Stock Market Live January 8: Trump Criticizes Big Business, S&P 500 (VOO) Falls

Quick Read

President Trump called for increasing the defense budget to $1.5 trillion but demanded defense companies stop paying dividends and buying back stock.
The President also promised to crack down on large companies buying single-family homes and driving up housing costs.
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Bottom's Up for Constellation Brands

Jan 8, 2026 at 11:39 AM EST

Liquor distiller and S&P 500 component company Constellation Brands (NYSE: STZ) beat analysts forecasts by 41 cents in its Q3 earnings announcement last night. Constellation earned $3.06 per sahre on sales of $2.22, about $50 million more than expected.

Management guided investors to expect full-year fiscal 2026 earnings between $11.30 and $11.60, which at the midpoint is a bit below estimates. The Q3 beat was bigger than the difference in full-year earnings, though, and that seems to have appeased investors today.

Constellation stock is up 4.9% in late morning trading, while the Voo is still down 0.1%.

Voo Starts Down, Stays Down

Jan 8, 2026 at 9:38 AM EST

The Voo opened up just as the premarket predicted this morning — down 0.1%.

In economy news, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that nonfarm productivity jumped 4.9% in the third quarter of 2025. Helping make that happen, “unit labor costs,” or the cost in wages to produce a given amount of work, declined 1.9%. This is probably bad news for workers, but it’s a big boost to efficiency for employers.

Separately, the U.S. Department of Labor reports initial unemployment claims for the week ended January 3 came to a seasonally adjusted 208,000. That’s below the forecast 210,000 (which is good) but an increase of 8,000 from the prior week (which is bad).

Time to Lower Interest Rates

Jan 8, 2026 at 9:17 AM EST

Speaking before the Economic Club of Minnesota today, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is expected to call for the U.S. Federal Reserve to “not delay” but cut interest rates immediately. Lower interest rates, the Treasury Secretary will argue, is “the only ingredient missing for even stronger economic growth.”

CNBC says it has “exclusive access” to the Treasury Secretary’s notes, and broke the story premarket today, although the speech won’t actually happen until 12:45 p.m. ET.

In 2025, the Fed cut rates three times in a row, by 0.75% total, reducing federal target interest rates to a 3.5%-3.75% range.

This article will be updated throughout the day, so check back often for more daily updates.

The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO) is trading down 0.1% premarket Thursday, and President Trump’s attacks on Big Business may be the reason.

In posts on Truth Social yesterday, the President criticized exorbitant and unjustifiable” executive pay packages at U.S. defense companies and announced he “will not permit” defense companies pay dividends or buy back stock. He promised to limit executive compensation at defense companies to no more than $5 million per year.

And he said defense companies aren’t producing weapons “rapidly enough and, once produced, not maintaining it properly or quickly” — comments hinting he wants to see the companies use their money to make more capital investments rather than pay dividends and buy back stock.

Shares of General Dynamics (NYSE: GD) fell more than 4% yesterday, Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) was down nearly 5%, and Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) lost 5.5%.

All three of those defense stocks are bouncing back premarket Thursday, granted, as the President put down the stick and took out the carrot, calling for Congress to grow the defense budget to $1.5 trillion in 2027.

Housing news

But now there’s a new angle of attack on Big Business.

Lamenting that the American Dream is increasingly out of reach for far too many people, especially younger Americans,” the President says he is “immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes.” This time it’s private equity companies, real estate investment trusts (REITs) and other large institutional investors in the crosshairs.

Private equity giant Apollo Global Management (NYSE: APO) fell 5.5% yesterday, and is down another 0.3% this morning. Blackstone (NYSE: BX) fell 5.6% yesterday but is up 0.4% today. American Homes 4 Rent (NYSE: AMH), the country’s second biggest REIT buying single family homes, fell 4.3% yesterday and is down another 1.6% today.