Stocks fell premarket on “Liberation Day,” when President Donald Trump is set to unveil new tariffs on virtually all countries with which the U.S. has a trading relationship. Futures linked to the S&P 500, Nasdaq 100 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average all pointed to a lower open.
Many tech shares fell before the bell on concern about the effects of the import duties. Declines as of about 7:41 a.m. were 2.6% for Palantir (PLTR-0.45%), 1.5% for Nvidia (NVDA+0.83%), 1.3% for Meta (META+1.48%), o.6% for Microsoft (MSFT+1.61%), 0.5% for Apple (AAPL+0.06%) and 0.6% for Google’s parent Alphabet (GOOGL+1.28%). Amazon (AMZN+0.83%) dropped 1.4%. Tesla (TSLA+3.99%) also lost ground.
The long-awaited reciprocal tariffs will be “effective immediately” after he announces them starting at 4 p.m. EDT, the White House said Tuesday. On Monday, Trump told reporters that he’s settled on a tariff plan, but declined to reveal details. One option was a 20% duty on virtually all imports, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The White House has downplayed the possibility that Trump will make an announcement on additional sectoral tariffs on Wednesday, saying that while the president is still committed to them, he’ll roll them out later.
Also due today: Factory orders, scheduled for 10 a.m., may have risen 0.5% in February, slowing from 1.7% in January, according to the consensus estimate in FactSet (FDS+0.17%). The ADP survey at 8:15 a.m. may show that employers added 122,500 jobs in March, up from 77,000 in February.
Federal Reserve Governor Adriana Kugler is scheduled to speak at 4:30 p.m. EDT on “Inflation expectations and monetary policymaking.”
Some stocks to watch today:
Newsmax stock plunged 23% before the open after surging 179% yesterday to $233. The conservative cable news channel opened at $14 on Monday in its post-IPO trading debut.
Tesla stock fell 2.4% premarket. The company’s first-quarter sales, due Wednesday, will probably disappoint investors, analysts said, with some trimming their forecasts to below 400,000 units. Many rivals, except for Ford (F-1.35%), have reported solid sales ahead of planned U.S. auto tariffs.
The post Tesla, Newsmax, Big Tech: Stocks to watch today appeared first on Quartz.
