The major U.S. index futures on the Dow Jones, S&P and Nasdaq are currently pointing to a roughly flat open on Thursday, with stocks likely to show a lack of direction following the sharp pullback seen in the previous session.
While President Donald Trump’s announcement that he will impose 25 percent tariffs on auto imports may generate some negative sentiment, the news may already be priced into the markets after the White House revealed Trump would be making the announcement during the trading day on Wednesday.
However, Trump’s conflicting remarks about tariffs may lead to continued uncertainty on Wall Street, keeping some traders on the sidelines.
Trump told reporters the reciprocal tariffs set to take effect next week will “very lenient” but threatened in a Truth Social post early this morning that he would impose far larger tariffs than currently planned “if the European Union works with Canada in order to do economic harm to the USA.”
Traders may also be reluctant to make significant moves ahead of the release of the Federal Reserve’s preferred readings on consumer price inflation on Friday.
Stocks moved sharply lower over the course of the trading day on Wednesday, giving back ground after trending higher over the past few sessions. The tech-heavy Nasdaq led the pullback amid significant weakness in the technology sector.
The major averages climbed off their worst levels going into the close but remained negative. The Nasdaq plunged 372.84 points or 2.0 percent to 17,889.01, the S&P 500 slumped 64.45 points or 1.1 percent to 5,712.20 and the Dow fell 132.71 points or 0.3 percent to 42,454.79.
The sharp pullback by the Nasdaq came as big-name tech stocks came under pressure, with shares of Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) plunging by 6.0 percent.
Shares of Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) have also tumbled by 5.6 percent, while shares of Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) slumped by 3.2 percent and 2.5 percent, respectively.
The weakness in the tech sector may partly have reflected ongoing uncertainty about President Donald Trump’s tariff plans.
Trump said during an interview with Newsmax on Tuesday that new tariffs would “probably be more lenient than reciprocal,” because reciprocal tariffs would be “very tough for people.”
However, while Trump also said there would be exceptions to the tariffs, he noted there would be “not too many exceptions.”
Stocks saw further downside after the White House said Trump plans to announce new tariffs on auto imports later this afternoon.
In U.S. economic news, the Commerce Department released a report showing an unexpected increase by new orders for U.S. manufactured durable goods in the month of February.
The Commerce Department said durable goods orders climbed by 0.9 percent in February after spiking by an upwardly revised 3.3 in January.
Economists had expected durable goods orders to slump by 1.0 percent compared to the previously reported 3.2 percent surge.
Excluding a jump by orders for transportation equipment, durable goods orders still rose by 0.7 percent in February after inching up by 0.1 percent in January. Ex-transportation orders were expected to rise by 0.2 percent.
Semiconductor stocks turned in some of the market’s worst performances on the day, dragging the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index down by 3.3 percent.
Computer hardware, networking and software stocks also saw notable weakness, contributing to the slump by the tech-heavy Nasdaq.
Outside of the tech sector, brokerage, pharmaceutical and retail stocks also moved notably lower, while oil producer stocks bucked the downtrend amid an increase by the price of crude oil.
Dow Jones, S&P, Nasdaq, U.S. Stocks May Lack Direction Following Yesterday’s Pullback
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