WSJ What’s News - What’s News in Markets: Tariffs Whipsaw, Gap’s Bump, Target Prices

Episode Date: March 8, 2025

What made Target’s stock wobble and Gap’s surge? And how are automakers faring in the wake of Trump’s tariffs? 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

Hey, listeners. It's Saturday, March 8th. I'm Francesca Montana 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, trade, trade. That was the big story in the stock market as investors and portfolio managers grappled with fears about U.S. economic performance amid a ton of policy uncertainty. Don't worry if you missed the latest on all the rapid-fire tariff updates this week, I will run through those in a bit. On a broader level, we've been seeing US consumer confidence slipping on fears of rising prices, which was a thread we saw on some of the retail movers this week. I'll come back to those in a minute too.

Then of course there was Thursday's big sell-off with chip stocks in particular getting hammered as investors searched through AI chip makers results looking for the next big thing, the next Nvidia if you will. And while the indexes managed to end Friday in the black, they each notched losses for the week. The Dow fell more than 2%, the S&P lost more than

3%, and the NASDAQ fell about 3.5%. First up, let's set our target on Target. The red bull's eye, the American retail giant. This week, Target was the latest retailer to warn investors about the looming impacts of higher tariffs and consumer uncertainty. Like I said before, shoppers are worried that they'll be seeing a lot of price tags going up. So on Tuesday, Target said its February sales fell year over year, and the company warned that its sales could be flat this year.

A similar reading from Walmart spooked investors last month when executives sat lower than expected fiscal year revenue and profit targets. And it seemed like Target investors got spooked, too, because its shares fell 3% on Tuesday and the stock ended the week down more than 7%. And Target wasn't alone. Another retail stock, Best Buy, took a hit after saying tariffs might curb demand for its electronics due to higher prices. Best Buy shares took a dive after that, sliding about 13% on Tuesday,

and on the week, they lost roughly 12%. So we're seeing how the trade policy atmosphere has been weighing on stocks through Tuesday, which was when those Mexico and Canada tariffs took effect. That brings us to Wednesday, where this week's tariff play-by-play really ramps up. Okay, so we're going to move fast, and we're going to focus on global auto stocks, which are especially vulnerable. All right? Got it?

Great. Let's go. Tuesday. The tariffs are here. Wednesday. The White House says, eh, not so fast. Actually, automakers, you're getting a one-month reprieve from the levies for cars that comply with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada

free trade agreement. Auto stocks cheer. U.S. traded shares of Toyota Motor, for one, jump six and a half percent. But that's not all. Thursday morning, we get Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on CNBC saying that one-month reprieve might be extended beyond automakers. And later that day, President Trump suspends the tariffs on goods that fall under the USMCA until April 2nd. But like I mentioned, investors weren't sure what to make of all these sudden changes, and stocks fell anyway.

Whew. Okay, that was a lot of news, a lot of whipsawing in the markets, and, like I said, a lot of big moves for the most trade-vulnerable sectors. Let's circle back to Toyota. At the end of all that, its U.S. shares finished the week with a gain of 4.8%. So now we're at Friday. And markets got a bit of a break from all the trade news, so we got to look up and see, you know, what else is going on.

I'll tell you, Gap was on fire. The apparel company, behind brands like Banana Republic, Old Navy, Aplita, and of course its namesake, posted better than expected sales and profit last quarter, as its turnaround efforts continue to show results. And for what it's worth, given that the trade uncertainty is far from over, Gap also addressed tariffs, saying it has minimal exposure, less than 10% of Gap's products come from China, and less than 1% come from Canada and Mexico. Good to know, because with how this week went, it's hard to say what

next week holds. All in all, Gap gap shares surged a whopping 19% on Friday. 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 Jess Jupiter, with Deputy Editor Chris Sinseley. I'm Francesca Fontana. Have a great weekend and see you next Saturday.