Investors on Wall Street were affected by uncertainty over president Donald Trump’s trade policy this week.
After initially announcing immediate broad-based tariffs on neighbouring countries Canada and Mexico, exemptions for carmakers were introduced before other industries were given respite amid suggestions tariffs could be rolled back entirely.
On 6 March the S&P 500 extended its losses to drop nearly 2%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1% or more than 400 points.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite and Magnificent Seven group bore the brunt of Wall Street’s sell off.
The Magnificent Seven fell below the 200-day moving average which is a big technical support line, and the Nasdaq Composite fell more than 2.6%. The index is now more than 10% off its December record high and entering correction territory.
In other news, Stockholm-based payments company Klarna Bank said it is looking to raise $1 billion through an IPO in the US.
According to Bloomberg News, Klarna is planning to file for the IPO as early as the week beginning 10 March.
It was a good week for iconic clothing retailer Gap (GAP:NASDAQ). Gap’s shares rose about 17% in after-hours trading, as the company shrugged off China, Canada and Mexico tariff concerns and said its full-year outlook was in line with consensus forecasts.
Gap CEO Richard Dickson told Yahoo Finance: ‘We're monitoring the developments of tariffs on an hourly basis. We source less than 10% of our product from China and less than 1% of our product comes from Canada and Mexico combined.’
BEST BUY
Investors pulled the plug on Best Buy (BBY:NYSE) despite better-than-expected fourth quarter earnings (4 March) from the Corie Barry-bossed electronics retailer which interrupted a three-year period of sales growth declines.
Same-store sales edged up 0.5% in the quarter to January 2025 including Christmas, breaking Best Buy’s 12 quarter-long losing streak of negative growth as shoppers on a budget pounced on promotions.
However, the TV-to-tablet seller’s shares slumped 16% to $75.50 over the week after it warned of potential price hikes for US shoppers to offset Donald Trump’s new tariffs.
Minnesota-based Best Buy’s comparable sales guidance for full-year 2026 came in shy of Wall Street expectations of a 1.7% rise with the retailer forecasting sales to be in the range of flat to up 2%.
BROADCOM
There’s a simple antidote to Trump’s policy roulette for corporates caught in the crossfire… blow past earnings expectations and talk confidently about future growth potential.
Chip tech firm Broadcom (AVGO:NASDAQ) got a bit of a share price kicking in the run-in to Q1 2025 earnings, but ripped 13% higher following the after-hours results (6 March) thanks to blowout growth and its bullish outlook.
‘We expect continued strength in AI semiconductor revenue of $4.4 billion in the second quarter, as hyperscale partners continue to invest in AI XPUs and connectivity solutions for AI data centres,’ said Hock Tan, president and CEO of Broadcom.
XPUs are custom AI accelerator chips, in rampant demand as big AI customers like Alphabet (GOOG:NASDAQ), Microsoft (MSFT:NASDAQ) and many others shovel investment to boost capacity. Broadcom guided for second quarter revenue of $14.9 billion, representing a 19% surge from the prior year period.
Broadcom reported earnings per share (EPS) of $1.60, surpassing expectations of $1.51 and rising from $1.10 that it reported during the same period a year earlier.
As for the topline, Broadcom’s first quarter revenue stood at $14.92 billion, significantly ahead of the estimated $14.59 billion consensus and surging 25% year-on-year. AI revenue grew by a massive 77% year-on-year to $4.1 billion, the sort of figures that will encourage many investors to ‘buy the dip’, as analysts like to say.
Ahead of the Q1 earnings, Broadcom stock had slipped 22% so far in 2025, so the after-hours rally above $202 marks a welcome return to the long-run uptrend.
MODERNA
Shares in biotechnology firm Moderna (MRNA:NASDAQ) jumped 16% on Thursday (5 March), topping the S&P 500 index after a regulatory stock filing revealed chief executive Stephane Bancel had purchased $5 million worth of shares, demonstrating his confidence in the business.
Following the purchase, Bancel owns 9.2 million shares through his Boston Biotech Ventures investment vehicle and a further 12 million shares through other vehicles, making him the firm’s largest shareholder.
Investors were also buoyed by positive statements from senior executives around Moderna’s personalised cancer treatment being developed with Merck (MRK:NYSE), which is expected to come to market in 2027.
Shares in Moderna have dropped 65% over the last year and sit a whopping 92% below the highs of 2021 reflecting the company’s struggles to develop new vaccines from its proprietary mRNA technology platform fast enough to replace waning sales of its Covid-19 vaccine.
Last month Moderna received marketing authorisation from the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency for its second commercial vaccine mRESVIA, which is used inoculate patients over 60 against respiratory syncytial virus.
