The S&P 500 was little changed on Friday following a three-day winning streak on Wall Street as investors weigh earnings from a major tech company and lingering trade fears.
The broad market benchmark was trading around the flatline. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 219 points, or 0.6%, while the Nasdaq Composite added 0.4%.
Alphabet jumped 3% after the Google-parent and “Magnificent Seven” name reported a beat on the top and the bottom line for the first quarter. By contrast, Intel fell 7% after offering disappointing guidance and revealing that it plans to slash operational and capital expenses.
Sentiment was hurt a bit Friday after comments from President Donald Trump were published by Time magazine. The president said he would consider it a “total victory” if the U.S. has high tariffs of 20% to 50% on foreign countries a year from now. Trump also denied that rising yields forced his hand in granting a 90-day pause on most of the higher tariff rates.
To be sure, the president also said announcements of many trade deals would be coming “over the next three to four weeks.”
“The bond market was getting the yips, but I wasn’t,” said Trump in the interview from Tuesday that was published Friday.
The moves come after what has been a solid weekly performance for the market. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are up 3.8% and 5.4% this week, respectively. The Dow has climbed 2%.
But stocks have been in a wide trading range following the initial shock of President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs announcement on April 2 as investors await clarity on negotiations with key trading partners such as China. That country revealed Thursday that there were no ongoing discussions on tariffs.
That followed the White House signaling earlier this week that it may ease its stance on China tariffs, which sit at a total of 145% on imports from the country. On Tuesday, Trump said that the tariff rate will “come down substantially. But it won’t be zero.”
Still, going forward Jay Hatfield, founder and CIO of InfraCap, is optimistic that the worst of the tariff-induced uncertainty is over.
“The confusion about whether there’s really talks going on with China or not took some steam out of the market,” he told CNBC in an interview. “Our view is that we’ve reached peak tariff tantrum and so it’s likely to be more positive than negative.
Hatfield believes that the key driver for markets next week will be earnings from big hyperscaler firms such as Microsoft and Amazon.
Tesla on track for best week since November 2024
Tesla was last pacing for its best week since November 2024.
Shares of the electric vehicle maker have surged 28% since their intraday low on April 7, 2025. Investors have been optimistic after CEO Elon Musk said during Tesla’s recent earnings call that he will spend “significantly” less time running the Department of Government Efficiency starting in May.
Tesla stock is now pacing to snap its worst two-month stretch since 2022.
— Adrian van Hauwermeiren, Lisa Kailai Han
Consumer staples is the only sector paced for a weekly decline
Among the 11 S&P 500 sectors, consumer staples is the only category poised to finish the week in negative territory.
Companies have increasingly sounded the alarm over escalating trade tensions, and have cut their outlooks accordingly on the belief that these duties could hurt consumer confidence and raise prices.
Consumer staples names hit hardest this week include:
- Kimberly-Clark on pace for its worst week since March 2022
- Procter & Gamble on track for its worst week since May 2022
- PepsiCo on pace for its worst week since March 2022
- Church & Dwight on track for its worst week since October 2023
— Adrian van Hauwermeiren, Lisa Kailai Han
University of Michigan sentiment survey beats estimate
Final adjustment to the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment survey showed slight improvements from the mid-month readings.
The headline index reading of 52.2 was better than the mid-month level of 50.7 and above the Dow Jones estimate for 50.8. On inflation, the one-year outlook is at 6.5%, down 0.2 percentage point on revision but still the highest reading since November 1981. At the five-year horizon, the outlook was unchanged at 4.4%.
The drop in the headline number is the biggest three-month slide since the 1990 recession, according to Joanne Hsu, the survey’s director.
— Jeff Cox
2 Hours Ago
The stock market just had its ‘strongest breadth thrust’ since Nov. 2023
The stock market’s three-day win streak triggered a buy signal in the 5-day moving average of the advance/decline line for the first time going back to Nov. 2023, according to Wolfe Research. It’s an indicator that has historically meant muted returns over the next month, but better gains over the next three.
Even so, the firm’s Rob Ginsberg said he remains cautious amid ongoing uncertainty, saying he’s keeping to a middle road where he is “not too bearish into weakness and not too bullish into strength.”
In particular, he observed the Nasdaq Composite’s three-day performance, in which it rallied 7.9%, has historically preceded losses over both the one-month and three-month period. He looked back for other instances when the Nasdaq rallied at least 7.5% over a three-day stretch, while also trading below its 50-day moving average.
“Since 2000, there have been forty-four such occurrences,” Ginsberg wrote. “The average 1-month return following these prior signals saw an average decline of 1.4% (45% positive w/ a 9.9% avg rally/ 55% negative w/ an avg. decline of -10.8%), while looking out 3-months the average decline increases to 3.7% (43% positive w/ a 16.9% avg rally/57% negative w/ an avg. decline of 19.4%).
“Bottom line, we will default to price and significant resistance awaits,” he concluded.
— Sarah Min
3 Hours Ago
Stocks open little changed on Friday morning
Michael M. Santiago |Getty Images
After notching three days of back-to-back gains, stocks opened Friday’s trading session little changed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 65 points, or 0.2%. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite were both trading around flat.
— Lisa Kailai Han
3 Hours Ago
Citi upgrades Hasbro to buy from neutral, says upside potential outweighs tariff headwinds
Citi is sticking by Hasbro after the toy maker’s strong first-quarter earnings and revenue beat, saying that the company’s underlying momentum can remain resilient in the face of tariffs and consumer weakness concerns.
Analyst James Hardiman upgraded Hasbro to buy from neutral and raised his price target by $17 to $72. His new forecast suggests about 19.3% potential upside for the stock, which jumped more than 14.5% this week, bringing the stock into the green for the year.
“Following the Liberation Day swoon, investors now get another swing at the Hasbro transformation story, at a cheaper price, and with added visibility on the stellar momentum underway at WotC,” Hardiman said. “And while tariff uncertainty remains a key swing factor, management’s unchanged guidance deftly flipped the script on its risk profile, with tariff headlines from here more likely to lead to upside than downside.”
Hardiman pointed to the strength of Hasbro’s Wizards of the Coast business.
— Pia Singh
4 Hours Ago
Stocks making the biggest moves Friday morning
Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Check out the companies making headlines before the bell.
Meta Platforms — The Facebook and Instgram parent jumped about 3%. Meta cut staff in its Reality Labs division, CNBC reported.
Alphabet – The Google and YouTube owner climbed more than 4% after first-quarter results topped Wall Street expectations. Alphabet earned $2.81 per share on $90.23 billion in revenue for the quarter, while analysts surveyed by LSEG had estimated $2.01 per share and $89.12 billion in revenue.
T-Mobile – Shares of the telecommunications company fell 5.5% after it reported fewer first-quarter wireless phone subscribers than the Street expected, seeing 495,000 postpaid phone additions versus analysts’ call for 504,000, according to StreetAccount. Earnings and revenue for the first quarter topped Street estimates.
The full list can be found here.
— Hakyung Kim
4 Hours Ago
Intel slips 7% after issuing weak guidance
Shares of Intel were trading 7% lower on Friday morning after the struggling chipmaker issued disappointing guidance for the current quarter.
