Francesca Fontana
speaker
586 appearances
22 recordings
1 series
first heard Feb 2025
last heard 10 Jan
Francesca Fontana’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 9 in all, peaking in Dec 2025 with 3.
Appearances
and the U.K., which had some good news in it for Boeing, but more on that later. All in all, though, all three major indexes ended the week slightly lower. Thank you. First up, let's talk Disney. The entertainment company announced plans for a new theme park, and investors were certainly celebrating. Disney said that its new park, which will be its seventh global park, will be built in Abu Dhabi.
So it's expanding its lucrative experiences business into a new market. The company also posted strong earnings, saying that its U.S. theme parks attracted more guests and higher spending from visitors in the latest quarter.
Disney's Experiences unit, which is the home of its theme parks and cruises, has helped boost its other businesses, including its streaming platforms and its film and TV studios. And those areas, at Disney and at its rivals, have an array of issues that they're facing, like declining cable TV and underperformance at the box office. And, of course, a new threat has also emerged.
President Trump's recent comments calling for 100% tariffs on films produced outside the U.S. So how'd the stock do on Wednesday? Well, Disney shares jumped 11%, making it the best performer in the Dow that day. And on the week, the stock gained about 15%. Now let's talk steel.
Of course, as we've seen, President Trump has been trying to build up American steel demand with tariffs on foreign metal. Meanwhile, as we learned this week, one of the major U.S. steelmakers is shrinking. Cleveland Cliffs on Wednesday said it will pause or slow operations at six plants. after posting a wider first quarter loss and lower revenue.
These production cuts and changes in its operations are expected to affect about 2,000 jobs and save the company some $300 million a year. Now, the future for steel demand in the U.S., it seems, is still unclear. Steel prices climbed as customers were buying up steel ahead of Trump's tariffs on imported metal.
But now that rally has stalled, and buyers are holding off on placing big orders in an uncertain U.S. economy. Cleveland Cliff shares ended up plummeting 16% on Thursday and on a weekly basis lost more than 20%. And we finally got a big trade deal development this week, with the US-UK agreement announced on Thursday. And, like I said earlier, it contained good news for Boeing.
$10 billion worth of good news, you might say. Because during the announcement... Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said a British airline would buy $10 billion worth of Boeing planes. And in exchange for the UK buying these jets as well as doing other things like cutting tariffs on some U.S. beef imports, the Trump administration agreed to roll back tariffs imposed on British steel and cars.
And we got more specifics on Friday when British Airways owner IAG said it's ordered 32 Boeing planes. So after making some smaller moves in both directions earlier in the week, Boeing shares gained 3.3% on Thursday and notched a weekly gain of 5.1%. And now you know what's news in markets this week.
You can read about more stocks that moved on the week's news in The Score, my column in the Wall Street Journal's Exchange section. Today's show was produced by Zoe Kolkin and Pierre Bien-Aimé with supervising producer Talia Arbel. I'm Francesca Fontana. Have a great weekend and I will see you next Saturday.
Hey, listeners, it's Saturday, May 3rd. I'm Francesca Fontana for The Wall Street Journal, and this is What's News in Markets, our look at the biggest stock moves of the week and the news that drove them. Let's get to it. Trade and earnings were the two big stories of the market this week.
And in many ways, they were intertwined, as investors have been watching for the effects of Trump's tariffs on corporations, on consumer spending, on the real world, really. A big focus was earnings from four of the magnificent seven super stocks. But more on those reports and how they moved the market later.
Notable trade developments this week injected some optimism into the stock markets, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick saying he's reached a trade deal with an unnamed country, although no trade deals have been announced, Trump softening the blow of auto tariffs, and some signs of the ice thawing between Washington and Beijing.
This week, the Dow rose 3%, while the S&P 500 gained 2.9%, and the Nasdaq rose 3.4%. Let's start by checking in with AI chip company NVIDIA and how the U.S.-China chipmaking rivalry is heating up.
So in Monday's session, we saw investors reacting to the Wall Street Journal's report that China's Huawei Technologies is gearing up to test its newest and most powerful artificial intelligence processor, hoping it'll beat some of NVIDIA's chips. And Huawei has emerged as China's champion in the AI field.
Washington has attempted to hinder Beijing's chip industry by cutting off access to some Western chipmaking equipment, and Huawei has been on a U.S. trade blacklist for nearly six years. Despite these efforts, though, China's semiconductor industry is still advancing. And the latest news on those advancements weighed down Nvidia's stock price.
Its shares fell 2.1% on Monday, but rebounded later in the week, and on a weekly basis gained 3.1%. Now back to those magnificent seven earnings. As I mentioned, a handful of tech giants posted earnings during the week. So which ones lived up to the hype? Well, on Wednesday, we got the latest from Microsoft and Facebook parent Meta Platforms.
Both posted better than expected results that reassured investors and boosted markets. Indicators around trade were a big part of that. So for one, Meta said growth would remain steady, assuaging concerns that tariffs would hurt its digital advertising business. And Microsoft indicated that big corporate clients aren't slashing their technology budgets. At least, not yet.
Meta shares rose 4.2% on Thursday, while Microsoft shares jumped 7.6%. And on the week, Meta gained roughly 9%, while Microsoft gained about 11%. But that tech enthusiasm started to fade away from the stock market after Apple and Amazon's quarterly reports, after the market close on Thursday. Apple's sales rose, but it said current tariff plans would add $900 million to its costs this quarter.
Woof. And while Amazon predicted a solid quarter, the lower ends of its forecasts missed analysts' expectations. On Friday, Amazon shares ended roughly flat. while Apple shares lost more than 3.5%. And on a weekly basis, Amazon edged half a percent higher, and Apple fell nearly 2%. Finally, the golden arches are losing some of their shine as the fast food chain's customers in the U.S.
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