What’s News in Markets: Intel Slides, Gold Surges and the TACO Trade Is Back

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Hannah Erin Lang (0:33)

Hey, listeners, it's Saturday, January 24th. I'm Hannah Erin Lang 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. So let's get into it. It was a turbulent week for markets. Stocks slumped on Tuesday after President Trump stepped up his efforts to take over Greenland. The president also threatened new tariffs on several European countries if he didn't get his way. Equities in the dollar fell, while bond yields rose. But stocks rebounded on Wednesday and Thursday. The president said he had reached the framework of a Greenland deal with NATO, and also walked back the threat of new trade restrictions. It was another example of the so-called taco trade, as it's come to be known on Wall Street. It's essentially an acronym for the phrase Trump Always Chickens Out. This dynamic has played out more than once since the start of last year. The president throws out the threat of tariffs, investors get spooked, stocks sell off, and then ultimately those plans are backtracked and the market rebounds. Still, major indexes ended the week in the red. The S&P 500 fell roughly 0.4%, the Dow traded half of a percent, and the Nasdaq Composite dropped less than a tenth of a percent, or basically flat.

Not every corner of the stock market saw relief on the tariff front this week. Shares of McCormick tumbled 8% Thursday, after the spice maker said it's going to raise prices to help offset tariffs and other costs. The company sources thousands of ingredients from across the world for its seasonings and condiments, and higher expenses in the most recent quarter resulted in lower than expected profits. Shares of the company ended the week down 9.3%.

Shares of the chip maker Intel slid roughly 17% on Friday after its latest earnings report made clear that the company's turnaround is still a work in progress. The company reported a net loss for the most recent quarter, and it forecasted further losses ahead. Intel has been benefiting from the artificial intelligence hype recently, with investors hoping it could profit from the demand for data center servers that use its chips. That's boosted the stock price, but the company is still spending heavily to increase production and is grappling with the depleting inventory. That stock dropped 4% this past week. When in doubt, buy gold. That's been one way that traders have responded to all the geopolitical uncertainty in the news this week. Gold prices notched another record high on Friday. That's also boosting gold mining stocks like Newmont, which climbed 8.9% last week. Shares of the leading gold ETF were also up nearly 9%. Just a few months ago, gold prices topped $4,000 a troy ounce for the first time. Now we're approaching $5,000. One reason for the surge is that buying gold has become a kind of go-to response for investors when things are feeling uncertain in the market. Kind of like what happened earlier this week. There's still some concern about tariffs, about the dollar and interest rates. So the gold rush might not stop here. 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 our live markets coverage on wsj.com. Today's show was produced by Jess Fenton and Anthony Bansi with supervising producer Melanie Roy. I'm Hannah Erin Lang. Have a great weekend and we'll see you next Saturday.

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