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Luke Kawa

Tariffs, data, earnings are a trifecta of troubles sending the S&P 500 sharply lower

Let’s run through everything ailing the US stock market on Thursday, with the SPDR S&P 500 ETF poised for its first 1% loss since mid-June:

  • Tariffs: President Donald Trump is planning to follow through with additional tariff hikes for countries that didn’t reach deals with the US. A UBS basket of “Trump tariff losers” is down 2.4% as of 10:15 a.m. ET.

  • Data: Nonfarm payroll growth in the US disappointed, coming in at 73,000 in July versus an expected 104,000. To make matters worse, there were also massive negative revisions to the prior two months. The July ISM Manufacturing report also posted a big miss, coming in at 48 while economists had anticipated 49.5. Readings below 50 imply a contraction in the sector. These two reports had led to mounting worries about the potential for everything else in the economy to roll over, outweighing the ongoing AI boom — especially when the aforementioned tariff shock threatens to heap additional pressure on economic activity.

  • Earnings: There are some good and bad ones out there, but the bad ones really sting. Amazon is single-handedly driving nearly 20% of the SPY’s decline as of 10:30 a.m. ET, as even the overwhelming AI demand it’s seeing isn’t strong compared to its rivals.

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Chipotle beats Q4 estimates, but sinks on underwhelming full-year guidance

Chipotle reported earnings results that beat Wall Street estimates, but gave underwhelming full-year guidance.

For the last three months of 2025, Chipotle reported:

  • Adjusted earnings per share of $0.25, compared to the $0.24 analysts polled by FactSet were expecting.

  • Revenue of $3 billion, a bit higher than the $2.9 billion the Street was penciling in.

  • A comparable-store sales decline of 2.5%, less than the 2.9% decline the Street was expecting.

For the full year in 2026, Chipotle expects:

  • Comparable-store sales to be flat, compared to the 1.7% growth analysts were expecting.

Chipotle has struggled to spark sales over the past year and has previously cited strained consumers as a major headwind. The company fell more than 9% in after-hours trading shortly after the report was released.

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Take-Two raises its net bookings outlook, reaffirms November release for “Grand Theft Auto 6”

“Grand Theft Auto” and “NBA 2K” maker Take-Two reported results for its fiscal third quarter on Tuesday. Its shares climbed about 4% in after-hours trading.

The company posted net bookings, or the amount customers spent on its products, of $1.76 billion, up 28% from the same quarter last year. Wall Street analysts polled by FactSet expected $1.58 billion. In November, Take-Two guided for Q3 net bookings of between $1.55 billion and $1.6 billion.

Take-Two hiked its full-year bookings outlook to between $6.65 billion and $6.7 billion, up from a range of $6.4 billion to $6.5 billion. The new outlook compares to Wall Street’s $6.47 billion estimate. The gaming giant trimmed its full-year net loss guidance to between $369 million and $338 million (prior guidance: between $414 million and $349 million).

In its last quarter, Take-Two pushed back the planned release date of “Grand Theft Auto 6” from May 2026 to November 19, 2026. The company reaffirmed that date in Tuesday’s report. The game’s last trailer came in May 2025.

Shares of Take-Two and other major gaming companies have been sinking since late last week as investors react to early showcases of Google’s Project Genie, which allows users to generate interactive, “playable” worlds with a text or image prompt. As of Tuesday’s close, Take-Two has shed nearly $6 billion in market cap since Project Genie was released.

Analysts have called the market reaction unjustified, saying that the tool doesn’t allow for meaningful interactivity or replay-ability. According to mBank analyst Piotr Poniatowski, Project Genie is — at the moment — essentially a “one-minute-long walking simulator generator.”

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