the three-month period ending May 4, Broadcom said in a statement Thursday. Analysts had estimated $14.6 billion on average, though some projections surpassed $15.1 billion.
General Motors was down 2.6%, Ford Motor fell 0.4%, and Jeep maker Stellantis declined 1.1% after shares of the Big Three auto companies surged Wednesday. They were given a one-month exemption from tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico “so they are not at an economic disadvantage,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters. The delay came after President Donald Trump spoke with representatives from the auto makers.
Zscaler‘s fiscal second-quarter adjusted earnings and revenue beat analysts’ expectations and the cybersecurity company’s fiscal-year outlook also topped estimates. The stock rose 2.9%. Zscaler expects fiscal-year adjusted earnings of $3.04 to $3.09 a share on revenue of $2.64 billion to $2.65 billion. Analysts see adjusted profit of $2.90 a share on revenue of $2.64 billion.
Kroger gained 2%. The grocery chain reported a mixed fourth quarter and offered a soft outlook for the current fiscal year. A bright spot was identical sales, excluding fuel and the effects of store openings and closings, which rose 2.4% in the period.
Veeva Systems was up 7.4% after the cloud-based software company posted fourth-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street estimates as revenue rose 14% to $720.9 million. Veeva also forecast fiscal first-quarter adjusted earnings of $1.74 to $1.75 a share, which topped forecasts.
Market News
US Government Will Not Acquire Additional Bitcoin Assets for the Stockpile
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to set up a strategic Bitcoin reserve and a stockpile of other digital assets, according to a post on X by White House crypto czar David Sacks. Bitcoin and other tokens fell as Sacks said that taxpayer money would not be spent to acquire cryptocurrencies for either.
The reserve will be capitalized with Bitcoin already owned by the federal government that was forfeited as part of criminal or civil proceedings and the US will not sell any of the cryptocurrency deposited into it, Sacks said in the post. The order authorizes the secretaries of Treasury and commerce to develop “budget-neutral strategies” for acquiring additional Bitcoin, provided there is no incremental cost to American taxpayers, Sacks wrote.
Trump Delays Canada, Mexico Tariffs for Goods Under USMCA
President Donald Trump exempted Mexican and Canadian goods covered by the North American trade agreement known as USMCA from his 25% tariffs, offering major reprieves to the US’s two largest trading partners.
Trump signed orders Thursday paring back the tariffs, which are related to illegal immigration and fentanyl tracking, until April 2. That is the date when the president is expected to start unveiling plans for so-called reciprocal duties on nations around the world as well as sector-specific duties.
“They’ve been working much harder lately, do you notice that? On people coming in and drugs. We’ve made tremendous progress on both,” Trump said in the Oval Office, referring to Mexico and Canada.
