US stocks slid on Thursday as Wall Street eyed the US-China trade truce struck by Presidents Trump and Xi, cooling odds of another interest-rate cut, and the next tranche of Big Tech earnings.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) slipped 0.2%. The broad benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC) lost more than 0.5%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) fell by more than 0.9%, leading the way down amid a healthy decline in Meta (META) shares.
Stocks have lost steam after Fed Chair Jerome Powell stressed that a December rate cut is “not a foregone conclusion — far from it.” His comments, which came after the central bank lowered its benchmark rate by a quarter percentage point, highlight division among policymakers.
The Trump-Xi meeting overnight failed to provide a boost, even as it delivered effectively a one-year trade truce. The US will halve fentanyl-related tariffs on China in return for a 12-month pause in Beijing’s curbs on rare earth supplies, while China has pledged to start buying American soybeans again.
Meanwhile, investors braced for quarterly results from tech megacaps Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN) after the bell, following mixed earnings reports from their “Magnificent Seven” counterparts Alphabet (GOOG), Meta, and Microsoft (MSFT) late Wednesday.
Alphabet shares jumped over 7% after the Google parent reported stronger-than-expected quarterly results. But Meta sank and Microsoft slipped as investors parsed the companies’ outlooks.
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