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Wall Street was poised to open with healthy gains on Friday, but nowhere near enough to make up for the losses that have piled up in recent weeks as anxious investors flee for safer holdings in the midst of an escalating U.S. trade war.
Futures for the S&P 500 jumped 0.8%, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.5%. Futures for the technology heavy Nasdaq climbed 1%.
Big gainers in premarket trading Friday included Semtech, DocuSign and Ulta Beauty.
Semtech, a chipmaker, climbed 13% after it topped Wall Street's fourth-quarter expectations and issued strong guidance. Digital document signing company DocuSign jumped more than 10% after it nudged past profit forecasts and easily surpassed revenue targets.
Mall beauty products retailer Ulta rose 6.6% after trouncing analysts' profit forecasts and issuing better-than-expected full-year guidance.
On Thursday, Wall Street’s sell-off deepened as President Donald Trump’s broadening trade war dragged the S&P 500 more than 10% below the record it set last month.
A 10% drop is big enough that professional investors have a name for it — a “correction” — and the S&P 500’s 1.4% slide on Thursday sent the index to its first since 2023.
The Nasdaq, trading home to some of the biggest U.S. technology companies, has fared even worse, declining more than 13% since mid-February. As of Thursday's close, it was down more than 5% this week alone, dragged down by powerhouse Apple, which is having its worst week in five years. Apple inched up less than a percent before the bell, but its losses for the week are close to 12%.
“For now, traders are bracing for another round of policy-induced whiplash, knowing full well that in this environment, certainty is a luxury they won’t be getting anytime soon,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.
The losses came after Trump upped the stakes in his trade war by threatening 200% tariffs on Champagne and other European wines and alcohol, unless the EU rolls back a tariff on U.S. whiskey it imposed in response to U.S. tariffs on European steel and aluminum. Not even a double-shot of good news on the U.S. economy could stop the bleeding.
Adding to risks was a partial government shutdown that might ensue if Congress fails to pass its annual appropriations bill. A Senate vote on the resolution, which passed the House earlier this week, could come Friday.
In Europe at midday, Germany's DAX rose 1.8% and the CAC 40 in Paris climbed 1%. Britain's FTSE 100 was up 0.6%.
In Asian trading, Hong Kong’s benchmark jumped 2.1% to 23,959.98, while the Shanghai Composite index surged 1.8% to 3,419.56.