Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq slide after Trump picks Warsh for Fed; gold, silver plunge

Here’s a look at some active stocks on Friday morning, many of which are moving in response to quarterly results:

SoFi Technologies (SOFI) shares jumped 5% ahead of the opening bell after the fintech lender reported solid loan demand and a 78% annual rise in revenue for the fourth quarter. CEO Anthony Noto said consumer credit health “remained strong,” indicating that customers were paying off loans.

Sandisk (SNDK) stock surged 22% after crushing earnings expectations by nearly $3 per share. Shares have rocketed higher over the past year as demand for its memory chip and storage hardware by AI and data center developers has soared. In the last year, the stock is up over 1,400%.

American Express (AXP) stock slipped 2% as President Trump’s credit card rate cap proposal continued to hang over credit card issuers. American Express’s quarter was otherwise solid, as it posted double-digit revenue growth.

Deckers Outdoor (DECK) stock surged 15% as demand for Hoka sneakers and Ugg boots lifted the company’s results. After reporting record third quarter revenue, it lifted its revenue guidance for the fourth quarter above Wall Street’s expectations.

Verizon (VZ) also reported an upbeat fourth quarter forecast ahead of analysts’ estimates after heavy promotions during the holiday quarter helped the company add 616,000 wireless phone subscribers, well ahead of estimates. The stock rose 5%.

Check out more trending tickers here.

Bloomberg reports:

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ExxonMobil (XOM) reported an earnings beat on Friday, as oil giants contend with an oversupply of oil that has helped drive crude prices down. Its stock fell 1.3% in premarket trading

Adjusted earnings per share for the fourth quarter were $1.71, ahead of analyst expectations of $1.68. Revenue of $82.31 billion was also higher than the expected $81.43 billion

Exxon said it reached its highest full-year net production in more than 40 years at 4.7 million oil-equivalent barrels per day.

“ExxonMobil is a fundamentally stronger company than it was just a few years ago, and our 2025 results demonstrate that,” CEO Darren Woods said. “Our transformation is delivering a more resilient, lower-cost, technology-led business with structurally stronger earnings power, grounded in advantaged assets, disciplined capital allocation, and execution excellence.”

In 2026, Exxon plans to spend $27 billion to $29 billion in capital expenditures. It spent $29 billion in 2025 on capex.

Listen to the earnings call here at 9:30 a.m. ET.

Deckers (DECK) stock jumped 13% before the bell after the company raised its full-year financial outlook.

Strong gains for Hoka sneakers and Ugg boots drove robust results in the company’s fiscal third quarter, it reported on Thursday

For the full year, Deckers expects revenue between $5.40 billion and $5.42 billion, above the consensus estimate of $5.36 billion.

From Investing.com:

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Yahoo Finance’s Hamza Shaban reports:

The transformational power of artificial intelligence is already here. Now, Big Tech companies just have to find the right new hardware to sell.

That’s the pitch. Or the catch, really. The wonders of having ChatGPT write your memo or outline your presentation are supercharging the professional world, but it is still a consumer novelty at this point.

And if a key goal of AI is to redefine the human-computer interface — replacing the search engine and even the touch screen — tech companies will have to revolutionize their hardware too.

… Where, then, is the next big device? How about AI-powered smart glasses? It seems this is where many of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies have landed so far.

Rather than pivot away from screens that sit in front of your face, tech companies are finding ways to make glasses work. The retread may not be original or be enough to supplant the smartphone.

… Snap announced it will create an independent subsidiary for its augmented reality smart glasses, Specs. The goal is to pull in outside investment and take on Meta, which has carved out turf in the wearables market with the success of its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.

Read more here in the takeaway from today’s Morning Brief.

From Bloomberg:

Corporate America is sending a gloomy message when it comes to the sustainability of the record run in US stocks.

Wall Street is having a solid start to its earnings season, helping push the S&P 500 Index (^GSPC) to an all-time high this week. Some of the most informed stakeholders, however, appear to be stepping aside.

Almost 1,000 executives at roughly 6,000 US-listed firms have unloaded shares this month, compared with 207 who added, resulting in the highest sell-to-buy ratio in five years, data compiled by the Washington Service show.

While it’s hard to know if any factors other than market performance dictated insiders’ decisions to buy or sell, a cautious stance among corporate leaders — who likely know their businesses best — is a troubling sign with worries already swirling around lofty valuations, soaring AI spending and a blizzard of ominous developments in global affairs.

“The move of corporate insiders has proven to be a powerful signal on forward returns of stocks,” said Joe Gilbert, a portfolio manager at Integrity Asset Management. “Between geopolitical risks and elevated equity valuations, we believe that executives are seeing these risks and using this as an opportunity to harvest gains, which we believe is something that investors should take note of.”

Read more here.

From Bloomberg:

Gold (GC=F) and silver (SIL=F) sold off heavily on Friday, cooling a record-breaking rally, as a report the Trump administration is preparing to nominate Kevin Warsh for Federal Reserve chair boosted the dollar.

Silver plunged more than 16% toward $96 an ounce, while gold fell more than 7% below $5,000, intensifying the wild swings that interrupted record-breaking rallies that had stretched technical indicators. A gauge of the dollar (DX-Y.NYB) rose as much as 0.5%, making precious metals more expensive for most buyers. Platinum (PL=F) tumbled more than 10%.

President Donald Trump is expected to name Warsh as his nomination for Fed chair, Bloomberg News reported. The former Fed governor has a longstanding reputation as an inflation hawk, but has aligned himself with the president in recent months by arguing publicly for lower interest rates. Trump said he would announce his nominee on Friday morning US time.

Gold’s move “validates the cautionary tale of fast-up, fast-down,” said Christopher Wong, a strategist at Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. While reports of Warsh’s nomination were a trigger, a correction was overdue, he said. “It’s like one of those excuses markets are waiting for to unwind those parabolic moves.”

Read more here.

From Bloomberg:

The dollar (DX-Y.NYB) rose with Treasury yields after US President Donald Trump was said to be preparing to nominate Kevin Warsh as the next Federal Reserve chair, seen as a relatively hawkish choice.

The greenback gained versus all its major peers, while US 10-year yields (^TNX) climbed three basis points. Trump had settled on Warsh, according to people familiar with the matter, but added that the selection wasn’t final until a formal announcement was made.

“The market perception is that Kevin Warsh would be the relatively more traditional and less dovish option as Fed chair, in which case we might see fewer rate cuts,” said Andrew Ticehurst, a senior strategist at Nomura Australia Ltd. in Sydney.

The market moves are a sign the monthslong uncertainty over the next Fed chief is now getting closer to a resolution. Warsh, a former Fed governor and one of the four finalists on Trump’s shortlist to be the next central bank leader, visited the White House on Thursday, one of the people said.

Betting markets have increasingly favored Warsh, with Polymarket showing his chance of becoming the next Fed chair rising above 80% on Friday in Asia, as support faded for BlackRock Inc. executive Rick Rieder. Flows into interest-rate futures betting on a dovish policy shift had accelerated in recent days as Rieder’s odds moved to the top, with investors viewing him as more dovish than Warsh.

Read more here.

Sandisk (SNDK) stock surged nearly 20% in premarket following its earnings release, adding to its massive 127% rally year to date. The memory chip maker was the best-performing stock in the S&P 500 in 2025.

The company crushed expectations in its fiscal second quarter, as AI companies have had an insatiable demand for memory and storage hardware.

Sandisk said that revenue for its data center business segment jumped 64% over the previous quarter, driven by strong adoption among AI infrastructure builders, semi-custom customers, and technology companies deploying AI at scale.

Here’s what Sandisk reported for its fiscal second quarter, compared to estimates compiled by Bloomberg:

Sandisk also raised its revenue guidance for the third quarter to a range of $4.4 billion to $4.8 billion. The Street was expecting revenue of $2.6 billion.

“This quarter’s performance underscores our agility in capitalizing on better product mix, accelerating enterprise SSD deployments, and strengthening market demand dynamics, all at a time when the critical role that our products play in powering AI and the world’s technology is being recognized,” said Sandisk CEO David Goeckeler.

Bloomberg reports:

Read more here.