U.S. stocks finished both the day and the month on a down note as a fresh round of earnings forecasts from companies only added to investors’ laundry list of concerns.
Last night, Amazon.com (AMZN, -14.1%) said first-quarter revenue rose 7% on a year-over-year basis – the slowest pace in 20 years – to $116.4 billion, just shy of the consensus estimate. AMZN also offered lower-than-expected Q2 revenue guidance due to forex headwinds and the company’s plan to move this year’s Prime Day to July from June.
Apple (AAPL) was another post-earnings decliner, sliding 3.7%. The tech giant reported a 9% annual rise in revenue to $97.3 billion – the most ever for a March quarter – but warned supply-chain issues caused by COVID-related lockdowns in China could create a $4 billion to $8 billion drag on sales in the current quarter.
“The guidance from multiple companies on the supply-chain situation and expenses going up seems to be weighing down the market after the brief recovery days,” says Jimmy Lee, CEO of independent wealth management firm The Wealth Consulting Group. “So, I’m fairly happy with how the consumer seems to be holding up so far [adjusted for inflation, consumer spending rose 0.2% month-over-month in March, according to this morning’s Commerce Department report], but Q2 will be more telling and sets up stocks to continue the volatility that we’ve seen so far this year.”
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That volatility was on full display today, with the Nasdaq Composite sinking 4.2% to 12,334, the S&P 500 Index spiraling 3.6% to 4,131 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average surrendering 2.8% to 32,977.
For all of April, the Nasdaq shed 13.3% – marking its biggest monthly decline since October 2008 – the S&P 500 fell 8.8% and Dow gave back 4.9% for their worst months since March 2020.
Other news in the stock market today:
- The small-cap Russell 2000 slumped 2.8% to 1,864.
- U.S. crude oil futures slipped 0.6% to end at $104.69 per barrel.
- Gold futures gained 1.1% to finish at $1,911.70 an ounce.
- Bitcoin fell 4% to $38,351.14. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m.)
- Tesla (TSLA) closed down 0.8% amid headlines that CEO Elon Musk sold roughly $8.4 billion in TSLA shares this week, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The reports follow Monday’s headlines that Musk will buy Twitter (TWTR) for $44 billion. Yesterday, the billionaire tweeted that he is not planning to sell any additional shares. TSLA stock finished the week down more than 12%, but CFRA Research analyst Garrett Nelson said …….