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First Solar plunges after CEO sounds the alarm on tariffs

The company said it expects to pay up to $90 million in tariffs this year.

4/30/25 9:47AM

First Solar, the largest US manufacturer of solar panels and modules, said President Trump’s tariff policies pose “a significant economic headwind” that will weigh on its bottom line this year.

The company also missed Wall Street’s profit estimates for the first three months of the year, reporting adjusted earnings per share of $1.95, much less than the $2.49 analysts polled by FactSet penciled in. But perhaps more concerning to investors is what First Solar thinks is in store for the rest of the year.

First Solar, which analysts had previously considered well positioned against tariff threats because it doesn’t rely on China, also cut its sales guidance for 2025 from between $5.3 billion and $5.8 billion to between $4.5 billion and $5.5 billion. The company said it expects to pay up to $90 million in duties for imported materials and components. It also expects to take a hit of up to $270 million from underutilization charges for lowering capacity at its factories in Malaysia and Vietnam.

“While the implementation of certain new trade policies was a possibility with the change in administration, the new tariff regime imposes — earlier this month has introduced significant challenges to 2025 that were not known at the start of the year,” First Solar CEO Mark Widmar told analysts.

First Solar has factories in Malaysia and Vietnam, which almost exclusively serve the US market, and a factory in India that serves the region as well as North America. On April 2, Trump imposed tariff rates of 26%, 24%, and 46%, on India, Malaysia, and Vietnam, respectively. While those tariffs are on a 90-day pause, the 10% universal tariff rate still weighs on the company’s bottom line, Widmar said.

There are things the company could do, like importing semi-finished modules to complete in the US, but as Trump’s tariff policy keeps changing, Widmar said his only option is to sit and wait.

“There’s a lot of strategies that we could do once we understand the policy environment and the tariff environment that we’re going to be in,” he said. “But I don’t know any of that right now.”

Widmar said that trade data for this year suggests Chinese manufacturers are importing through low-tariff countries like Laos and Indonesia. “We have no doubt that these Chinese manufacturers are also seeking to establish production in other regions around the world, such as Saudi Arabia, forcing us into a continued game of whack-a-mole,” Widmar said.

Matt Phillips2h

Intel soars amid retail engagement, analyst chatter

Intel ripped toward a new 52-week high Wednesday, amid a flurry of activity in the options market and a couple of positive analyst assessments ahead of its earnings report due tomorrow.

Shortly after 11 a.m. ET, call options activity was roughly equivalent to the full-day average over the past 10 sessions. Bets on stock swings using call options have become a highly popular retail trade, suggesting that retail investors are getting interested in the shares ahead of the report from the partially nationalized American chip icon.

(That interpretation is buttressed by what we’re seeing on social sentiment-monitoring sites like SwaggyStocks, which at about 11:30 a.m. listed Intel as the fifth-most-mentioned stock on Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets forum over the past 24 hours.)

Wall Street analysts are also chattering about the stock, with RBC and Bernstein Research both writing about it in the last 24 hours.

RBC — which has a “sector perform” (or neutral) rating on Intel — said it expects a “slight beat and largely inline outlook” when the company reports after the close Thursday.

Bernstein’s Intel watchers — who have a “market perform” (also neutral) rating on the stock — seemed a bit more cautious, writing, “Overall numbers going forward still looking high to us. Fundamentals and valuation keep us sidelined.”

“If there is no memory, there’s no AI.”

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ByMattPhillips

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Matt Phillips5h

BNP upgrades Seagate on more durable cycle

Seagate Technology Holdings was up in early trading after analysts at BNP Paribas upgraded the shares to “outperform” from “neutral” and lifted their price target to $380 a share, implying a gain of almost 15% from where the stock is currently trading.

The maker of the somewhat stodgy technology known as hard disk drives — or HDDs in tech lingo — was one of the top stocks in the S&P 500 for much of last year as it was swept up in the AI data center trade.

Data centers need tons of storage capacity, and demand from hyperscalers has driven up prices and created shortages for disk drives, an industry that is dominated by a duopoly of Seagate and Western Digital. (BNP also maintained its “outperform” rating on WDC in a note Wednesday.)

The analysts at BNP say they pushed by the buy button on the stock after becoming more convinced that the upswing in sales was durable, writing:

“We have witnessed a structural shift happening in HDD industry, toward 1) an effective duopoly, 2) higher mix toward data centers, and 3) disciplined capex investments. These have supported our expectations of long-term, through-cycle profitability for the HDD industry. We are now upgrading Seagate from Neutral to Outperform as we are gaining greater conviction that robust data center storage demand could drive an upcycle longer than we initially expected. We think a secular re-rating of Seagate (as well as Western Digital) to over 20x is justified.”

Nate Becker5h

Stocks jump as Trump says “I won’t use force” to acquire Greenland

In a speech in Davos, Switzerland, US President Donald Trump said he won’t use force to acquire Greenland, sending stocks higher at the open.

“We probably won't get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force, where we would be frankly unstoppable, but I won’t do that,” Trump told the crowd, referring to his pursuit of Greenland, which has roiled markets recently. “People thought I would use force. I don’t have to use force. I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.”

He seemed to indicate that Denmark, which owns Greenland, could rebuff the US’s overtures to acquire the country without military retaliation.

“They have a choice. You can say yes and we will be very appreciative. Or you can say no and we will remember,” he said. Throughout his speech, Trump constantly reiterated his desire for the US to own Greenland.

Stocks rose at the open, with the S&P 500 rising 0.3%. S&P 500 futures, which had been down Wednesday morning, jumped after his comments.

J. Edward Moreno5h

J&J slips despite cheery 2026 guidance

Johnson & Johnson reported fourth-quarter sales that beat expectations and gave rosy guidance for 2026.

The company said it expects to bring in between $100 billion and $101 billion in revenue this year, compared to the $98.9 billion analysts polled by FactSet were expecting. The drugmaker also expects to report between $11.43 and $11.63 in annual adjusted earnings per share, compared to the $11.48 that Wall Street was expecting.

Despite beating expectations, J&J, the first major drugmaker to report earnings results this year, fell by more than 2% in premarket trading.