Stocks lose steam after trade tensions reignite
Tech dragged down the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100, but the Russell 2000 posted a new record-high close.
US stocks spent most of the session bouncing back from steep early losses before careening back into the red late in the day after President Donald Trump posted that the he was considering “terminating business with China having to do with Cooking Oil, and other elements of Trade, as retribution” for “purposefully not buying our Soybeans.”
Tech was the worst-performing sector ETF, dragging down the Nasdaq 100. The Russell 2000 still managed to notch a new record close as small-caps climbed higher.
Earnings season kicked off with big banks reporting generally positive results, with Wells Fargo and Citi rising. Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan fell, despite Q3 revenue and earnings beats.
Sign up now and get The Wrap in your inbox every day.
Stocks that moved higher:
Advanced Micro Devices jumped after Oracle said it will deploy 50,000 AMD AI chips in its data centers starting in the second half of 2026.
US airlines took off with JetBlue, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, and Southwest Airlines trading higher as oil prices sank amid trade tensions between the US and China.
Gaming platform Roblox rose following a price target hike from Jefferies to $130 from $126.
Tiny chip firm Navitas Semiconductor spiked after management unveiled products “purpose-built for Nvidia’s 800 VDC AI factory architecture, delivering breakthrough efficiency, power density, and performance.”
Small stocks in the critical and rare earth minerals sector — the latest flashpoint of US-China trade relations — continued to rip, as MP Materials, United States Antimony Corp., Critical Metals, and American Battery Technology Co. climbed higher.
Stocks that moved lower:
Data center stocks got knocked back due to exposure to risks of the China-US trade war. For instance, while most of the switches and routers Arista Networks sells are made in Malaysia, Vietnam, and Mexico, it also gets some products directly from China. The company is also reliant on supplies of some critical metals, exports of which China is clamping down on. Hard disk data storage makers Seagate Technology Holdings and Western Digital — also exposed to Asian supply chains — and server maker Dell fell as well.
Alibaba slipped following reports that its cloud unit will cut prices of select Elastic Compute Service products by up to 10.2% in overseas markets.
Japanese public company Metaplanet is the latest bitcoin treasury whose enterprise value has dropped below its bitcoin holdings.
Grindr Inc. fell after confirming that it’s in talks to go private for no less than $15 a share.
