WSJ What’s News - What’s News in Markets: Nvidia’s China Rival, Tariff Tech Effect, McDonald’s Slips

Episode Date: May 3, 2025

How do a Chinese company’s AI chip efforts affect Nvidia? And what’s the trade-war takeaway from this week’s tech earnings? Plus, how is economic uncertainty affecting McDonald’s customers? Host Francesca Fontana discusses the biggest stock moves of the week and the news that drove them. Sign up for the WSJ's free Markets A.M. newsletter.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To support sustainable food production, BHP is building one of the world's largest hot ash mines in Canada. Essential resources responsibly produced. It's happening now at BHP, a future resources company. Hey listeners, it's Saturday, May 3rd. I'm Francesca Fontana for the Wall Street Journal, and this is What's News in Markets, our look at the biggest stock moves of the week and the news that drove them. Let's get to it.

Trade and earnings were the two big stories of the market this week, and in many ways they were intertwined, as investors have been watching for the effects of Trump's tariffs on corporations, on consumer spending, on the real world, really. A big focus was earnings from four of the magnificent seven super stocks, but more on those reports and how they moved the market later. Notable trade developments this week injected some optimism into the stock markets, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick saying he's reached a trade deal with an unnamed country, although no trade deals have been announced, Trump softening the blow of auto tariffs, and some signs of the ice thawing between Washington and Beijing.

This week, the Dow rose 3%, while the S&P 500 gained 2.9%, and the Nasdaq rose 3.4%. Let's start by checking in with AI chip company NVIDIA and how the US-China chipmaking rivalry is heating up. So in Monday's session, we saw investors reacting to the Wall Street Journal's report that China's Huawei Technologies is gearing up to test its newest and most powerful artificial intelligence processor, hoping it'll beat some of NVIDIA's chips. And Huawei has emerged as China's champion in the AI field. Washington has attempted to hinder Beijing's chip industry by cutting off access to some

Western chip-making equipment, and Huawei has been on a US trade blacklist for nearly six years. Despite these efforts, though, China's semiconductor industry is still advancing. And the latest news on those advancements weighed down Nvidia's stock price. Its shares fell 2.1% on Monday, but rebounded later in the week and, on a weekly basis, gained 3.1%. Now, back to those magnificent 7 earnings. As I mentioned, a handful of tech giants posted earnings during the week, so which ones lived up to the hype?

Well, on Wednesday, we got the latest from Microsoft and Facebook parent Meta Platforms. Both posted better than expected results that reassured investors and boosted markets. Indicators around trade were a big part of that. So for one, Meta said growth would remain steady, assuaging concerns that tariffs would hurt its digital advertising business. And Microsoft indicated that big corporate clients aren't slashing their technology budgets. At least, not yet. Meta shares rose 4.2% on Thursday, while Microsoft shares jumped 7.6%. And on the week, Meta gained roughly 9%, while Microsoft gained about 11%. But that tech enthusiasm started to fade away from the stock market after Apple and Amazon's

quarterly reports, after the market closed on Thursday. Apple's sales rose, but it said current tariff plans would add $900 million to its costs this quarter. Woof. And while Amazon predicted a solid quarter, the lower ends of its forecasts missed analysts' expectations. On Friday, Amazon's shares ended roughly flat, while Apple's shares lost more than three and a half percent. And on a weekly basis, Amazon edged half a percent higher and Apple fell nearly two percent.

The Golden Arches Finally, the Golden Arches are losing some of their shine as the fast food chain's customers in the U.S. cut back on spending. McDonald's posted a bigger-than-expected drop in quarterly revenue, and this tracks with the larger trend we've been seeing this earnings season. As consumer spending slows down, many restaurants have reported falling sales, including Chipotle Mexican Grill, Domino's Pizza, and Starbucks.

During Thursday's earnings call, chief executive Chris Kamchinsky told investors that low-income consumers pulled back on their spending, but so did middle-income households, while the higher-income crowd kept spending, illustrating what he called the divided U.S. economy. So how'd the stock do? Well, McDonald's shares fell 1.9% on Thursday and notched a weekly loss of 1.5%. And now you know what's news in markets this week. You can read about more stocks that moved on the week's news in The Score, my column in the Wall Street Journal's Exchange section.

Today's show was produced by Zoe Kolkin and Anthony Bansi, with supervising producer Tali Arbel. I'm Francesca Fontana, have a great weekend, and I'll see you next Saturday.