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Golf-loving investors tempted to have one of their screens on the Ryder Cup today will need to watch the others like a hawk after a tough few days for the market.

All three major U.S. indexes fell for a third consecutive day Thursday — the first time that's happened in nearly half a year. They didn't even have a combined losing streak that long in early April, when the White House's tariff plans sparked a brutal selloff.

It's mostly about the Federal Reserve. Strong economic data published on Thursday means policymakers will be in no rush to slash borrowing costs. Friday marks the release of the personal consumption expenditures index, which is the central bank's preferred measure of inflation.

Wall Street has also sold off some of its favorite tech stocks this week amid questions about how much longer the artificial-intelligence spending boom can last. President Donald Trump's tariffs on pharmaceuticals and large trucks won't make the outlook any clearer — although these days, the market seems inclined to shrug off most of his administration's sweeping levies.

In times like these, the smart move is to hold tight and keep your nerve.

Traders are still betting on further Fed rate cuts in October and December, and earnings season is just around the corner. Although it's another quarter where Trump's tariffs could cause some disruption, a solid batch of reports could be just what the market needs to rebound.

While it's been a below-par week for stocks, investors need to focus on playing the long game.

• George Glover

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New Tariffs on Drugs, Building Materials, and Trucks

President Donald Trump has announced new tariffs on a number of products, including 100% duties on imported pharmaceuticals unless the companies that make them are currently building plants in the U.S.

• The tariffs on imported drugs, certain building materials and furniture, and trucks take effect Oct. 1, less than a week from now, Trump said in a series of social media posts late Thursday.
• The drug levies apply to "any branded or patented" pharmaceutical product unless the company has either broken ground on a U.S. production facility or has one under construction, Trump said. If that is the case, no tariffs will be applied. The post didn't refer to what authority Trump is using to apply such levies.
• Trump also said the administration would slap 50% tariffs on imported kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities, and associated products and 30% duties on imported upholstered furniture.

What's Next: The legal wranglings over the tariffs policy will play out at the Supreme Court in November as it hears arguments from the government which is trying to protect this key strategy.

• Liz Moyer

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Supporters Urge Supreme Court to Keep Fed's Gov. Cook in Job

Every living former Federal Reserve chair, along with former Treasury Secretaries and White House economic advisors, urged the Supreme Court to block President Donald Trump from firing Fed governor Lisa Cook, warning that her removal would erode public confidence in the Fed's independence.

• The officials wrote that the Fed's ability to fight inflation is "directly related not only to its actual insulation from short-term political pressures but also to the public's perception of its independence," and that allowing her removal would jeopardize "the credibility and efficacy of U.S. monetary policy."
• Thursday's friend-of-court briefing includes signatures by former Fed chairs Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, and Janet Yellen, plus former Treasury secretaries Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Hank Paulson, Jack Lew, and Tim Geithner. Cook, the first Black woman confirmed to the Fed board, is supposed to serve through 2038.
• Trump dismissed Cook in August, accusing her of alleged misstatements on mortgage documents before her tenure at the Fed. A district court quickly reinstated her, ruling that she had been denied due process, and an appeals court upheld the decision. Cook has denied wrongdoing.
• The government appealed the decision and is asking Supreme Court justices for an emergency order to allow Cook's removal while litigation proceeds. Cook's lawyers argued the administration hasn't provided sufficient evidence warranting a "for cause" dismissal and said removing her from the Fed would disrupt the economy.

What's Next: The Supreme Court, which has allowed Trump to fire directors at other independent agencies, is expected to rule quickly. Cook's own lawyers, including former President George W. Bush's solicitor general Paul Clement, argued Thursday that granting Trump's request would "eviscerate" Fed independence.

• Nicole Goodkind and Janet H. Cho

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Amazon Settles FTC Lawsuit Over Deceptive Prime Memberships

Amazon Prime customers will be in line for refunds after the e-commerce giant agreed to pay $2.5 billion to settle a 2023 lawsuit filed by the Federal Trade Commission over allegations it tricked customers to sign up for Prime accounts and then made it difficult for them to cancel.

• The settlement, which the FTC called one of the largest in its history, requires that Amazon no longer misrepresent the terms of Prime subscriptions, must clearly disclose all of the terms of subscriptions, and must let users more easily cancel. It includes $1.5 billion for refunds.
• A jury trial in Seattle had started just days ago. "Amazon and our executives have always followed the law and this settlement allows us to move forward and focus on innovating for customers," Amazon spokesperson Mark Blafkin said. The FTC estimated 35 million people were affected.
• Amazon has 197 million U.S. Prime members, with subscriptions that cost $14.99 a month, or $139 a year. The lawsuit accused Amazon of using deceptive online processes that lured people into automatically-renewing Prime subscriptions and "knowingly" making it complicated to quit.
• The lawsuit was filed by the Biden administration's FTC Chair Lina Khan, who waged battles with big tech companies over antitrust accusations and calls to strengthen consumer protections. The FTC under the second Trump administration said it is committed to fighting for consumer protections.

What's Next: In a separate lawsuit also filed two years ago, the FTC and 17 states accuse Amazon of being a "monopolist" and using anticompetitive practices to keep prices high, degrade quality for shoppers, overcharge sellers, and stifle competition. That trial is set to begin in February 2027.

• Angela Palumbo and Janet H. Cho

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Costco Topped Expectations But Same-Store Sales Fall Short

Costco Wholesale topped earnings and revenue expectations in its latest quarter, but investors seemed more focused on lower-than-expected growth in same-store sales, which are below the growth reported one year ago and the second consecutive quarter when that metric has missed the mark for the retailer.

• Same-store sales were up 5.7% from last year, coming in short of forecasts for a 5.9% increase. Overall, Costco reported adjusted earnings of $5.87 a share for the fourth quarter and revenue of $86.2 billion. U.S. same-store sales rose 5.1%.
• Costco is one of the steadiest performers in retail and has been gaining market share at a clip. Its membership income rose 14% from last year. A little under half of that because of last year's membership fee increase, executives said. Online same-store sales rose 13.6%.
• Gold, jewelry, housewares, and apparel were some of the top online categories, with sales growing by double-digit percentages. The online shopping experience has been updated for several quarters, including changes to search, an online waiting room for highly anticipated product releases, and password-free access to the Costco app.
• Costco's recent store-hour changes also helped boost sales. Since late June, Costco has allowed its Executive members, who pay double the standard annual fee, to shop an hour before opening time, which has encouraged some members to shift their trips to earlier in the day, according to Placer.ai.

What's Next: Costco plans to keep growing its presence worldwide. The company opened 27 new warehouses throughout the fiscal year that ended in August, and plans to open another 35 stores in fiscal 2026.

• Sabrina Escobar

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Trump Has Unprecedented Influence Over Companies. Investors See a Boost.

President Donald Trump is exerting an unprecedented amount of influence over companies, and so far those that need something from the White House have found the help comes with strings attached. But at least for most investors, it's been working out just fine.

• Trump approved Japan-based Nippon Steel's takeover of U.S. Steel but only with veto power. In September, he nixed a company decision to stop processing at an Illinois U.S. Steel plant, and then U.S. Steel found a way to continue production. Nippon stock is up 10% since June 13.
• Mining companies and their shareholders have benefited the most. The Pentagon took a 15% stake in shares of rare earths miner MP Materials and talks with Canadian miner Lithium Americas are under way. Their stocks are up 156% and 123% since news broke of their Trump deals.
• The government also took a 10% stake in Intel, and its stock is up 24% since that August announcement. Rival chip makers Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices are paying the U.S. 15% of their revenue from China chip sales after getting clearance to sell there.
• A White House official explained that the administration was hoping to

HRC Steel decreased to 789.00 USD/T, the lowest since February 2025.

Over the past 4 weeks, Hot-Rolled Coil Steel lost 1.48%, and in the last 12 months, it increased 9.12%.

Palm oil fell, tracking lower soybean oil prices, says David Ng, a trader at Kuala Lumpur-based Iceberg. The narrowing price spread between the two competing oils likely weighed on market sentiment, Ng says. He sees support at 4,300 ringgit a ton and resistance at 4,520 ringgit a ton. The Bursa Malaysia Derivatives contract for December fell 43 ringgit to 4,396 ringgit a ton. (kimberley.kao@wsj.com)

• In the coming weeks, the EU Commission plans to impose far-reaching tariffs of between 25% to 50% on Chinese steel and products made from it, German business newspaper Handelsblatt says, citing unnamed sources.
• This comes as U.S. President Trump closes off the U.S. market, leading China to divert large quantities of goods to Europe and pushing down prices, according to Handelsblatt.
• Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Spain have called on the Commission to provide better protection for the industry, the newspaper says.

Full story (in German): https://shorturl.at/bGi6d

Write to Nina Kienle at nina.kienle@wsj.com

By Patrick Coffee

Bot networks are now a brand problem, too.

Coordinated webs of fake social-media personas have historically been the domain of fraudsters and state-based actors, such as the infamous Russian troll farms that spammed influential personalities like X owner Elon Musk, because of the time and labor involved.

But the rise of generative artificial-intelligence tools has made botnet campaigns both easier to manage and harder to detect.

Coordinated attacks targeting corporations have grown much more common over the past year or two, with bot networks going after brands such as Amazon, Target, McDonald's and Boeing, said Emilio Ferrara, a professor of computer science and communication at the University of Southern California who has studied social-media bots for years.

"What's different now is how quickly AI-powered bots can spin up 'grassroots-looking' campaigns around incendiary or divisive issues, e.g., culture-war topics, and keep them trending," Ferrara said.

"Attribution is hard, but these examples are illustrative of nonstate campaigns directed at brand reputation," he added.

Ascertaining motivations for these attacks can be as difficult as identifying the individuals behind them, but money is a top contender, according to PeakMetrics, a startup that tracks online discussions and threats for clients including government agencies and companies.

Verified users on X that meet minimums for followers and impressions can get paid based on the likes, replies and shares their posts get from other verified users. Bots masquerading as humans can help meet those minimums and spread posts so they reach more people who might engage, PeakMetrics said.

Botnets zero in on divisive topics, all the better to trigger human reactions, and aren't limited to any particular platform or political ideology. And they can make complaints loom larger than they would on their own, putting executives on the defensive.

Cracker Barrel Old Country Store recently abandoned a new logo under criticism from consumers, influencers and elected officials including President Trump. The episode was only the restaurant chain's latest brush with customers upset over its turnaround strategy, and Chief Executive Julie Felss Masino acknowledged on the company's latest earnings call that the brand had "misstepped."

But a disproportionate share of the social-media chatter that fed the news cycle about Cracker Barrel's logo was driven by bots on X, according to PeakMetrics, which works with the U.S. Air Force to identify sources of foreign misinformation, as well as Cyabra, an Israeli disinformation-detection firm.

The online logo backlash began with human-run accounts that have hundreds of thousands of followers. They started encouraging a boycott Aug. 20, one day after Cracker Barrel first mentioned its new logo in a press release, often accusing Cracker Barrel of fleeing its country charm and past.

Hundreds of bots soon began sharing the posts, replying to them and posting their own, PeakMetrics said.

The height of activity came just before midnight on Aug. 20, when X saw around 400 Cracker Barrel posts a minute. Seventy percent of the accounts promoting boycotts at that point used duplicate messages, a key marker of coordinated bots, said Molly Dwyer, director of insights at PeakMetrics.

Other signs included repeating the same thing dozens of times or posting consistently almost 24 hours a day, Dwyer said.

Bots or likely bots authored 44.5% of X posts mentioning Cracker Barrel in the 24 hours after the new logo gained attention on Aug. 20, according to research for The Wall Street Journal by PeakMetrics. That number rose to 49% among posts calling for a boycott.

The share of posts that typically come from bots and likely bots during discussions of controversial issues on X runs from around 20% to 30%, PeakMetrics said.

X's parent, xAI, didn't respond to requests for comment. Cracker Barrel declined to comment.

Prominent political accounts, such as that of Sen. Marsha Blackburn's gubernatorial campaign, eventually shared their own takes on the controversy. Trump used his Truth Social to weigh in against the new logo, and on Aug. 26, Cracker Barrel reversed course.

Meanwhile, recent bot network attacks have magnified posts advocating boycotts of Amazon and McDonald's because the companies rolled back diversity, equity and inclusion programs, according to Cyabra, the disinformation-detection firm.

Cyabra's clients have included the U.S. State Department, entertainment giant Warner Bros. Discovery and public relations agency Golin. Elon Musk hired the firm to gauge bot activity on the former Twitter before he bought the social platform in 2022.

Cyabra checks 600 to 800 parameters including location, posting frequency and the use of AI-generated avatars to declare whether accounts are human or not, said Chief Marketing Officer Rafi Mendelsohn.

Tracking bots doesn't necessarily help stop attacks. "If you're the brand, if you're the CMO of the brand, what the hell do you do?" Mendelsohn said.

Still, knowing that these negative attacks are coordinated by third parties could help marketers avoid engaging directly with the bots or mistaking every complaint for a human's.

Executives should consider any decision they make a potential tool for activity designed to heighten negative engagement on social media, said Dwyer, the Peak Metrics executive.

"There is an ecosystem of people who are looking for anything to grasp onto," she said. "There has been a vibe shift, and I don't think that companies have quite caught up to it yet."

Write to Patrick Coffee at patrick.coffee@wsj.com

By Dominic Chopping

Norges Bank Investment Management, the arm of Norway's central bank that manages the country's $2 trillion sovereign-wealth fund, agreed to invest $1.5 billion in Brookfield Asset Management's latest energy transition fund.

NBIM said since receiving a mandate to invest in unlisted renewable energy infrastructure in 2019, it has completed eight direct investments in European solar, onshore and offshore wind, and electricity transmission systems, as well as one indirect investment through a global renewable energy fund.

The agreement announced Friday to commit $1.5 billion to Brookfield Asset Management's Global Transition Fund II marks the fund's second indirect investment through a fund.

BGTF II focuses on business transformation, clean energy, and sustainable solutions aimed at accelerating the transition to a net-zero economy. The fund will invest across North America, South America, Europe, and Asia Pacific regions where Brookfield has established operational presence.

"BGTF II will enable us to invest in projects that develop renewable energy infrastructure while also supporting the broader transition to low-carbon solutions across industries," Harald von Heyden, global head of energy and infrastructure at Norges Bank Investment Management, said.

Write to Dominic Chopping at dominic.chopping@wsj.com