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
WSJ What’s News · What’s News in Markets: Tariffs Whipsaw, Gap’s Bump, Target Prices · 8 Mar 2025
podcast
Less than 10% of Gap's products come from China, and less than 1% come from Canada and Mexico. Good to know, because with how this week went, it's hard to say what next week holds. All in all, Gap's share surged a whopping 19% on Friday. 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 Jess Jupiter with Deputy Editor Chris Sinsley. I'm Francesca Fontana. Have a great weekend and see you next Saturday.
Hey, listeners. It's Saturday, March 1st. 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. To refresh our memories, stocks logged gains for January and a strong start to 2025.
But trade drama, continued inflation, and AI competition fears did not do us any favors in February.
This week, for instance, NVIDIA's positive results still managed to cause a sell-off, and we had more tariff threats from President Trump and retaliation threats from China, not to mention the tense meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, after which stocks wobbled before they recovered late Friday afternoon.
All in all, the three major indexes ended the week mixed, and for the month of February, the S&P 500 and the Dow each fell about 1.5%, while the Nasdaq dropped nearly 4%. We got some fresh earnings reports this week, including from Home Depot, the home improvement giant. Even the less handy among us certainly know the orange logo.
Home Depot delivered a better-than-expected quarter, beating Wall Street's expectations for quarterly sales and profit, and the company said it's increasing its quarterly dividend to $2.30 a share.
Home Depot said that demand was strong for things like appliances, building materials, and lumber, but weaker for projects like kitchen and bathroom remodels, you know, the kind of big purchases that a lot of us might typically use financing for, like a credit card or a personal loan.
And the company sees higher interest rates continuing to strain people's wallets when it comes to big-ticket purchases. And, as a result, it offered cautious guidance. Home Depot shares rallied 2.8% on Tuesday and notched a weekly gain of 2.9%. We also got positive quarterly results this week from Home Depot rival Lowe's, with the blue logo, not orange, and its shares rose too.
Now let's circle back to NVIDIA, the poster child of the AI boom. Like I mentioned, NVIDIA also delivered some solid earnings, but investors weren't so ready to celebrate. After the market closed Wednesday, NVIDIA posted sharply rising sales and profit in its latest quarter, and the company said it brought in $11 billion of revenue from its new Blackwell artificial intelligence chips.
The results showed that spending on NVIDIA's chips is continuing to soar, despite all the jitters about the outlook for the AI boom that have been moving through the stock market. You may recall that in January, the threat of competition to U.S. dominance from Chinese AI developer DeepSeek rattled investors.
Analysts blame the stock's fall on narrower profit margins and worry about NVIDIA's sales in China. NVIDIA shares dropped 8.5% on Thursday and on a weekly basis lost about 7.2%. 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 Talia Arbel. I'm Francesca Fontana. Have a great weekend. And don't forget, you can email me your thoughts on the market at francesca.fontana at wsj.com. I'll see you next Saturday.
WSJ What’s News · What’s News in Markets: Intel Spikes, Walmart Slides, Bumble Fumbles · 22 Feb 2025
podcast
Hey Listeners, it's Saturday, February 22nd. 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. Kicking off another four-day trading week, Tuesday started on a high note, with the S&P 500 notching its second record high close of 2025.
But investors are still cautious, with talk of tariffs and warm inflation. And I found this really interesting. Per the latest survey from the American Association of Individual Investors, bearishness among individual traders... The percentage who expect stock prices to fall over the next six months reached about 47% for the week ending February 12th. That's the highest since November 2023. Woof.
And I'm curious to know what you think. So please email me at francesca.fontana at wsj.com. I am really looking forward to hearing your two cents. All right, back to the week. Am Donnerstag riefen Walmarts Steuern auf den Index-Paraden, wir kommen zurück zu dem, und die Gloom lag mit Fridays Verlusten. Am Wochenende fielen die Dow und der Nasdaq alle 2,5 %, während der S&P 500 1,7 % fiel.
First, let's talk Intel. Two of its chip-making rivals are eyeing deals that would break the storied company in two. The Wall Street Journal reported last weekend that Broadcom has been looking at Intel's chip design and marketing business, while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing has its eye on controlling some or all of Intel's chip plants.
And that's according to people familiar with the matter. Now, Broadcom and TSMC aren't working together, and the talks are preliminary and largely informal. But the end result could be a breakup of Intel. And if you're asking, how did Intel go from global leader, totally dominating the chip business for decades, to an acquisition target?
Well, its recent struggles include manufacturing setbacks, a costly turnaround strategy, and AI missteps. And you might remember that this isn't the first time Intel was sought after. Last September, the Journal reported that Qualcomm had made a takeover approach to the company.
And investors were clearly excited about the dual deal possibilities this week, because Intel shares surged 16% on Tuesday. And while the stock came back down to earth later in the week, it still notched a weekly gain of 5.3%. Now let's circle back to Walmart. Retail giant, leading American grocer, used to be big on smiley faces, remember that old logo?
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