Stock futures slipped Thursday after China said that it had no ongoing trade talks with the U.S., dashing investors’ hopes of an ease in tensions between the two nations.

Market Snapshot

At 8:17 a.m. ET, Futures linked to the S&P 500 were down 0.2%, along with Nasdaq-100 futures. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures lost 180 points, or 0.5%.

Pre-Market Movers

Tesla Motors was down 0.4%. The electric vehicle maker reported first-quarter earnings on Tuesday, with sales, operating income, and profit margin all falling from the previous year. Management clarified on the earnings call that the company still planned to release new models in 2025, but was working through "last-minute issues." Investors have been holding out hope that a lower-priced model will arrive in the first half of the year.

Despite the weak first-quarter print, the stock closed up 5.4% on Wednesday, a sign that Wall Street had been bracing for disappointing results. CEO Elon Musk also said that his "time allocation to DOGE will drop significantly" beginning in May.

IBM tumbled 6%. The technology giant posted better-than-expected earnings and revenue in the first quarter late Wednesday, but shares were falling sharply Thursday as other parts of the report underwhelmed investors. The company noted that its legacy mainframe computer business continued to decline. Second-quarter revenue guidance of $6.6 billion at the midpoint was ahead of expectations, but marked a 3% decline from the prior year.

Comcast shares dropped 4% after seeing a decline in customers for the first quarter. On Thursday, the cable giant reported a loss of 199,000 total domestic broadband customers as well as a loss of 427,000 in cable TV customers. The company did see an earnings and revenue beat for the period, however, posting adjusted earnings of $1.09 per share on $29.89 billion in revenue. Analysts surveyed by LSEG were expecting 98 cents per share and $29.77 billion in revenue.

Pepsi shares of the snack and beverage company up 0.1% after a first-quarter report showed lower-than-expected earnings and a weaker outlook. PepsiCo reported $1.48 in adjusted earnings per share, below the $1.49 per share expected by analysts, according to LSEG. The company also lowered its full-year projection for adjusted earnings on a constant currency basis, citing the impact of tariffs as one negative factor.

Procter & Gamble shares shed 1% after the consumer goods company reported mixed third-quarter results and cut its full-year core earnings per share and revenue guidance. Quarterly earnings came in at $1.54 per share, 1 cent more than expected from analysts polled by LSEG. Quarterly revenue was $19.78 billion, missing the $20.11 billion consensus estimate.

Merck shares ticked nearly 1% higher after the pharmaceutical company beat analysts’ expectations in its latest quarter. Merck reported first-quarter adjusted earnings of $2.22 per share on revenues of $15.53 billion. Analysts polled by LSEG had expected per-share earnings of $2.14 on revenues of $15.31 billion. On the other hand, the company cut its full-year profit outlook, in part because of a $200 million expected hit from tariffs.

American Airlines shares lost 0.4% after the air carrier joined competitors in withdrawing its 2025 financial outlook. The Texas-based company also posted slightly worse revenue than expected for the first quarter, per LSEG.

Chipotle Mexican Grill shares of the fast-casual restaurant chain slid 3% after posting weak revenue and disclosing its first same store sales drop since 2020. Chipotle recorded $2.88 billion in the first quarter, under the $2.95 billion consensus estimate from analysts polled by LSEG. Earnings per share came in at 29 cents, which was 1 cent ahead of Wall Street expectations.

Hasbro jumped 8% after providing a strong first-quarter earnings report. Hasbro earned $1.04 per share, excluding items, while analysts polled by FactSet expected 67 cents. Revenue came in at $887.1 million, also exceeding the consensus forecast of $771.1 million. Hasbro said it’s not changing its full-year guidance “given the uncertainty of the current tariff environment.”

ServiceNow rose 9%. The enterprise software company reported better-than-expected financial results on Wednesday and guided for higher second-quarter subscription revenue than Wall Street had anticipated. For the year, subscription revenues are expected to be between $12.6 billion and $12.7 billion, compared with Wall Street estimates of $12.6 billion.

Texas Instruments was up 9%. Shares of the semiconductor maker rose in premarket trading Wednesday on an earnings beat. The company also provided a solid outlook, forecasting revenue for the current quarter to fall between $4.17 billion and $4.53 billion, above analysts' calls for $4.1 billion. The stock pared some gains after management cited "high uncertainty" in the macro environment due to tariffs and geopolitics. However, Texas Instruments said it doesn't see a near-term effect on revenue for the June quarter.

Lam Research rose 4% after reporting earnings and revenue that beat analysts' expectations. The company, which counts Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing among its largest customers, said its strong performance in the quarter was driven by demand for advanced chips used to power artificial intelligence. Guidance for the current quarter also came in better than expected. "Our outlook remains strong even as we address near-term tariff-related uncertainty, and we are highly confident in our ability to outperform semiconductor industry growth in the years to come, " CEO Tim Archer said.

Newmont Mining gained 2.7%. The gold miner posted first-quarter adjusted earnings of $1.25 a share, topping the 92 cents analysts had expected, according to FactSet. Revenue rose to $5.01 billion from $4.02 billion a year earlier, also beating the $4.7 billion Wall Street had anticipated. The stock has gained nearly 43% this year, rising along with the price of gold, which has repeatedly notched new record highs.

Southwest Airlines declined 3%. The airline reported a first-quarter net loss of $149 million. On an adjusted basis, its loss of 13 cents a share was narrower than the loss of 18 cents a share analysts were expecting. The major carrier noted that demand weakened throughout the quarter, with domestic leisure travel taking a hit. While the company pulled its 2025 and 2026 estimates for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, management said initiatives to improve the company's financial performance remained on track.

Market News

Tesla Starts Testing Robotaxi Service in Austin, Bay Area

Tesla Motors is now testing its robotaxi service with employees in Austin and the Bay Area ahead of a planned launch in the summer of 2025.

“FSD Supervised ride-hailing service is live for an early set of employees in Austin & San Francisco Bay Area. We've completed over 1.5k trips & 15k miles of driving,” the automaker said in a post on X.

Tesla’s subscription-based Full Self-Driving, or FSD driver assistance system is not an autonomous driving setup. It requires the driver to keep their hands on the wheel of the vehicle. Supervised FSD is already available to Tesla owners.

Jefferies’ Wood Says Best over for US Stocks, Sees More Losses

The US stock market is well past its best days and investors should be prepared to see further declines in the nation’s equities, Treasury bonds as well as the dollar, according to Christopher Wood of Jefferies Financial Group Inc.

The market value of US stocks as a percentage of the MSCI All Country World Index reached its all-time high in late December, said Wood, the firm’s global head of equity strategy. “The US has made an all-time peak,” he said, likening it to the Japanese market in 1989. “The dollar has begun a long-term weakening trend, and that’s going to reduce the US stock market capitalization as percentage of the world.”

Investors should consider adding Chinese, Indian and European assets in rebalancing their portfolios, Wood said.