Wall Street mixed in premarket on uneven earnings, tariff anxiety

Washington, Apr 17 (AP) Wall Street was mixed in premarket trading Thursday, the final trading day in a holiday-shortened week that began relatively quietly compared with the wild swings of the past several weeks.

Futures for the S&P 500 rose 0.3%, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 1.6%. Nasdaq futures were up 0.6% before the bell.

UnitedHealth Group, one of the biggest weights on the Dow, tumbled nearly 20% before the bell after the company missed Wall Street’s sales and profit targets and slashed its 2025 forecast. The health care giant said a rise in care use from its Medicare Advantage customers came in far above what the company was expecting.

Shares in the drugmaker Eli Lilly got a lift after the company reported strong Phase 3 trial results for its once-daily pill for weight loss and diabetes. Eli Lilly shares jumped 11% in premarket trading.

Hertz was off to another strong start, with shares in the auto rental company jumping another 12% in premarket. That follows Wednesday’s whopping gain of 56%. Pershing Square’s Bill Ackman disclosed that he had taken a stake in the struggling Florida company which emerged from bankruptcy protection during the pandemic.

Netflix shares were up 1.4% in premarket ahead of the streaming entertainment giant’s latest financial results, which come after the closing bell Thursday.

Coming later Thursday morning is the government’s latest data on jobless claim filings, which are viewed as a proxy for US layoffs.

Markets were enjoying a relatively quiet week until Wednesday, when stocks slid after Nvidia warned that new restrictions on exports to China will cost it billions of dollars.

Many investors are bracing for a possible recession because of Trump’s tariffs, which he has said he hopes will bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States and trim how much more it imports from other countries than it exports. Expectations of a recession are elevated, according to a survey of global fund managers by Bank of America.

Markets in Europe were down at midday, even as the European Central Bank was expected to cut interest rates given worries over the potential impact of Trump’s trade policies.

France’s CAC 40 dipped 0.8%, while the German DAX lost 0.6%. Britain’s FTSE 100 shed 0.7%.

In Asia, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 gained 1.4% to finish at 34,377.60 after Trump joined Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in the talks with a Japanese delegation in Washington.

Afterward, Trump wrote in a social media post that it was: “A Great Honor to have just met with the Japanese Delegation on Trade. Big Progress!”

There was no immediate indication of what progress that might be.

Shares in Honda Motor Co jumped 1.9% after the Japanese automaker said it plans to move its production of the five-door Civic hybrid electric vehicles for the US market from Japan to the company’s plant in Indiana.

Honda Motor Co didn’t say the move was in response to Trump’s tariff policies but stressed it moves production to where there is demand. Production of the US-bound five-door Civic HEV began at the Yorii plant outside Tokyo in February. So far 3,000 vehicles have been produced there for the US market.

Also Thursday, Japan’s Finance Ministry reported that the nation recorded a trade deficit in its fiscal year through March, but racked up a surplus with the US. For the month of March, Japan recorded a trade surplus of 544 billion yen ($4 billion). Exports climbed nearly 4% from a year earlier, for the sixth straight month of gains, although the increase was slower than in February.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.8% to 7,819.10. South Korea’s Kospi edged up 0.9% to 2,470.41. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 1.6% to 21,395.14, while the Shanghai Composite edged up 0.1% to 3,280.34.

In energy trading, benchmark US crude rose 87 cents to $62.70 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gained 80 cents to $66.65 a barrel.

In currency trading, the US dollar rose to 142.53 Japanese yen from 141.88 yen. The euro cost $1.1366, down from $1.1401. (AP) SCY SCY