All NewsMarch 7, 2025

Stock Market Today: Stocks turn lower after muted February jobs report

U.S. stocks turned lower in mid-day Friday trading, while the dollar extended its steepest weekly decline of the year, as investors parsed a key reading of the labor market amid the ongoing confusion tied to President Donald Trump’s tariff strategy. 

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Updated at 12:57 PM EST

No hurry

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell echoed the market’s concern over “uncertainty” tied to tariff and economic policies, but noted that solid labor markets and easing inflation pressures likely mean the central bank remains in “no hurry” to change its key policy rate.

Speaking to a forum on monetary policy in New York, hosted by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Powell said that while the economic outlook is now clouded by uncertainty, much of the impact has been seen in sentiment surveys, which he stressed have “not always been a good predictor of consumption growth”.

“We do not need to be in a hurry, and are well positioned to wait for greater clarity,” Powell said.

Stocks are still in the red, but have pared some of their earlier declines into the afternoon session, with the S&P 500 down 5 points and the Nasdaq off 20 points.

Updated at 11:13 AM EST

Getting out the calculators

Goldman Sachs followed Wall Street rival JPMorgan in lowering its first quarter GDP growth estimate this week, pegging a likely advance of around 1.7% to reflect what it called “new tariff assumptions” for the world’s biggest economy.

“While our previous tariff assumptions implied a peak hit to year-on-year GDP growth of -0.3 percentage points, our new assumptions imply a peak hit of -0.8 percentage point. In the risk scenario, this would grow to -1.3 percentage points,” Goldman said.

“Taking on board this additional 0.5 percentage point drag on growth from our new larger tariff assumptions, we have reduced our 2025 Q4/Q4 GDP growth forecast to 1.7%, from 2.2% previously,” the bank added said. “This implies that GDP growth will be slightly below potential rather than slightly above.“

Updated at 10:07 AM EST

Volatility watch

The market’s closely-tracked volatility index, the CBOE Group’s VIX, eased moderately into the early session but remains elevated at the highest levels since early December.

At $24.05, the VIX indicates options traders are expecting daily swings of the S&P 500 of around 1.5%, or 86 points, for each day over the next month.

“We’ve felt whipsawed by the on-again off-again tariff news, but we’ve largely held the same course as we began 2025 with: very cautious, risk-off and concerned about valuations and concentration,” said Chris Zaccarelli, CIO at Northlight Asset Management.

“We’ve been counseling clients since the end of last year that 2025 was likely to be a volatile year because of policy uncertainty and so far, that’s exactly what we’ve seen,” he added.

Updated at 9:35 AM EST

Mixed open

The S&P 500 was marked 4 points, or 0.04% lower in the opening minutes of trading, with the Nasdaq up 6 points, or 0.05%.

The Dow slipped 40 points while the mid-cap Russell 2000 index fell 5 points, or 0.18%.

“Friday’s jobs report may change the calculus for the Federal Reserve’s plans on interest rates this year, and it’s possible that we see the next rate cut come as soon as June,” said Glen Smith, chief investment officer, GDS Wealth Management. 

“Fed Chair Jerome Powell is speaking this afternoon, and investors will be looking for his reaction to the recent round of economic data and the market’s broader tariff fears,” he added. “The stock market is moving in lockstep with tariff headlines, and that is likely to keep volatility very elevated for the foreseeable future, as the market does not like uncertainty.”

Updated at 9:07 AM EST

More red

Stock futures are edging lower as investors dig into the February jobs report. with a solid, but unspectacular headline tally matched against the gains witnessed over the final months of last year.

S&P 500 futures now suggest an opening bell decline of around 11 points, with the Nasdaq called 5 points lower and the Dow poised for a 145 point pullback.

“The jobs data shows moderating growth and wage pressures,” said David Russell, global head of market strategy at TradeStation.

“That would normally be welcome as dovish news. However, investors see clouds on the horizon,” he added. “This could be the calm before the storm of much weaker employment. Tariffs threaten jobs because they threaten supply chains and profits. Uncertainty is in a bull market.”

Updated at 8:42 AM EST

Steady, for now

The U.S. economy added fewer-than-expected new jobs last month while revisions of prior tallies suggest renewed labor market weakness heading into the start of the year.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said 151,000 new jobs were created last month, missing Wall Street’s 163,000 forecast and coming in notably higher than the downwardly-revised January reading of 125,000.

The headline unemployment rate edged higher, to 4.1%, while the labor force participation rate slipped 0.2 percentage points to 62.4%.

U.S. stock futures moved higher following the data release, with futures tied to the S&P 500 indicating a 15 point opening bell gain and the Nasdaq called 98 points higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was last called 55 points higher.

Benchmark 10-year Treasury note yields rose 1 basis point to 4.255% following the data release while rate-sensitive 2-year notes also rose 1 basis points to 3.944%.

The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six global currencies, was marked 0.61% lower at 103.571.

Updated at 8:04 AM EST

HPE-eek!

Hewlett Packard Enterprise  (HPE)  shares plunged in early trading after the server maker reported a disappointing profit and sales outlook and steep job cuts amid slowing demand.

HPE, the services-focused division spun out of the former Hewlett-Packard in 2015, forecast current-quarter revenue of between $7.2 billion and $7.6 billion, with earnings in the region of 30 cents a share, well shy of Wall Street’s 50-cent estimate. The group is also slashing around 2,500 jobs, or 5% of its workforce, to cut costs.

HPE shares were last marked 19.7% lower in premarket trading to indicate an opening bell price of $14.42 each.

Stock Market Today

Stocks ended sharply lower last night, with the S&P 500 falling more than 100 points, or 1.78%, to extend its worst five-day performance since September as investors dumped U.S. stocks and trimmed positions in the dollar even as President Donald Trump attempted to roll back some of the levies he placed on goods from Canada and Mexico just a few days earlier.

Markets were left guessing as to the what the president’s next steps might be, and although USCMA-compliant goods are now exempt until next month, they might then be vulnerable to new duties when the administration unveils so-called reciprocal tariffs on all of America’s trading partners on April 2.

“I’m not even looking at the market because long-term the United States will be very strong with what’s happening here,” Trump told reporters in Washington late Thursday. 

Confusion around President Trump’s tariff strategy has put the S&P 500 on pace for its worst week since September. 

WIN MCNAMEE/Getty Images

The confusion on tariffs, meanwhile, is paired with a weakening economic data and a host of corporate warnings on consumer spending and rising prices, the latest of which came from retail giant Costco Wholesale  (COST)  last night.

“Consumers are still showing that willingness to spend, but they’re being very choiceful where they’re spending their dollars,” said Costco’s finance chief, Gary Millerchip. “And we think that’s likely to continue and maybe even become more choiceful as the impact of some return of inflation and the potential impact of tariffs could flow through as well.”

Related: U.S. jobs cuts at 16-year high as trade war concerns hammer sentiment

The sternest test of that economic weakness will arrive this morning at 8:30 am Eastern Time, with the Labor Department’s February jobs report. 

Economists expect a headline hiring tally of 163,000, but softer data from payroll processing group ADP and corporate layoff tracker Challenger Gray suggest the chances of a weaker-than-expected reading that could underscore the current growth malaise.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell will also speak on the broader economic outlook during an event in New York later this afternoon.

Stock futures, however, are edging higher into the start of trading, with the S&P 500 priced for a 15 point opening bell gain and the Dow Jones Industrial Average called 37 points higher.

The tech-focused Nasdaq, meanwhile, is priced for a 75 point advance following stronger-than-expected earnings from Broadcom  (AVGO)  that’s helped lift some chip stocks.

More Wall Street Analysis:

In overseas markets, the “phenomenal uncertainty” described yesterday but the European Central Bank following its sixth rate cut since June helped push the regional Stoxx 600 benchmark 0.62% into the red by mid-day trading in Frankfurt, with the FTSE 100 down 0.48% in London.

Overnight in Asia, soft trade date from China over the first two months of the year dragged the regional MSCI ex-Japan index 0.63% lower into the close of trading while the Nikkei 225 fell 2.17% to close at the lowest level in six months. 

Related: Veteran fund manager unveils eye-popping S&P 500 forecast