Yahoo Finance

Now time for some of today's trending tickers. You can scan the QR code below to track the best and worst performing stocks of the session with Yahoo Finances trending tickers page. This morning, we're taking a look at some downgrades for automakers due to tariffs, retailers retreating after getting a big bounce after the tariff delay and Carmax earnings. First up, let's talk a little UBS downgrade. General Motors is the subject of this one, from buy to neutral, and they've cut their price target for both GM and Tesla. Goldman Sachs, they downgraded Ford to neutral from buy and cut its price target. Both firms citing concerns about President Trump's 25% tariffs on autos and auto parts manufactured outside the US. Sector specific tariffs were not included in the 90-day delay. UBS estimating that the annual cost burden for General Motors could reach $5 billion. Shares of all of these names pre-market moving lower by about 3% from what I could see on the screen a moment ago.

Yeah, it's interesting in terms of just how quickly these analysts have to react to policy coming out of the White House because until the pause was announced from the president on all of these reciprocal tariffs, the 90-day pause, and then you had Secretary Howard Lattner confirming later to reporters that these auto tariffs were still in place. There was a question for a little while there about what the change in tariff policy meant specifically for the automakers, but we do know now that that tariff on automakers still remains intact here. So, no surprise to see some of these changes here. Also, we had UBS actually expecting GM to post a solid first quarter, forecasting Q1 2025 EPS about 9% above the consensus, but warning that guidance could be withdrawn due to macro and tariff related uncertainty. And will we continue to see more and more guidance withdrawn, and what would that mean for investors trying to assess out company earnings? That is a key question for this quarter. The next step, let's talk about your retailers. You got Nike and Lululemon moving to the downside in pre-market trading this morning. Why are they moving to the downside? Because they've got a lot of exposure to China. Nike in particular a very interesting one because of the degree of exposure. They had worked to move some of that exposure in their supply chains over to Vietnam, and then Vietnam is also hit with the tariff. So, this is a great example of how you will potentially see some of these individual tariffs really mattering in terms of negotiations over these next 90 days. Obviously, the China tariff at 125% is going to be killer for some of these retailers, but we still don't know what's happening with the Vietnam tariff. So that could also potentially still be a headwind even though the market yesterday acted like that 90-day pause was a great reprieve.

Retail is going to be massively struck by this. And one of the major things that you think about even beyond some of the household names in the swoosh and of course the wishbone that is Lululemon, and of course Lululemon might be a little bit more happy that for some of what they produce in Canada, of course that is where they are headquartered at and originate from. But of course the sourcing comes into mind and how some of those raw materials move throughout the manufacturing process for Lululemon, for Nike, even all the way down to the smallest players. The ones that you see a lot of people shopping from on Temu or on some of the random ones that pop into your social media feed or the new companies that have figured out a way to source products, textiles from China, from Vietnam, and then be able to sell them into the US market or other markets around the world for a considerable markup so that they can solidify their own margins. This is going to impact the entire retail industry. These two names just happened to be the publicly traded indicators that we can track in this near-term period of time.

Quote of the day, Claudia, some t-shirts are the new eggs.

Exactly. Yes. Oh my goodness. Finally here, shares of used car retail platform Carmax falling after posting an earnings mix. Carmax also pulled its long-term sales target goals of $33 billion annually, and then more than two million retail and wholesale vehicles. That was also part of it. The company cited quote, potential impact of broader macro factors for its removal of a timeline to reach those goals. You're seeing shares down here pre-market by about 11% ahead of the opening bell.

And another example of a company axing their timeline for long-term growth forecast. The company did not give specific financial guidance for fiscal 2026, and they suspended the timeline for long-term growth targets that they had announced previously. And of course, they cited broader macro factors as part of that. They previously did have guidance in terms of sales moving to the upside in fiscal 2026 through 2030. Obviously, that is now coming into question because of the potential impact of these tariffs.