Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., September 4, 2025.
Jeenah Moon | Reuters
Stocks were lower Thursday as investors digested a batch of Big Tech earnings, while a meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping concluded.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 131 points, or 0.3%. The S&P 500 dipped 0.6%. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.8%.
Megacap tech giants Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft each reported quarterly results after market close Wednesday. While Alphabet shares popped about 4% on the back of strong results, shares of Meta and Microsoft tumbled about 12% and nearly 2%, respectively. Investors grew worried about the increased spending outlooks for both Meta and Microsoft.
Traders also kept an eye on the trade front, after Trump agreed to cut fentanyl tariffs on China to 10%. That bring the overall levy on Chinese imports to 47% from 57%.
As part of the deal, Beijing will work to stop fentanyl into the U.S. and buy American-grown soybeans along with other agricultural goods. China also delayed the latest curb on rare earth exports by a year. “Rare earth issue has been settled,” Trump said.
To be sure, other areas such as the export of Nvidia chips and the TikTok divestiture remain unresolved. While China’s Ministry of Commerce said that the country is willing to work with the U.S. to “resolve issues related to TikTok,” the ministry didn’t provide any further details on the matter.
Wall Street is coming off a mixed day. The Dow rolled over, ending slightly lower after it briefly touched a record high earlier. The S&P 500 ended the day flat, while the Nasdaq closed up nearly 0.6%.
Those moves came after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell suggested the central bank may not cut interest rates again at its December meeting, which investors had been betting on. “A further reduction in the policy rate at the December meeting is not a foregone conclusion. Far from it,” he said. The Fed on Wednesday lowered its benchmark overnight borrowing rate by a quarter percentage point to end its two-day policy meeting, putting it in a range of between 3.75% to 4%.
“The interest rate cut was the easy part as markets were giving the Fed breathing room,” said Chris Maxey, chief market strategist at Wealthspire Advisors. “For now, there is appropriate balance between monetary policy and the labor/inflation picture. Powell spooked markets with comments on the lack of conviction on a December rate cut and that’s where we may start to see the slow to respond narrative begin.”
