Weak Jobs Report and Tariff Blitz Push U.S. Stocks Lower - Minute Briefing
This transcript was prepared by a transcription service. This version may not be in its final form and may be updated.
Charlotte Gartenberg: Here's your closing bell brief for Friday, August 1st, I'm Charlotte Gartenberg for the Wall Street Journal. US markets were lower across the board today. The Dow Industrials fell 1.2% while the Nasdaq composite led losses with a drop of 2.2%. The declines were fueled by a weaker than expected July jobs report and President Trump's new tariff plan. The new tariffs affect a number of countries, including Canada, Switzerland, and Taiwan. The weak jobs report increased investor bets that the Federal Reserve will cut rates. After the report, President Trump said he directed his team to fire the top Bureau of Labor Statistics official. Among individual companies, shares of Amazon ended down 8.3% after the company's cloud computing arm reported disappointing growth. The industrial supplies company WW Grainger slid over 10% after cutting its profit outlook due to tariff related factors. The Solar Energy Company, First Solar rallied 5.3% on earnings and revenue guidance that beat expectations. Shares of Reddit jumped more than 17% after the social media platform swung to a quarterly profit driven by AI improvements. And the software company, Figma moved 5.6% higher after soaring 250% in its stock market debut yesterday. Heads Up, an artificial intelligence tool. Helped us make this episode by creating summaries that were based on WSJ Reporting and then reviewed and adapted by an editor. We'll have a lot more coverage of the day's news on the Wall Street Journal's. What's News Podcast? You can add it to your playlist on your smart speaker or listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
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