Luke Kawa3/21/25

S&P 500 erases huge losses after Trump vows “flexibility” on upcoming tariffs

Stocks opened deep in the red, but erased nearly all their losses after President Donald Trump said there would be some “flexibility” on tariffs he plans to enact on April 2.

Buoyed by a late charge (likely influenced by the triple-witching expiry of stock, index, and ETF options), the S&P 500 managed to close marginally higher and the Nasdaq 100 booked a 0.4% gain, while the Russell 2000 dipped 0.6%.

The benchmark US stock index posted its first weekly gain since Valentine’s Day.

The S&P 500 sector ETFs home to the Magnificent 7 (communication services, consumer discretionary, and tech) were the only ones to go positive on the day.

Most S&P 500 constituents fell: in fact, going back to 1997, there have only been eight other sessions where the advance-decline was this negative and the benchmark stock index gained on the day.

Super Micro Computer was the top performer on the S&P 500 after the server company was upgraded by JPMorgan.

Tesla was also a standout gainer, as CEO Elon Musk’s all-hands meeting seemingly offset the negative fundamental headlines that have piled up around the company, at least for one day.

Boeing took flight while Lockheed Martin swooned after Reuters reported that the former beat out the latter for a contract to build a new jet for the Air Force.

Nike floundered after warning of sales declines going forward, at one point erasing all the stock’s gains since October 2015.

FedEx tumbled after missing on earnings and saying profits would be down this year.

Micron’s margin pressure was front-of-mind for traders selling off the stock despite its solid quarterly results.

Carnival dipped after its near-term guidance came in a little light relative to the Street’s estimates.

Chinese EV maker Nio also took the red pill after whiffing on earnings and issuing sales and delivery guidance for Q1 way below analysts’ projections.

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Tasha Matsumoto

Tech drags down stocks; gold and silver plummet

Gold and silver sank amid Trump’s plans to nominate reputed inflation hawk Kevin Warsh as the next Fed chair.

Public sculptures along the Clear Creek Trail in downtown Golden, Colorado.

Ben Walsh, Luke Kawa5h

Gold and silver plunge, suffering their worst losses since the 1980s

Gold and silver suffered their worst losses in decades on Friday, with the iShares Silver Trust falling more than 30% at one point during afternoon trading before recovering slightly.

After recently crossing $5,000 per ounce for the first time, gold’s dip was relatively muted compared to silver’s rout, but nevertheless eye-watering for a traditional safe haven asset. At one point, gold’s intraday dip exceeded 10%, its worst intraday drop since the 1980s and surpassing its declines seen during the 2008 financial crisis, per Bloomberg.

Silver’s drop was its worst in percentage terms since 1980.

Gold, and particularly silver, have been pushed higher recently by a storm of retail trader enthusiasm for the metals, as well as more traditional drivers of precious metals such as geopolitical risks and concerns over a fall in the dollar’s value due to trade wars and possibly waning central bank independence.

Leveraged ETFs that hold gold and silver futures have become increasingly popular trading vehicles amid the parabolic moves in precious metals prices, and likely contributed to the magnitude of the unwind today.

Case in point: look at silver futures for delivery in March. That’s the dominant contract held by the ProShares Ultra Silver ETF, which offers exposure to 2x the daily move in the shiny metal. Volumes exploded (and the contract rebounded modestly) right around 1:25 p.m. ET, which is when silver futures settled and around the time the ETF performed its daily rebalancing (which in this case, involved massive selling).

Max Knoblauch9h

Gaming stocks plunge following release of Google’s AI tool that can create playable, copyrighted worlds

Shares of major gaming companies are plunging on Friday as investors get a deeper look at the capabilities of Google’s new generative-AI prototype, Project Genie.

The tool allows users to “create and explore infinitely diverse worlds” with a text or image prompt. Users have already exposed its ability to realistically recreate knockoffs of copyrighted games from Nintendo and other gaming companies.

As users experiment with recreations of game worlds like Take-Two’s “Grand Theft Auto 6,” shares of major gaming companies are sinking. Unity Software, the maker of the popular Unity game engine, is down over 25%, while gaming platform Roblox is down about 9%.

Collision 2019 - Day One

D-Wave Quantum CEO on what’s next after the most eventful month in the company’s history

“If 2025 was the international year of quantum, 2026 is the international year of D-Wave Quantum,” said CEO Dr. Alan Baratz.

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Matt Phillips11h

SoFi bests Wall Street’s Q4 expectations, shares rise

SoFi Technologies reported better-than-expected Q4 sales and earnings-per-share numbers Friday before market open, sending the shares higher in the premarket.

The online lender reported:

Adjusted Q4 earnings per share of $0.13 vs. the $0.12 consensus estimate collected by FactSet.
Adjusted revenue of $1.01 billion in Q4 vs. the Wall Street forecast for $977.4 million.
Q1 2026 adjusted net revenue guidance of approximately $1.04 billion vs. the $1.04 billion consensus expectation, according to FactSet.

SoFi shares rallied roughly 70% last year, as the company’s growing menu of financial products — including trading, wealth management, mortgages, credit cards, and cryptocurrency trading — showed signs of gaining traction beyond its traditional base of student borrowers. But the stock has stumbled in early 2026, falling nearly 7% in January through Thursday’s close, though most of that slump seems to have been reversed this morning.

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