US stocks slide lower as investors focus on trade, key jobs data
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Wall Street remains listless on Thursday, as the countdown ticks toward Friday's highly anticipated jobs report.The S&P 500 was 0.3% lower in morning trading. After sprinting through May and rallying within a couple good days' worth of gains of its all-time high, the index at the center of many 401(k) accounts has lost momentum as financial markets wait for the next big trigger to move, up or down.The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 162 points, or 0.4%, as of 10 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2% lower.Trading activity in options markets suggests investors believe the next big move for the S&P 500 could come on Friday, when the U.S. Labor Department will say how many more jobs U.S. employers created than destroyed during May. The expectation on Wall Street is for a slowdown in hiring from April.A resilient job market has been one of the linchpins that's propped up the U.S. economy, and the worry is that all the uncertainty created by President Donald Trump's on-and-off tariffs could cause businesses to freeze their hiring.Procter & Gamble, the giant behind such brands as Pampers diapers and Cascade dish detergent, said Thursday it will cut up to 7,000 jobs over the next two years to boost its ability to make profit. Its stock fell 1.7%.A report on Thursday said that more U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week than economists expected. The number still remains relatively low compared with history, but it hit its highest level in eight months.A separate report said that U.S. workers overall produced less stuff per hour during the start of the year than economists expected. The drop in productivity is a potentially discouraging trend for inflation.On Wall Street, Five Below rallied 10.7% after the retailer, which sells products priced between $1 and $5, reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. CEO Winnie Park credited broad-based strength across most of its merchandise.MongoDB jumped 17.4% after the database company likewise delivered a stronger profit than analysts expected.On the losing side of Wall Street was Brown-Forman, the company behind Jack Daniel's and Woodford Reserve. Its profit and revenue for the latest quarter fell short of Wall Street's expectations, and the company said it expects its upcoming fiscal year to be challenging because of 'consumer uncertainty, the potential impact from currently unknown tariffs' and other things. Its stock fell 15.6%.The CEO of PVH, the company behind the Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger brands, likewise cited challenges from 'an increasingly uncertain consumer and macroeconomic backdrop.'Its stock fell 18.4% even though it reported stronger revenue and profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The company cut its profit forecast for its full fiscal year, saying it will likely be able to offset only some of the potential hit it will take because of tariffs.Hopes that Trump would lower his tariffs after reaching trade deals with other countries have been among the main reasons the S&P 500 has rallied back after dropping roughly 20% below its record two months ago. But talks are still ongoing, and nothing is assured. In the meantime, many companies have been cutting or withdrawing their forecasts for profit this upcoming year because of all the uncertainty.Trump spoke with China's leader, Xi Jinping, on Thursday amid hopes for progress between the world's two largest economies. The conversation was confirmed by the Chinese foreign ministry, which said Trump initiated the call. The White House did not immediately comment.Expectations are also building that the Federal Reserve will need to cut interest rates later this year in order to prop up the economy. Yields took a sharp turn lower on Wednesday after reports came in weaker than expected on the U.S. job market and on activity among U.S. services businesses.The Fed has yet to cut interest rates this year after slashing them through the end of 2024. Part of the reason for the pause is that the Fed wants to see how much Trump's tariffs will hurt the economy and raise inflation. While lower interest rates could boost the economy, they also tend to give inflation more fuel.Treasury yields held steadier on Thursday ahead of Friday's jobs report. The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.35% from 4.37% late Wednesday after tumbling from 4.46% the day before.In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed amid modest moves across much of Europe after the European Central Bank cut its main interest rate again, as was widely expected.The moves were larger in Asia, where South Korea's Kospi jumped 1.5% after the country's new president and leading liberal politician Lee Jae-myung began his term, vowing to restart talks with North Korea and beef up a partnership with the U.S. and Japan.
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Time of India
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- Time of India
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In some corners of TikTok's Bellevue office of roughly 1,000 employees, the workflow felt like a remix of previous Amazon teams, the people said. But since January, growing tension in the teams below Kang and Nico Le Bourgeois, who oversaw TikTok's e-commerce operations in the US, became a distraction for staff who were often unsure about whose orders to follow, the people said. TikTok's uncertain fate in the US also weighed on morale. The company carried out a round of layoffs in April. A second batch followed in May. In the first round, Le Bourgeois was demoted when Mu Qing, a Chinese executive from ByteDance's e-commerce platform Douyin moved to the Seattle area to run TikTok Shop in the US. After the second bout, Mu sent an internal message saying Le Bourgeois was leaving to pursue other opportunities, according to a copy of the message seen by Bloomberg. 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- Scroll.in
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Hindustan Times
41 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
Can Qatari jet gifted to Trump take a nuclear hit? What it needs to be Air Force One
Donald Trump recently received a luxury jet as a gift by the Qatari Royal family and is now reportedly planning to use the aircraft as a temporary Air Force One, the official air traffic control-designated call sign for the plane that carries carrying the US president. But converting the jet gifted by the Qatari royal family as a temporary Air Force One for presidential use may come at the cost of national security, officials cited in an Associated Press report said. As the White House navigates legal questions over accepting the plane, military and national security leaders are quietly debating how much to modify the aircraft — and how fast — to make it fit for a commander in chief. Installing the full suite of security and communications tech typical of Air Force One could cost upwards of $1.5 billion and take years, according to US officials, cited in the AP report, which added that the time it would take to do all of that would dash Trump's hopes of flying in the aircraft before the end of his term. The US Air Force is working on replacing the current aging 747s with highly customised presidential aircraft — a project plagued by delays and budget overruns. Experts have warned that retrofitting the Qatari plane to the same standard risks the same fate. Air Force secretary Troy Meink told Congress the core security upgrades for the Qatari jet would be 'less than $400 million' but did not elaborate. However, lawmakers and defense officials remain skeptical that a safe and fully equipped plane can be delivered in such a short window. Donald Trump, however, has made clear he wants the Qatari plane operational 'as soon as possible' while still 'adhering to security standards,' a White House official said, speaking anonymously. But experts caution that transforming the Qatari aircraft into a reliable Air Force One is no quick task. 'You'd have to break that whole thing wide open and almost start from scratch,' AP quoted Deborah Lee James, former Air Force Secretary, referring to the extensive rewiring needed to match Air Force One's security protocols. The list of required upgrades is not a short one: -Anti-missile defense,-EMP shielding,-Classified communications,-and command systems robust enough to survive a nuclear blast. 'The point is, it remains in flight no matter what,' James said. While cutting corners might be tempting for a president on the clock, experts say Secret Service can plan for and mitigate risk but can never eliminate it. Trump, as commander in chief, has the authority to waive some requirements. Still, James warned, waiving certain features should remain classified: 'You don't want to advertise to your potential adversaries what the vulnerabilities of this new aircraft might be.' Cosmetic changes, however, are almost certain as Trump famously prefers a darker paint scheme modeled after his personal jet, and a model of the design reportedly still sits in his office. Trump personally toured the Qatari jet in February near Mar-a-Lago, accompanied by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin. While the jet reportedly needs maintenance, officials say it's not beyond what's expected for an aircraft of its size and complexity.
