Big Tech carries Wall Street to the close of its winning, roller-coaster week

Boston Globe

25-04-2025

Alphabet climbed 1.7 percent in its first trading after Google's parent company reported late Thursday that its
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Alphabet is one of the biggest companies on Wall Street in terms of size, and that gives its stock's movements extra influence on the S&P 500 and other indexes. Another market heavyweight, Nvidia, was also a major force pushing the S&P 500 index upward after the chip company rose 4.3 percent.
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They helped offset a 6.7 percent drop for Intel, which fell even though its results for the beginning of the year also topped expectations. The chip company said it's seeing 'elevated uncertainty across the industry' and gave a forecast for upcoming revenue and profit that fell short of analysts' expectations.
It wasn't just Intel. Roughly three out of every five stocks in the S&P 500 sank, including Eastman Chemical, which dropped 6.2 percent after it gave a forecast for profit this spring that fell short of analysts' expectations.
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CEO Mark Costa said that the 'macroeconomic uncertainty that defined the last several years has only increased' and that future demand for its products 'is unclear given the magnitude and scope of tariffs.'
Skechers U.S.A., the shoe and apparel company, pulled its financial forecasts for the year due to 'macroeconomic uncertainty stemming from global trade policies' even though it just reported a record quarter of revenue at $2.41 billion. Its stock fell 5.3 percent.
Companies
Stocks bounced back from a
But Trump's on-again-off-again tariffs may nevertheless be pushing households and businesses to alter their spending and freeze plans for long-term investment because of how quickly conditions can change, sometimes seemingly by the hour.
'Business owners scrambling to figure out their supply chains and exposure to tariffs is more than just a distraction,' according to Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management. 'It could be an existential threat, especially for smaller businesses that don't have the scale or resources to have the same supply chain flexibility as larger firms.'
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All told, the S&P 500 rose 40.44 points to 5,525.21. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 20.10 to 40,113.50, and the Nasdaq composite jumped 216.90 to 17,382.94.
In stock markets abroad, indexes rose modestly across much of Europe following more mixed movements in Asia. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 jumped 1.9 percent, but stocks in Shanghai slipped 0.1 percent.
In the bond market, Treasury yields eased some more, and the yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.25 percent from 4.32 percent late Thursday.
It's been generally falling since approaching 4.50 percent earlier this month in a
Yields have dropped as several reports on the US economy have come in weaker than expected, bolstering expectations that the Federal Reserve may cut interest rates later this year to support growth.
A report on Friday morning said sentiment among US consumers sank in April, though not by as much as economists expected. The survey from the University of Michigan said its measure of expectations for coming conditions has dropped 32 percent since January for the steepest three-month percentage decline seen since the 1990 recession.
The value of the US dollar meanwhile held steady against the euro and other rival currencies. It's been recovering some of its sharp, unexpected
AP Writers Jiang Junzhe and Matt Ott contributed.