What Happened?
Shares of customer engagement platform Braze (NASDAQ: BRZE) fell 4.4% in the afternoon session after President Donald Trump threatened to impose 'massive' tariffs on Chinese products, reigniting trade war fears.
In a social media post, Trump stated the move was a potential countermeasure to China 'becoming very hostile,' following Beijing's announcement of new export controls on rare-earth minerals. These minerals are critical components for magnets used across the automotive, electronics, and defense industries. The unexpected development jolted Wall Street, which had been trending higher. The news sent all major indices into negative territory, with the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite falling 1.7%, the S&P 500 dropping 1.3%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average declining by 0.9%.
The stock market overreacts to news, and big price drops can present good opportunities to buy high-quality stocks. Is now the time to buy Braze? Access our full analysis report here.
What Is The Market Telling Us
Braze’s shares are very volatile and have had 25 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The previous big move we wrote about was 2 days ago when the stock gained 3.3% as confidence in the artificial intelligence market was renewed, pushing both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to new all-time intraday highs.
The rebound was led by chipmaker Nvidia, whose shares rose nearly 2% after its CEO confirmed that demand for computing has "gone up substantially" in recent months. These comments helped reassure the market that the AI boom is supported by genuine demand, calming fears that were sparked a day earlier by a report questioning the profitability of Oracle's cloud business. The rally was strong enough to put the information technology sector on pace for a fresh closing high. This upward momentum occurred despite potential headwinds from an ongoing U.S. government shutdown, which entered its second week.
Braze is down 39% since the beginning of the year, and at $26.48 per share, it is trading 43.9% below its 52-week high of $47.22 from January 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Braze’s shares at the IPO in November 2021 would now be looking at an investment worth $283.55.
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