Futures tracking Wall Street's main indexes were subdued on Thursday, with auto stocks taking a hit after President Donald Trump's latest tariff salvo.
At 7:55 a.m. ET, Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 23 points, or 0.1%. S&P 500 futures fell 0.1%, while Nasdaq-100 futures fell 0.3%.
Tesla Motors was up 1% in premarket trading after the president said there was "absolutely no tariff" for cars made in the U.S. Will Scharf, a White House aide, said the new tariffs would apply to "foreign made cars and light trucks." Electric-vehicle company Tesla assembles all the cars it sells in the U.S. within the country but does source parts from other countries that would be subject to tariffs. Shares of the electric-vehicle company declined 5.6% on Wednesday and ended a five-session winning streak.
Traditional automakers General Motors, Ford, and Jeep maker Stellantis NV were mixed following the tariffs announcement. Barron's has noted that GM assembles about 55% of the cars it sells in the U.S. inside the country's borders, the same as Stellantis, while the figure for Ford is about 80%. GM was down 6% in premarket trading, Ford rose 1%, and Stellantis declined 1.3%.
Technology stocks fell significantly on Wednesday but were mixed in premarket trading. SUPER MICRO COMPUTER INC, the maker of artificial-intelligence servers, was down 0.6% after dropping 8.9% on Wednesday, while NVIDIA, the leading maker of AI chips, fell 1.6% in premarket trading after finishing down 5.7% in the previous session. The U.S. added about 80 companies, including more than 50 in China, to its export control list, which requires government approval before the companies can buy American technology. " Nvidia getting ensnared in the U.S.-China trade dispute is a negative development," Gil Luria, a D.A. Davidson analyst, told MarketWatch in an email.
Advanced Micro Devices fell 3.5% as analysts at Jefferies downgraded the chip maker to Hold from Buy and reduced their price target to 120 from $135. Jefferies cited AMD's "limited traction" in artificial intelligence and rising competition for the downgrade.
GameStop tumbled 7.4% after announcing plans for a private offering of $1.3 billion in convertible senior notes, aiming to use the proceeds for general corporate purposes, including to invest in Bitcoin. The company said Tuesday that its board approved " the addition of Bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset." Shares rose 12% on Wednesday.
Jefferies Financial Group Inc. reported fiscal first-quarter earnings of 57 cents a share, down from 69 cents a year earlier. The company said it experienced a "meaningful decline in asset management investment return compared to the prior-year quarter," adding that "capital markets have become increasingly more challenging due to the uncertainties that have arisen around U.S. policy and geopolitical events." The stock declined 2.3%.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Truth Social on Thursday that his administration would impose greater tariffs on the EU and Canada if they collaborate to do “economic harm” to the country.
“If the European Union works with Canada in order to do economic harm to the USA, large scale Tariffs, far larger than currently planned, will be placed on them both in order to protect the best friend that each of those two countries has ever had!” Trump posted.
This marks the latest escalation of Trump’s tariff war with the world.
NIO Inc. Thursday said it proposes to offer up to 118.8M Class A ordinary shares of the company in offshore transactions.
The company currently plans to use the net proceeds from the equity placement for research and development of smart electric vehicle technologies and new products, further strengthening the balance sheet as well as general corporate purposes.
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