Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq futures pare losses as Wall Street digests Warsh as Trump’s Fed pick

Opting for a conventional choice to lead the Federal Reserve, President Trump on Friday nominated former Fed governor Kevin Warsh to be the next chair of the central bank and succeed Jerome Powell.

“I have known Kevin for a long period of time, and have no doubt that he will go down as one of the GREAT Fed Chairmen, maybe the best. On top of everything else, he is ‘central casting,’ and he will never let you down,” Trump said in his announcement, which he posted to Truth Social.

Yahoo Finance’s Jennifer Schonberger reports:

Warsh has been highly critical of the Fed, writing in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal last year that the Fed should “discard its forecast of stagflation” and arguing that it is overlooking that AI will be a “significant” force that will boost productivity and push down inflation.

“He thinks you have to lower interest rates,” Trump said of Warsh recently, citing the president’s key litmus test for the role.

Warsh has criticized Powell personally for making “unwise choices,” such as missing the persistence of post-pandemic inflation. Warsh rejects the belief that inflation is caused when the economy grows too fast and workers get paid too much. Rather, he argues inflation is caused when the government spends too much and prints too much money.

Warsh has also said he thinks the Fed should view tariffs as one-off price changes, a view echoed by the White House and many members of the Fed now.

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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.”

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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.”

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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.

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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:

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Bloomberg reports:

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