Market Report for Friday, May 9, 2025
Stocks tiptoed through Friday with all the urgency of a trade negotiator on lunch break. Hints of tariff relief danced through the headlines, but with more hemming than harmony, investors kept their feet mostly still.
Level Change 5/9/25 (%)
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
-0.3 Dow
+0.0 Nasdaq
-0.1 Nasdaq 100
-0.1 S&P 500
-0.1 S&P 400
+0.0 S&P 600
After two weeks of climbing on cautious optimism, the market decided to pause and ask whether the good news was real, or just lightly disguised hope. So far, the latter.
Friday brought more talk of US-China tariff “de-escalation,” though the president shifted his preferred rate from a rumored 54% to a firm-sounding 80%, which is de-escalation only if you’re grading on a Himalayan curve.
Still, the idea that tariffs might one day go from punishing to merely painful kept investors from bolting. Unfortunately, valuations already reflect a sunnier outcome. The S&P 500 is back to 21x forward earnings, which assumes double-digit growth through political crosswinds, supply chain snarls, and consumers who increasingly shop with their sighs.
The Fed, meanwhile, held its fire—and its script. The Fedspeak posse rode out Friday, each talking-point gunslinger sounding off in a slightly different register of “not yet.”
Governor Kugler pointed to economic resilience as a reason to wait. Governor Barr warned that tariffs could push inflation and unemployment higher, and not in a way that makes decision-making any easier. New York’s Williams delivered the high-school lesson: without price stability, there’s no economic stability. And Richmond’s Barkin reminded analysts that retailers can’t pass on costs to consumers who’ve already passed out.
In short: the Fed is in wait-and-see mode, a position that sounds to those hankering for a preemptive rate cut like nap-and-mutter.
Among individual stocks, Nvidia (NVDA -0.6%) made headlines for the wrong reasons—again—by prepping a weaker chip to dodge US restrictions and maintain its China presence. Taiwan Semi (TSM +0.7%), by contrast, flexed with a 50% revenue jump in April, as clients rushed to hoard chips before tariffs make them a luxury good.
In the real economy, Expedia (EXPE -7.3%) cut guidance and dimmed the lights on US travel demand, while Lyft (LYFT +28.1%) soared on a better quarter and the novel theory that tariff-bloated car prices might drive more people into rideshares. Why buy a $40,000 car when you can get chauffeured around by someone else’s student loan debt for $12?
It’s a fair point—and one the Fed may ponder, once it finishes pondering the last thing it pondered.
— Jason Kelly
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