As President Donald J. Trump unveils newer, updated tariff policies directed against exporters to the U.S., stocks, and the traders who program the algorithms, are expressing discontent by sending stock futures sharply lower in the hours and minutes before the opening bell in New York.
Not only are U.S. stocks being sold down, markets around the world are reacting in highly negative manners, with a major selloff in Europe after indices in India (slapped with 25% tariffs just a day ago), Japan, Hong Kong, China, and South Korea all closed to the downside overnight.
South Korea's Kospi was especially hard-hit, down nearly four percent on the day. European bourses are all lower, led to the red by France's CAC-40, down 2.20%, and Germany's DAX, losing 400 points, or nearly two percent in mid-afternoon trading.
At 8:30 am ET, the BLS released July Non-farm employment figures, showing the U.S. gained just 73,000 jobs. Further, revisions for May and June were larger than normal. The change in total non-farm payroll employment for May was revised down by 125,000, from +144,000 to +19,000, and the change for June was revised down by 133,000, from +147,000 to +14,000. With these revisions, employment in May and June combined is 258,000 lower than previously reported. Instead of the rosy outlook initially presented, the revised figures suggest the U.S. hiring had stalled out. Expect today's number to be revised next month as well. The BLS should rightly be renamed the "Bunch of Lying Sleazebags."
Friday's pessimistic beginning comes on the heels of a scary session from the final day of July. On Thursday, after an early bout of euphoria over earnings results from two "Magnificent 7" stocks, Meta Platforms (META) and Microsoft (MSFT), profits were taken off the table through the remainder of the session, as the NASDAQ saw an early gain of nearly 300 points disappear, the index ending marginally on the downside.
For the week, through Thursday's close, the Dow 770 points, the NASDAQ up just 14 points, and the S&P off 49.
On the earnings front, Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), Coinbase (COIN), Roku (ROKU), Reddit (RDDT), Cloudfare (NET), MicroStrategy (MSTR) reported after the close and on Friday, before the open Chevron (CVX), ExxonMobil (XOM), Regeneron (REGN) and Colgate-Palmolive (CL) posted second quarter results.
Amazon was sent lower in post-market trading Thursday, as the company beat on most metrics but showed slowing growth in its cloud service, AWS. Oil giants, ExxonMobil (XOM) and Chevron (CVX) were flat heading toward the opening bell.
If stock futures are to be believed, U.S. stocks are headed toward a scary close to the week and inauspicious start to August.
At least both houses of congress are out of session for the month, a redeeming factor.
At the Close, Thursday, July 31, 2025:
Dow: 44,130.98, -330.30 (-0.74%)
NASDAQ: 21,122.45, -7.22 (-0.03%)
S&P 500: 6,339.39, -23.51 (-0.37%)
NYSE Composite: 20,458.44, -172.43 (-0.84%)
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