STORY: U.S. stocks ended mixed on Thursday, with the Dow dropping about half a percent, the S&P 500 closing essentially flat, and the Nasdaq ticking up about three-tenths of a percent.
Investors digested a Bloomberg report early in the session that Fed Governor Christopher Waller was President Donald Trump's top candidate for central bank chair.
Trump has been highly critical of current Chair Jerome Powell for holding off on cutting interest rates as the Fed weighs the potential inflationary effects of Trump's tariffs.
Higher tariffs on imports from dozens of countries kicked in on Thursday, raising the average import duty to its highest in a century.
Adam Coons is chief investment officer at Winthrop Capital Management.
“The other thing hitting markets today is the fact that tariffs kick in. And while we still have quite a bit of negotiating to do country by country, they are enacted. And so that is going to weigh on different aspects of the market, the supply chain, pricing. And so I think right now it's just, it's a lot of that digestion on, you know, how long are negotiations going to take for different countries? What will they look like in the end?”
Stocks on the move Thursday included Eli Lilly, which plummeted more than 14% after data from its experimental weight-loss pill disappointed.
Shares of cybersecurity firm Fortinet tumbled 22% after the company delivered a revenue forecast below Wall Street estimates.
And shares of Pinterest climbed more than 12% in extended trading after the social media platform beat analysts' estimates for second-quarter revenue.
Rapid growth among Gen Z users along with the platform's AI-powered marketing tools have made the company attractive to advertisers.
