Francesca Fontana

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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.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 9 in all, peaking in Dec 2025 with 3.

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WSJ What’s News · What’s News in Markets: Trump’s Tesla, Trade-War Hiccups, Low-Flying Shares · 15 Mar 2025 podcast

Then, in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he was going to buy a brand new Tesla, quote, as a show of confidence and support for Musk. Like I said, Trump has been pretty anti-electric car. He campaigned extensively against Joe Biden's EV mandates, for one, and his administration back in February halted federal funding for new charging stations.

But, you know, you'd never know it, at least not by the looks of the photo op Trump held later that day on Tuesday. He joined Elon outside the White House alongside several Tesla models. The shoutout did give the stock a rebound, with shares rising almost 4% on Tuesday. But on a weekly basis, Tesla posted a loss for the eighth week in a row, this time a loss of nearly 5%.

All right, like I promised, it is time for another trade war play-by-play. I know last week was pretty nuts. You can be the judge of how this week stacks up in comparison. Spoiler alert, it's not the global auto industry caught in the crossfire. No, this time it is alcohol.

You might recall that Trump announced back in February that on March 12, 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum would go into effect. And that they did. On Wednesday. So on Wednesday, the European Union announced retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. Really hitting them where it hurts. 50%, starting April 1, on imports of American whiskey, motorcycles, and motorboats. we're gonna focus on the whiskey.

Then, Thursday, Trump escalates, threatening to impose 200% tariffs on all alcohol imports from the bloc, prompting a sell-off among European drink makers. Beer, wine, champagne, liquor, you name it. Now, this EU levy on American whiskey That'd be a blow to Jack Daniels maker Brown Foreman and other U.S.

distillers, which are already contending with a drop in demand as American drinkers cut back on, well, drinking. And the tariff threat was a blow to Brown Foreman's stock this week. Its shares fell 5.1% on Wednesday, and on a weekly basis, the stock was down 5.8%. Last but not least, U.S. airlines lost some air on Tuesday, but some carriers managed to buck the trend.

Delta Airlines, American Airlines, and JetBlue lowered guidance early in the week, and we saw Delta shares fall more than 7% on Tuesday, while American shares lost more than 8%. But JetBlue gained 4.2%. For one, its outlook cut was smaller than the others, and it already warned of first-quarter weakness back in January.

Meanwhile, Southwest unveiled a range of moves to lift revenue, including the seismic shift of charging for checked bags. And its shares on Tuesday jumped about 8%. So JetBlue, Southwest... How'd the stocks fare the rest of the week? Well, JetBlue ended with a loss of more than 8%, while Southwest posted a weekly gain of more than 9%. 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 Anthony Bansi, with supervising producer Michael Kosmitas. I'm Francesca Fontana. Have a great weekend, and I'll see you next Saturday.

WSJ What’s News · What’s News in Markets: Tariffs Whipsaw, Gap’s Bump, Target Prices · 8 Mar 2025 podcast

Hey, listeners, it's Saturday, March 8th. I'm Francesca Montana 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, trade, trade. That was the big story in the stock market as investors and portfolio managers grappled with fears about U.S.

economic performance amid a ton of policy uncertainty. Don't worry if you missed the latest on all the rapid-fire tariff updates this week. I will run through those in a bit. On a broader level, we've been seeing U.S. consumer confidence slipping on fears of rising prices, which was a thread we saw in some of the retail movers this week. I'll come back to those in a minute, too.

Then, of course, there was Thursday's big sell-off, with chip stocks in particular getting hammered as investors searched through AI chip makers' results, looking for the next big thing, the next NVIDIA, if you will. And while the indexes managed to end Friday in the black, they each notched losses for the week. The Dow fell more than 2%, the S&P lost more than 3%, and the Nasdaq fell about 3.5%.

First up, let's set our target on Target, the Red Bull's eye, the American retail giant. This week, Target was the latest retailer to warn investors about the looming impacts of higher tariffs and consumer uncertainty. Like I said before, shoppers are worried that they'll be seeing a lot of price tags going up.

So on Tuesday, Target said its February sales fell year over year, and the company warned that its sales could be flat this year. A similar reading from Walmart spooked investors last month when executives set lower-than-expected fiscal year revenue and profit targets.

And it seemed like Target investors got spooked, too, because its shares fell 3% on Tuesday and the stock ended the week down more than 7%. And Target wasn't alone. Another retail stock, Best Buy, took a hit after saying tariffs might curb demand for its electronics due to higher prices. Best Buy shares took a dive after that, sliding about 13% on Tuesday. And on the week, they lost roughly 12%.

So we're seeing how the trade policy atmosphere has been weighing on stocks through Tuesday, which was when those Mexico and Canada tariffs took effect. That brings us to Wednesday, where this week's tariff play-by-play really ramps up. OK, so we're going to move fast. And we're going to focus on global auto stocks, which are especially vulnerable. All right? Got it? Great. Let's go. Tuesday.

The tariffs are here. Wednesday. The White House says, eh, not so fast. Actually, automakers, you're getting a one-month reprieve from the levies for cars that comply with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Free Trade Agreement. Auto stocks cheer. U.S.-traded shares of Toyota Motor, for one, jump 6.5%. But that's not all.

Thursday morning, we get Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on CNBC saying that one-month reprieve might be extended beyond automakers. And later that day, President Trump suspends the tariffs on goods that fall under the USMCA until April 2nd. But like I mentioned, investors weren't sure what to make of all these sudden changes, and stocks fell anyway.

Okay, that was a lot of news, a lot of whipsawing in the markets, and like I said, a lot of big moves for the most trade-vulnerable sectors. But let's circle back to Toyota. At the end of all that, its U.S. shares finished the week with a gain of 4.8%. So now we're at Friday, and markets got a bit of a break from all the trade news, so we got to look up and see, you know, what else is going on.

I'll tell you. Gap was on fire. The apparel company, behind brands like Banana Republic, Old Navy, Athleta, and of course its namesake, posted better than expected sales and profit last quarter, as its turnaround efforts continue to show results. And for what it's worth, given that the trade uncertainty is far from over, Gap also addressed tariffs, saying it has minimal exposure.

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