Damage from tariffs and DOGE cuts is growing visible

The Trump administration’s radical overhaul of the federal government and economic policy is bleeding into corporate earnings.

Nike reported earnings Thursday, and cautioned that it expects sales in its current quarter to plunge because of tariffs and sliding consumer sentiment. Accenture, meanwhile, said its revenue has been hit by a reduction in contracts with the U.S. government as the latter reins in spending.

Those are warnings of the economic damage that countries could suffer — on a wider scale — when U.S. President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs come into effect April 2, as he had warned.

Across the Atlantic, the European Union postponed its tariffs on the U.S. as it hopes to negotiate a new deal with Trump — and insulate its economy from the blows already seen in corporate America.

Markets fail to sustain gains
U.S. markets lost momentum Thursday. The S&P 500 lost 0.22%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was mostly flat and the Nasdaq Composite retreated 0.33%. Accenture shares dropped 7.3% after the firm warned of cuts in contracts with the U.S. government, while Nike slipped 1.6% on downbeat guidance triggered by tariffs.

Asian stocks follow Wall Street downward
Asia-Pacific stocks mostly fell Friday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index tumbled nearly 2%, weighed by health-care and consumer cyclical stocks. South Korea’s Kospi index ticked up around 0.2% even as shares of defense giant Hanwha Aerospace plunged as much as 14.95% on Friday after issuing $2.5 billion of new shares.

Inflation in Japan eases
Japan’s headline inflation rose 3.7% year on year in February, easing from a two-year high of 4% seen in January. Core inflation, which excludes prices of fresh food, was at 3%, lower than January’s figure of 3.2%. However, the figure was higher than expectations of 2.9% from economists polled by Reuters. The inflation figures come shortly after the Bank of Japan held interest rates steady Wednesday.

China’s property market might stabilize soon: Analysts
There have been “relatively positive signals” in China’s property sector, UBS analysts said Wednesday, predicting home prices could stabilize in early 2026. They join a chorus of market watchers expecting the country’s struggling real estate sector to regain its footing soon. Separately, yields of Chinese government bonds have been rising in recent weeks, but economists warn it’s not a sign that Beijing’s economy is undergoing reflation.

EU postpones U.S. tariff
The European Union will delay implementing its first set of tariffs on goods from the U.S. until the middle of April to allow for additional time for discussions with Washington, an EU spokesperson told Thursday. “The change represents a slight adjustment to the timeline and does not diminish the impact of our response, in particular as the EU continues to prepare for retaliation of up to EUR 26 billion [$28 billion],” they noted.

[PRO] Global markets outperform U.S.
Major U.S. benchmarks have been struggling since the start of 2025: The Nasdaq Composite is in correction territory while the small-cap Russell 2000 is at the edge of a bear market, a fall of 20% or greater from a recent high. But most global stocks are in the green so far — here’s why investors are increasing bets on markets outside the U.S.

AMD’s Lisa Su has already vanquished Intel. Now she’s going after Nvidia

When Lisa Su became CEO of Advanced Micro Devices in late 2014, the company was in dire straits and on the brink of potential bankruptcy.

AMD passed rival Intel in market value in 2022 and is now worth $172 billion, a roughly 85-fold increase during Su’s tenure. Millions of gamers rely on AMD processors every day as they power up their Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation consoles. AMD chips are so important that the U.S. government sees them as critical to national security.

Yet, AMD still views itself as an underdog. That’s because it’s a distant second in artificial intelligence, behind Nvidia.  To have a serious role in the future of technology, AMD knows it needs a bigger chunk of the AI market.