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Technology stocks were among the hardest-hit pockets of the market Thursday, as investors around the globe fear the economic impact of President Donald Trump’s new batch of tariffs on U.S. trading partners, including China, India and the European Union. The details of the long-awaited tariffs — which the White House has dubbed “reciprocal” duties on countries that it says has treated the United States unfairly in trade — are generally being seen as worse than expected. Traders and investors also are trying to figure out whether Trump will be willing to negotiate the tariff rates lower, adding to the uncertainty and selling pressure. Retaliation from trade partners is another question mark. Here’s a closer look at how we see the new trade policy impacting Apple and the rest of our technology stocks. Apple The iPhone maker was one of the worst-performing Club names Thursday, losing roughly 8% in mid-morning trading. Apple is squarely in the blast zone due to its manufacturing presence in China, Vietnam and India — the latter two countries being places where the company has shifted more production in recent years to diversify its supply chain away from China. Starting on April 9, the new tariff rate on goods imported from China will be 54%, without counting duties implemented during Trump’s first term and under former President Joe Biden. Vietnamese and Indian imports will be subject to 46% and 26% duties, respectively. During Trump’s first term, Apple was able to secure some tariff exemptions, but it’s unclear whether that is on the table this time around, even though the company has publicly touted its investments in the U.S. In cutting its price target to $250 a share from $265, Bank of America analysts warned that Apple could see a $1.24 hit to earnings per share in calendar 2026 if it has to absorb a roughly 500 basis point hit to gross margins (due to tariffs). Still, analysts kept their buy rating on the stock. We also have no intention of selling the stock here, as Jim noted on the Morning Meeting. Amazon Shares of the e-commerce and cloud computing giant are down more than 9%. Another piece of Wednesday’s news was that the so-called de minimis trade loophole will be closed starting May 2. It has allowed companies, particularly Asian e-commerce companies such as Shein and Temu, to ship packages valued at under $800 into the U.S. duty free. Closing that trade loophole is a tailwind for Amazon because it figures to lower demand for Shein and Temu. Jim also said Thursday that he views Amazon as a relative winner due to its scale and pricing power. At the same time, slower economic growth resulting from the tariffs could have a negative impact on the digital advertising market, which has been a key source of growth for Amazon lately. Broadcom Shares of the chipmaker fell nearly 7%. The recession risks to chips and the exodus from momentum-driven stocks are hurting Broadcom . Citi said Broadcom’s elevated multiple, thanks to optimism on its AI business, is working against the stock, too. CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks Shares of CrowdStrike dropped nearly 7% while Palo Alto Networks is down around 5%. While these two cyber companies are selling software that is theoretically immune to tariffs, they find their stocks getting hit on the risk-off sentiment and the view that more uncertainty in the economy could cause deal cycles to stretch out and take longer to complete. Basically, it could be a return to the “elongation” dynamics that arose a few years ago as the Federal Reserve hiked rates. To be sure, Jim said he believes the current global environment is even more “antagonistic” than before, which generally plays into the hands of CrowdStrike and Palo Alto because their security services will be in higher demand. “So, you want to buy cybersecurity,” he said on CNBC Thursday. Meta Platforms The Facebook and Instagram parent’s shares are down about 7.5%. The risk to ad growth in a recession is real, and the same goes for Meta’s exposure to the likes of Shein and Temu, who in recent years spent a ton of money advertising on its apps to consumers outside China. With the de minimis loophole set to close, it’s fair to wonder what the spending levels from those companies will be going forward. However, our view on Meta is that the strength of its platforms is widely apparent to advertisers, and if they’re going to cut back due to slower economic growth, they will want to keep spending on the places where return on investment is the highest. In that world, Meta should be able to withstand a pullback in marketing dollars better than smaller internet peers. Microsoft The software and cloud provider is holding up relatively well compared to our other tech stocks, with shares falling around 2.5%. A softer economic environment is a risk to Microsoft , as with the rest of the software industry. Microsoft also has tariff exposure on the hardware side of its business with its Xbox business and PCs that run on Windows. On the company’s most recent earnings call in late January, executives noted that its December quarter results were helped, in part, by “uncertainty around tariffs” as manufacturers built up inventory of Windows devices. Executives said they expected inventory levels to normalize going forward, though they repeated that tariff uncertainties could change that forecast. Nvidia Shares of the chipmaker are down about 6% Thursday. While Nvidia’s cutting-edge AI processors are primarily made in Taiwan, as of now the new tariffs do not apply to chips, as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick made clear Thursday morning on CNBC. However, there’s an expectation that tariffs on chips are coming. The other problem for Nvidia is that its chips go inside finished products such as PCs and servers that are assembled in countries hit by the tariffs. To be sure, PCs and gaming have become a much smaller piece of Nvidia’s overall business thanks to explosive growth in the data center in recent years. In general, though, the kind of uncertainty created by these trade policies are bad for riskier, momentum-driven names — and Nvidia falls into that camp. And, as Citigroup analysts pointed out, a tariff-driven recession is unlikely to spare any chip stocks. Salesforce The enterprise software giant’s stock is down nearly 6%. Like our other software names, Salesforce could be impacted by longer deal cycles and overall slower economic growth resulting from the tariffs. In other words, the direct impact is minimal since they’re not making goods abroad and importing them to the U.S. It’s about the second-order effects. (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . 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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang delivers the keynote address during the Nvidia GTC 2025 at SAP Center in San Jose, California, on March 18, 2025.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
Technology stocks were among the hardest-hit pockets of the market Thursday, as investors around the globe fear the economic impact of President Donald Trump’s new batch of tariffs on U.S. trading partners, including China, India and the European Union.
