Latest from Kiplinger in Dow-jones

Stocks Rise on Hot Earnings, Cool Inflation: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 20:10:27 +0000

President Donald Trump rolled back his 20% toll on Strait of Hormuz shipping, though an off-and-on ceasefire in the Middle East continues to roil energy markets and interest rates. But consumer inflation was a lot cooler than expected in June, big banks beat Wall Street forecasts and even conflicting headlines suggest interest in the AI trade remains high.

The West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures contract traded above $80 per barrel for the first time since June 17 and was higher by 2.0% at $79.68 on Tuesday. The 2-year Treasury yield ticked down to 4.189% after reaching a new 52-week high and closing at 4.263% on Monday.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said before the opening bell that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) showed its biggest month-over-month decline since 2020 last month. The June CPI report attributed the move to the steepest slide for gasoline prices since 2022.

Bloomberg, relying on "people familiar with the matter," said South Korea-based Samsung Electronics plans to seek some of the same fortune SK Hynix (SKHY, -9.3%) found last Friday when it completed one of the biggest IPOs in U.S. history.

But Reuters quoted a company spokesperson: "Samsung Electronics is not reviewing the possibility of issuing American Depositary Receipts." Samsung was up 3.4% on its local exchange, and the Korea Composite Stock Price Index was up 0.7% on Tuesday.

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Meanwhile, facing an array of challenges to his authority, new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh is testifying to Congress for the first time since taking his oath of office in May.

Warsh appeared before the House Financial Services Committee today and will testify to the Senate Banking Committee tomorrow about inflation and interest rates.

As Louis Navellier of Navellier & Associates notes, the BLS will release the Producer Price Index (PPI) before the opening bell on Wednesday. "Economists are expecting the overall PPI to decline 0.2% in June," Navellier writes, "so it is widely expected that inflation will also be cooling on the wholesale level."

At the closing bell on Tuesday, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was up 0.9% to 26,107, the broad-based S&P 500 had climbed 0.4% to 7,543, and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was higher by 0.02% to 52,508.

GS gets the biggest earnings bounce

Goldman Sachs (GS, +9.1%) was the top-performing Dow Jones stock on Tuesday after management of the heaviest component in the price-weighted index reported expectations-beating second-quarter revenue and earnings.

JPMorgan Chase (JPM, +2.5%) and Bank of America (BAC, +1.9%) also beat Wall Street forecasts and rose.

But Citigroup (C, -5.3%) and Wells Fargo (WFC, -2.5%) exceeded estimates and fell.

C opened higher, but CEO Jane Fraser said during the company's intraday conference call that management is planning additional investments, as well as accelerated job cuts, that could lead to higher costs in the short term.

Wells Fargo, meanwhile, continues to recover after the removal of regulatory restrictions on its asset growth.

Another Black Tuesday for Big Blue

International Business Machines (IBM, -25.2%), which was founded in June 1911 and completed its initial public offering (IPO) in January 1962, had its worst trading day since at least 1968 on Tuesday.

IBM closed with its biggest single-day loss on record, exceeding the 23.7% decline on Black Tuesday, October 19, 1987, after CEO Arvind Krishna said in a letter to shareholders that Big Blue would miss its second-quarter revenue and earnings guidance.

Susquehanna analyst Jamie Friedman reiterated his Neutral (Hold) rating and his $303 12-month target price, citing IBM's quantum computing option. "At the same time," the analyst added, "the other dimensions of the business that comprise the vast majority of revenue are meeting headwinds."

IBM is scheduled to report earnings on July 23.

Stocks Down, US-Iran War Action Up: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 20:09:01 +0000

President Donald Trump re-imposed a U.S. blockade on Iran and introduced a 20% toll on all cargo transiting the Strait of Hormuz, adding to uncertainty at the key passage to and from the Persian Gulf. At the same time, another steep sell-off for South Korea-based semiconductor stocks undermined "risk on" sentiment stateside.

"All other countries will have fair and open use of the Strait. The U.S.A. will be, from this point forward, known as 'THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT,'” the president posted on Truth Social, "but as such, and as a matter of FAIRNESS, will be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped, for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the World."

The front-month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures contract was up 8.8% to $77.72 per barrel. The 2-year Treasury yield ticked up to 4.269% from 4.208% on Friday and reached a new 52-week high.

Meanwhile, the Korea Composite Stock Price Index dropped 9.0% on Monday. The KOSPI recently traded into "bear market" territory by declining 20.5% from its record closing high on June 22 through last Wednesday's close.

"The stock market's attempt to break out of its six-week consolidation faces a couple of familiar challenges—tech volatility and geopolitics," E*TRADE from Morgan Stanley managing director Chris Larkin observes. "The ongoing swings in semiconductors has made it difficult for tech to mount a sustained push to the upside, and while the market has so far taken the breakdown of the US-Iran ceasefire in stride, escalating hostilities and rising oil prices won't help the bullish cause."

Larkin notes that investors, traders and speculators expect incoming consumer and producer inflation data to show some cooling. "But," he adds, "the market may not get as much of a boost from good news if traders think oil is headed higher again."

Big Tuesday

Indeed, this week's economic calendar, Tuesday morning in particular, is all about inflation and interest rates.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will release the June Consumer Price Index (CPI) report at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. That's less than two hours before new Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh makes his first appearance before Congress as mandated by the Federal Reserve Act.

The act requires the Fed chair to appear twice a year to talk about the central bank's Semiannual Monetary Policy Report. Warsh is scheduled to testify before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday and at the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday.

Tuesday is also a big day on the earnings calendar, with Bank of America (BAC, -0.2%), Citigroup (C, -0.1%), Goldman Sachs (GS, -0.8%), JPMorgan Chase (JPM, -0.6%) and Wells Fargo (WFC, +0.6%) scheduled to report second-quarter results and offer forward-looking guidance before the opening bell.

SKHY vs AAPL

SK Hynix (SKHY, -9.3%) was down 15.4% during the first trading session on its local exchange after it completed one of the biggest IPOs in U.S. history on Friday. SK Hynix and fellow chipmaker Samsung Electronics, which was down 10.7% on Monday, make up about 51% to 53% of the KOSPI.

The iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX, -4.8%) posted a more modest loss, though Nvidia (NVDA, -3.5%) was the worst-performing Dow Jones stock.

Apple (AAPL, +0.6%) traded against Monday's trend for both the Magnificent 7 stocks and tech generally, touching a new all-time high even as the Roundhill Magnificent 7 ETF (MAGS, -1.0%) was well in the red.

Citi Research analyst Asiya Merchant reiterated her Buy rating and raised her 12-month target price for AAPL from $315 to $365, citing the September release of the iPhone 18 as "an important catalyst that could further strengthen investor sentiment." The iPhone 18 is expected to include Siri AI.

At the closing bell on Monday, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was down 1.6% at 25,873 the broad-based S&P 500 had shed 0.8% at 7,515, and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 0.3% at 52,498.

When FAST is also safe

If there is such a thing as a safe stock, Fastenal (FAST, +1.2%) qualifies according to Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine contributing columnist James Glassman. As Glassman notes, the wholesale nuts and bolts distributor has boosted its dividend for 26 straight years, and it has a beta of 0.88. So it's a "Dividend Aristocrat," and it's less volatile than the broader market.

FAST, which is also scheduled to report earnings before the opening bell on Tuesday, generated a year-to-date total return of 17.1% through July 10 vs 11.4% for the S&P 500. The industrial stock is also up 94.1% and 451.8% over the trailing five- and 10-year periods vs 85.7% and 316.3% for the index.

The Wall Street analyst community is split on FAST: Five Buy, seven Hold and five Sell ratings. But Rothschild & Co. Redburn sees something different here, too.

"An investor who committed $9,000 to purchase 1,000 shares at Fastenal’s IPO in 1987 would today hold shares worth approximately $15.5 million," analyst William Blunt writes in the March 2026 Redburn Review (pdf), "equating to a compounded annual return of 21.6%, or 22.2% after reinvesting dividends."

Blunt says the culture established by founder Bob Kierlin, who was CEO for 35 years, is built on frugality. "This disciplined approach to costs has enabled sustained reinvestment," he adds, "reinforcing a virtuous cycle of profitability and expansion."

On Monday, Rothschild Redburn initiated coverage of FAST with a Buy rating and a $55 12-month target price.

Meta Leads Again as Markets Look Forward to Earnings: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 20:11:38 +0000

Markets ended the first full trading week of July on a positive note, with all three main equity indexes posting gains on Friday. Investors, traders and speculators welcomed another hot initial public offering (IPO) as they look forward to the acceleration of earnings reporting season and new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's first testimony on Capitol Hill since taking over at the world's most important central bank.

Materials stocks took the lead on Friday, as 10 of 11 sectors closed in the green. Tech stocks were higher, too, while Nvidia (NVDA, +4.0%) and Nike (NKE, +3.8%) were the top-performing Dow Jones stocks.

SK Hynix (SKHYV, +17.0%) started trading late in the morning and immediately popped to an intraday of $176.34, 18.3% above its IPO price. After raising $26.5 billion this week, SK Hynix now ranks among the biggest IPOs in U.S. history.

Financial stocks added more than 1%, with Bank of America (BAC, +0.7%), Citigroup (C, +0.7%), Goldman Sachs (GS, -0.1%), JPMorgan Chase (JPM, +0.3%) and Wells Fargo (WFC, +0.2%) scheduled to report second-quarter earnings before the opening bell next Tuesday.

By the closing bell, the Nasdaq Composite had added 0.3% to 26,281, finishing with a 1.7% weekly gain. The broad-based S&P 500 rose 0.4% on Friday and 1.2% for the week to 7,575. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average ticked up 0.3% to 52,673 but tracked back 0.5% over the five days.

What will Warsh tell Congress?

As Louis Navellier of Navellier & Associates foreshadows, next week is a big one for the earnings calendar: "We are locked and loaded for another earnings announcement season," Navellier writes, noting that valuations for "fundamentally superior stocks" are being compressed.

It's also a big one for the economic calendar: "I think it is safe to say that Fed Chairman Warsh is planning to turn the Fed inside out, streamline it and make it operate more efficiently," Navellier writes.

Warsh is scheduled to testify before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday and at the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday.

As Navellier explains, Warsh is putting together five task forces to "re-examine how the central bank operates." The task forces will focus on AI, productivity and jobs; Fed communications; the Fed’s balance sheet, inflation and economic data.

The front-month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures contract was down 1.3% to $71.56 per barrel. WTI ticked up 4.2% this week, though markets' main concerns right now are top- and bottom-line growth and forward guidance.

At the same time, markets want to know from Warsh how the Fed will respond amid continuing uncertainty about energy prices, inflation and interest rates.

Note that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will release the June Consumer Price Index (CPI) report less than two hours before Warsh testifies on Tuesday.

Upside for META stock

Meta Platforms (META, +6.2%) led S&P 500 stocks on Friday, as the Facebook and Instagram parent surged amid reports that it plans to enter the cloud computing market using its excess AI capacity and that it wants to build a new AI chip in partnership with Broadcom (AVGO, -0.3%).

Broadcom, which is not one of the Magnificent 7 stocks but is one of the top 10 companies in the world based on market cap, was up 11% this week, helped by confirmation by Apple (AAPL, -0.3%) that it will spend $30 billion for its own U.S.-made chips.

"Meta has been a significant beneficiary from the advances in AI by selling more ads at higher prices, which has driven significant revenue acceleration,” DA Davidson analyst Gil Luria observes. "It has not gotten credit because it has increased capex even more. If Meta slows down capex and starts monetizing it, we see significant upside to revenue and cash flow."

WD-40 stock was up 11% today

WD-40 (WDFC, +10.7%) made the case for mid-cap stocks on Friday, as management of the multiuse petroleum-based spray maker beat Wall Street expectations for its third quarter and raised guidance for the full year.

"We delivered an exceptional third quarter," CEO Steve Brass said in WD-40's earnings announcement (pdf), "with net sales increasing 24% and operating income increasing 47%, demonstrating the operating leverage inherent in our business model." Brass cited double-digit growth across WD-40's businesses, as well as "continued progress" in its "Must-Win Battles."

"While the cost backdrop remains fluid," a team of William Blair analysts led by Jon Andersen writes in a post-report note, "we believe in our thesis that WD-40 represents a singular and attractive business and investment opportunity."

Andersen & Co. reiterated their Overweight (Buy) rating, noting WD-40's "unique heritage, brand equity and product efficacy, geographic and channel reach, and go-to-market capabilities," as well as "superior organic sales growth" and "reliable free cash flow generation."

Micron Gives Stocks a $250 Billion AI Boost: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 20:10:18 +0000

Wednesday's late surge for a mixed close evolved into Thursday's across-the-board rally for the main U.S. equity indexes after a major gauge of global risk appetite recovered from another steep sell-off. Big companies are still making huge commitments to artificial intelligence, and stocks are still trending higher ahead of a summer reporting season that's going to heat up next week.

The front-month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures contract was down 2.3% to $71.85 per barrel, even as the U.S. and Iran continue to attack targets around the Strait of Hormuz.

And tech stocks took off again, as the Korea Composite Stock Price Index added 0.6% a day after it slid into bear market territory. The KOSPI was down 20.5% from its record closing high of 9,114 on June 22 through Wednesday's close at 7,246.

The KOSPI recovered from a steeper 20% drawdown over two trading days in March and got back above its previous all-time high by April. Then, on June 23, it was down 10%, a day they've called "Black Tuesday" in South Korea.

Earnings are the underlying force

Financial stocks added more than 1%, with Bank of America (BAC, +1.6%), Citigroup (C, +1.6%), Goldman Sachs (GS, +2.6%), JPMorgan Chase (JPM, +1.5%) and Wells Fargo (WFC, +1.6%) scheduled to report second-quarter earnings before the opening bell next Tuesday.

Consumer staples and energy stocks suffered amid the resumption of the "risk on" AI trade, the sectors shedding 1.8% and 1.6%, respectively, with notable names Procter & Gamble (PG, -1.1%) and Chevron (CVX, -1.1%) among 17 of the 30 Dow Jones stocks in the red.

"Today’s rebound demonstrates that good stocks bounce," Louis Navellier of Navellier & Associates notes. Navellier is optimistic about the flow of second-quarter earnings next week: "Believe it or not, it's going to be better than the first quarter."

According to a FactSet summary of first-quarter results, 85% of S&P 500 stocks beat earnings-per-share estimates, and companies reported aggregate revenue and earnings growth rates of 11.6% and 28.4%

"We're in the bumpy summer months," Navellier concludes, "but the underlying force underneath this market is earnings and a very strong economic recovery."

By the closing bell, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite had risen 1.3% to 26,206, the broad-based S&P 500 was up 0.8% at 7,543, and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average had added 0.3% to 52,487.

SK Hynix U.S. IPO is 7 times oversubscribed

According to Bloomberg, which cited "people familiar with the matter," demand for U.S.-listed shares of South Korea-based memory chipmaker SK Hynix exceeds supply by more than seven times. As Wall Street would say, this initial public offering (IPO) is "oversubscribed."

Management of the semiconductor stock plans to price its American Depositary Receipt (ADR) at $149 per share. The ADR IPO price is 3.1% above SK Hynix's closing price in South Korea on Thursday.

SK Hynix is expected to begin trading on the Nasdaq under the symbol SKHYV on Friday and will transition to the symbol SKHY on July 13. One SK Hynix ADR will be equivalent to one-tenth of a South Korea-listed common share.

At $26.5 billion, the SK Hynix IPO would be the biggest first-time share sale of a foreign stock in the U.S., surpassing the $25 billion Alibaba Group (BABA, +2.0%) raised in September 2014. That would put it among the biggest IPOs in U.S. history.

Micron ups US spend above $250 billion

Micron Technology (MU, 4.5%) said it will accelerate and increase its investment plan, committing to spend more than $250 billion through 2035 to support the memory chipmaker's goal to produce more than 40% of its DRAM in the U.S., citing "surging demand for memory in the AI area."

Micron also poured the first concrete at what will be the biggest semiconductor manufacturing facility in the U.S.

In a separate announcement, Micron said it would spend $3 billion to develop the semiconductor supply chain around its U.S. footprint.

BofA Global Research analyst Vivek Arya reiterated his Buy rating and a $1,550 12-month target price for MU stock, citing a 40% to 50% increase in Big Tech capex to $1.5 trillion in 2027. The analyst said memory will consume 35% to 40% of that budget.

Dow Falls 577 Points After Hormuz Ceasefire Fails: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 20:07:39 +0000

Investors, traders and speculators faced fresh headwinds from Asia on Wednesday. President Donald Trump said the U.S. is "probably" going to launch additional attacks on Iran to retaliate for Islamic Revolutionary Guard strikes on three commercial tankers as they transited the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday.

"I'll give them a little warning," Trump said from the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey. "We're going to hit them hard tonight, but we'll see how it all works out."

The front-month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures contract was up 5.2% to $74.09 per barrel after the president also threatened to reimpose a naval blockade at the key chokepoint for the global hydrocarbon market, but only for Iran.

"Look for cooler heads to prevail in coming days, with traffic returning to the Strait of Hormuz and Iran and the U.S. returning to the negotiating table," Mizuho Securities Director of Energy Futures Bob Yawger forecast.

Yawger expects negotiations to "drag on" over the next two months, "with both sides eventually agreeing on a weak deal that does not remove Iran's enriched uranium and possibly allows the Iranians to 'manage' the Strait of Hormuz."

Nvidia (NVDA, +3.7%), the leader of the AI revolution and the biggest company in the world based on market cap, trended higher through the day after gapping down at the opening bell.

The Nasdaq Composite rallied off its intraday low, and by the closing bell the tech-heavy index was up 0.2% at 25,870. But the broader S&P 500 declined 0.3% to 7,482, and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.1% to 52,348.

Buffett's Berkshire portfolio gets an energy boost

Integrated oil and gas supermajor Chevron (CVX, +1.1%), which offers all of upstream (exploration and production), midstream (storage and transportation) and downstream (refining and retail) energy exposure, led the 30 Dow Jones stocks for much of Wednesday's trading session.

But Occidental Petroleum (OXY, +3.7%), one of the biggest North American E&P outfits, enjoyed a bigger bounce from renewed tension in the Middle East.

New Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B, -1.8%) CEO Greg Abel sold CVX during the first quarter. But he held OXY in what is still basically Warren Buffett's stock portfolio.

Abel also engineered Berkshire's $9.7 billion acquisition of Occidental's chemical business that closed in January, and Berkshire remains the largest holder of the energy stock, with more than a quarter of OXY's outstanding shares.

Apple and Broadcom revive the tech trade

Chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix led the Korea Composite Stock Price Index into "bear market" territory, broadly defined as a 20% decline from a recent all-time high.

The KOSPI reached its record closing high of 9,114 on June 22, but a 5.4% slide on Wednesday following Tuesday's 4.9% sell-off left it 20.5% below that peak at 7,246. Samsung was down 6.3%, SK Hynix 5.7%. The latter will start trading in the U.S. on Friday under the symbol SKHY.

Selling pressure on tech stocks generally eased with confirmation from Apple (AAPL, +0.9%) of a new silicon deal with Broadcom (AVGO, +4.8%) that extends their longstanding relationship into 2031.

The iPhone maker added meat to the bone by confirming a commitment of at least $30 billion "to design and produce custom silicon components and cutting-edge wireless connectivity technologies for a wide range of Apple products."

Take a few seconds to read the FOMC minutes

Like the policy statement summarizing the FOMC's most recent decision to hold the target range for the federal funds rate at 3.50% to 3.75%, the minutes from the June Fed meeting were a lot shorter than they used to be, by about 22% based on a crude word-count comparison.

This "communication breakdown" is actually a big part of the "regime change" promised by new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh.

Warsh described a "family fight" about interest rates and the trajectory of inflation during his post-meeting press conference, and the minutes reveal a central bank still making decisions based on incoming data.

Brevity is catching on, though: "A number of participants noted that it was an opportune time to consider significant changes to the FOMC’s postmeeting statement," the June FOMC minutes reveal. "A majority of participants remarked that they saw advantages in shortening the statement."

Chips Slip Again as Caterpillar Bites the Dow: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 20:06:34 +0000

Crude oil prices spiked and equity futures sagged after Iran opened fire on ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz and an Asia-based AI stock sold off before the opening bell on Tuesday.

The main equity indexes moved up from their respective intraday lows during a typically light-volume summer session. But investors, traders and speculators remain wary on the cusp of yet another critical earnings season.

The front-month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures contract was up 4.8% to $71.82 per barrel amid an uptick in attacks on tankers moving oil and gas from the Middle East to global markets.

Price action for the iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX, -5.1%) once again reflected unease about how far and how fast the AI revolution has progressed and, beyond promise, the long-term prospects for real profits.

By the closing bell, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was down 1.2% at 25,818, the broad-based S&P 500 had shed 0.5% to 7,503, and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 0.3% at 52,924.

Why Samsung sank

Samsung Electronics was down 6.9% in South Korea after management of the semiconductor stock said in its preliminary report that revenue more than doubled and operating profit grew by 56% during the three months ended June 30.

Those are numbers that would make Nvidia (NVDA, +0.7%) proud. Indeed, Samsung stock has posted a year-to-date return of almost 150%, NVDA about 5%. And that's the rub right now.

"As is often the case," Trade Nation analyst David Morrison observes, "it can be better to travel than to arrive. And it seems that investors are concerned that semiconductor and other AI-adjacent stocks may struggle to maintain such high levels of sales and margins going forward."

SK Hynix, another South Korea-based chipmaker, was down 6.1%. SK Hynix, which is up more than 270% so far in 2026, is on track to begin trading as an American Depositary Receipt under the symbol SKHY on the Nasdaq as soon as the opening bell on Friday.

The Korea Composite Stock Price Index fell 4.9% on Tuesday. Samsung and SK Hynix account for almost 55% of the KOSPI, which has generated a year-to-date return of 81.7%.

CAT got the Dow

Caterpillar (CAT, -3.1%) was the worst-performing Dow Jones stock on Tuesday, a big deal because at north of $900 it's the second-biggest component in the price-weighted index.

Caterpillar announced the acquisition of Skywatch, which gathers and processes data for the mining industry. But, according to Barron's, the problem here is a downgrade for Germany-based Siemens Energy (SMERY, -5.1%).

Barclays analyst Vladimir Sergievskii cut his rating on the electrical equipment maker from Equal Weight (Hold) to Underweight (Sell), citing valuation concerns and the trajectory of the capex boom to support AI infrastructure.

At the same time, Sergievskii raised his 12-month target price from €110 to €130. Still, electric power specialist GE Vernova (GEV, -6.5%) sold off hard, too.

Great expectations

PepsiCo (PEP, +1.2%) and Delta Air Lines (DAL, -3.3%) are big, well-known companies that will share important information about how people are spending their money when they take their respective before-the-opening-bell turns on the earnings calendar Thursday and Friday. Markets will take particular note of what they say about the impact of inflation as participants evaluate the near-term future for the beverage and passenger airline industries.

Indeed, as FactSet Senior Earnings Analyst John Butters notes, Wall Street trimmed its earnings-per-share estimate for consumer staples stocks by 2.5% and for industrials by 2.1% amid an energy shock during the second quarter.

So their bar isn't as high as it is for high-flying tech stocks such as Samsung. But it is elevated right now, for the whole market: Analysts raised their aggregate EPS estimate for the S&P 500 by 3.4% from April 1 through June 30.

"In a typical quarter," Butters explains, "analysts usually reduce earnings estimates." The average EPS revision over the last five years is a decline of 2.7%. So consumer staples and industrial stocks are sort of outperforming here.

"In fact," Butters adds, "this quarter marked the largest increase in the bottom-up EPS estimate during a quarter since Q2 2021 (+7.7%)."

Energy stocks saw the biggest EPS increase, 61.5%, followed by information technology at 8.7%. But Wall Street cut its EPS estimate for healthcare stocks by 15.8%.

Dow Tops 53,000 as Chip Stocks Re-Take the Lead: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 20:16:42 +0000

Refreshed optimism about the AI trade after a long holiday weekend and an intraday rally for a beleaguered American icon lifted all three main equity indexes into the green on Monday. Price action during another low-volume trading session reflected shorter-term catalysts and longer-term trends, as well as more evidence of a resilient U.S. economy.

The iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX, +2.7%) bounced back from a two-day decline of nearly 10%, as investors, traders and speculators bought the dip on the stocks building the backbone for the artificial intelligence (AI) economy.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD, +6.6%) was among the top-performing S&P 500 stocks after Goldman Sachs analysts reiterated their Buy rating and raised their 12-month target price for the chipmaker from $450 to $640.

Broadcom (AVGO, +3.7%) was higher, too, on the extension of its agreement to supply Apple (AAPL, +1.3%) with custom chips through 2031.

Nike (NKE, -1.7%) was the worst-performing Dow Jones stock for much of Monday morning after Bank of America analyst Lorraine Hutchinson cut her 12-month target price for the iconic shoemaker from $55 to $47.

Nike bounced off its intraday low, though, and helped lift Papa Dow into the green by the closing bell.

"As always," Louis Navellier of Navellier & Associates writes, "we are locked and loaded for another earnings announcement season." As Navellier observes, the second quarter was the best-performing quarter for both the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 since 2020. "So expectations remain very high since economic growth is clearly accelerating."

At the closing bell, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was up 1.1% at 26,121, and the broad-based S&P 500 had added 0.7% to 7,537. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average, meanwhile, rallied for a 0.3% gain to 53,055, crossing the 53,000 level for the first time and reaching another new all-time closing high.

Economic activity is still expanding

The Institute for Supply Management Services Purchasing Managers Index ticked down to 54.0 in June from 54.5 in May, but it remains well in expansion territory.

And, according to LPL Financial Chief Economist Jeffrey Roach, hiring for the World Cup in the U.S. likely contributed to the increase to the ISM Services Employment Index last month. Also, as the economist notes, input prices fell to their lowest since February, a sign that recent inflation pressures are unlikely to persist.

"This morning’s ISM services Report on Business suggests the economic growth trajectory looks favorable," Roach explains. "As tariff and geopolitical stress abates, we should see further improvements with inflation dynamics, although not enough for the Fed to capitulate on its hawkishness."

The economist notes, too, that AI-related capex and consumer spending continue to support the broad economy.

SK Hynix gets a U.S. listing

Markets continue to digest the biggest initial public offering (IPO) in stock market history - indeed, SpaceX (SPCX, -1.0%) will join the Nasdaq 100 as of the opening bell on Tuesday.

Now, South Korea-based SK Hynix, will raise approximately $28 billion through an IPO of shares in the U.S.. With a market cap north of $1 trillion in U.S. dollar terms, SK Hynix is the second-biggest maker of memory semiconductors in the world.

SK Hynix told the SEC it will list 17.79 million common shares on the Nasdaq. The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg reported that the semiconductor stock will begin trading on Friday under the symbol SKHY.

WING is a World Cup winner so far

Wingstop (WING, -4.2%) felt a lot of selling pressure on Monday, but the chicken wing flinger was up more than 15% from June 11, the day the tournament began, through July 2, validating its place among Wall Street's top World Cup stock picks.

At the same time, WING had generated year-to-date and trailing-12-month losses of more than 25% and 45%, respectively, making the recent move look like a short-term spike within a longer-term downtrend.

We'll see whether expansion of the customer base beyond sports fans extends past the tournament final on July 19. Wingstop management will report second-quarter results before the opening bell on Wednesday, July 29.

Of the 29 analysts covering the consumer discretionary stock who are tracked by S&P Global Market Intelligence, 24 say it's a Buy or Strong Buy, while four have it at Hold and one says Strong Sell. This works out to a high-conviction consensus Buy recommendation.

Nasdaq Sinks as Sandisk Sell-Off Continues: Stock Market Today

karee.venema@futurenet.com (Karee Venema) — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 20:11:43 +0000

Stocks opened higher in Thursday's low-volume session as market participants gauged what a weak June jobs report means for interest rates. And while the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 were higher at the close, the Nasdaq Composite swung lower as chip stocks fell again.

At the closing bell, the Dow was up 1.1% at 52,900 — a new record high — and the S&P 500 was fractionally higher at 7,483. The Nasdaq, however, slumped 0.8% to 25,832.

Semiconductor stocks created the biggest drag on the tech-heavy Nasdaq on Thursday, as the high-flying industry continued its recent sell-off. The iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) fell 5.6% today, bringing its two-day decline to nearly 12%, but the exchange-traded fund remains more than 88% higher for the year to date.

Flash storage specialist Sandisk (SNDK), which is the best S&P 500 stock of 2026 so far with its 635% year-to-date gain, shed 14.1%. And memory chip maker Micron Technology (MU) — up 240% since the start of the year — fell 5.5%.

Tesla drops despite strong deliveries

Tesla (TSLA) was another notable decliner on Thursday, dropping 7.5% despite the electric vehicle (EV) maker reporting stronger-than-expected second-quarter deliveries.

For the three months ending June 30, Tesla delivered 480,126 vehicles — the bulk of which were its Model 3 sedan and Model Y SUV — up 34% over the first quarter and 25% from the year prior. Analysts expected TSLA to report deliveries of 406,000.

Given the impressive deliveries growth, it's likely that today's price move for the Magnificent 7 stock is a "buy the rumor, sell the news" event. Indeed, shares gained more than 13% from June 25 through July 1.

Walmart bounces back

Walmart (WMT) fell nearly 4% on Wednesday, dragged down by a report from Cleveland Research that suggested the mega-retailer has experienced slowing same-store sales in recent months.

In its fiscal 2027 first-quarter earnings report, which was released in May, the company reported comparable sales growth of 4.1%, a slightly slower rate than the 4.6% it disclosed in its fiscal 2026 Q4 print.

But investors appear to be shaking off yesterday's news, with WMT stock up 2.8% today, making it one of the best Dow Jones stocks. And Wall Street remains upbeat about the blue chip stock's longer-term prospects.

Of the 43 analysts covering the retailer who are tracked by S&P Global Market Intelligence, 37 say it's a Buy or Strong Buy, while five have it at Hold and one says Strong Sell. This works out to a high-conviction consensus Buy recommendation.

Speaking for the bulls is Morgan Stanley analyst Simeon Gutman, who has an Overweight (Buy) rating on Walmart. "WMT's flywheel does not show signs of slowing, with shopper incidence increasing both in-store and online, top-tier and stable membership penetration, and rising share as a most-frequented retailer," writes Gutman in a recent note. "We continue to believe WMT is well-positioned to gain share within the current challenging macro backdrop."

Weak June jobs data quiets the rate-hike talk

In economic news, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed the U.S. added just 57,000 new jobs in June, well below the 115,000 economists expected.

Additionally, job growth for April was revised down by 31,000, from +179,000 to +148,000, and May's figure was lowered by 43,000, from +172,000 to +129,000. This results in 74,000 fewer positions than previously reported.

But the weak June jobs report "isn't cause for alarm," says Elizabeth Renter, senior economist at NerdWallet. "The unemployment rate [which fell to 4.2% from 4.3%] remains in good territory, as does the slow, steady growth in jobs amid demographic changes and some economic uncertainty."

And Jennifer Timmerman, senior investment strategy analyst at Wells Fargo Investment Institute (WFII), says that the moderation of job growth takes "the steam out of market expectations for Fed rate hikes by year-end."

According to CME FedWatch, futures traders are pricing in a 43% chance the federal funds rate will be at 3.75% to 4.00% by the end of 2026, up from its current target range of 3.5% to 3.75%.

As a reminder, Friday, July 3, is a stock market holiday, with the stock and bond markets closed in observance of Independence Day.

Dow Closes Lower as Caterpillar Stock Slumps: Stock Market Today

karee.venema@futurenet.com (Karee Venema) — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 20:11:32 +0000

Stocks struggled to get off the ground Wednesday as volume thinned out ahead of the long holiday weekend. As a reminder, the bond markets will close early tomorrow for the Fourth of July, and both the stock and bond markets will be closed on Friday.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.03% at 52,305, and the S&P 500 was 0.2% lower at 7,483.

The Nasdaq Composite, meanwhile, slumped 0.7% to 26,040 as investors continued to take profits on several red-hot memory chip stocks. Micron Technology (MU), for one, slumped 10.6% but remains up nearly fourfold for the year to date. And Sandisk (SNDK) — the best S&P 500 stock of 2026 so far with its 760% year-to-date return — plunged 10.6%.

Meta soars 9% on surprising cloud shift

While sharp losses in semiconductor stocks dragged on the Nasdaq, a big rally in Meta Platforms (META) shares helped limit losses for the tech-heavy index.

META jumped 8.8% — its best day since January — after a Bloomberg report indicated the Facebook parent is building out a new cloud business and will sell its excess artificial intelligence (AI) computing power to external customers. This will allow Meta to earn revenue on the computing capacity it is not using.

"Meta building a cloud business is the single most powerful near-term rebuttal to the 'hyperscalers are overbuilding without clear ROI' bear narrative," says Luke Lango, lead technology and cryptocurrency analyst at InvestorPlace. "Every dollar of Meta cloud revenue that flows from an external customer is a dollar that justifies another dollar of Meta infrastructure spending."

Salesforce jumps on Guggenheim upgrade

Over on the Dow, Salesforce (CRM) emerged as one of the best performers of the day, adding 4.2% after Guggenheim analyst John DiFucci upgraded the enterprise software stock to Buy from Neutral (Hold).

CRM is down more than 38% for the year to date, making it the worst Dow Jones stock of 2026 so far, on concerns that AI will create an existential crisis for software-as-a-service (SaaS) firms.

While DiFucci admits that AI creates "a significant risk" to SaaS business models, "the Armageddon scenario currently priced into the stock is misaligned with reality."

The analyst set a $228 price target on CRM, which he says is trading at "an attractive entry point," representing implied upside of 40% to current levels.

Caterpillar sinks after Burry unveils new short position

At the other end of the Dow was Caterpillar (CAT), which plunged 6.9% after "Big Short" investor Michael Burry said he is betting against the high-flying industrial stock.

Shares are up 73% for the year to date due in part to strong demand for its power energy segment, which supplies AI data centers. Its construction unit has also seen impressive growth.

"I have never shorted Caterpillar," Burry wrote in a Substack post. "It has always done great for me on the long side." But the stock "jumped out" at him due to its stretched valuation, he said.

According to Morningstar, CAT is now trading at a price-to-sales ratio of 7.07, well above its five-year average of 2.54.

ADP jobs data comes up short

In economic news, data from ADP showed the U.S. added 98,000 private payrolls in June, below the 122,000 from May and the 110,000 new jobs economists expected.

While private job growth slowed in June, "nine of 10 industries gained workers," says Elizabeth Renter, senior economist at NerdWallet. "This dispersion is a good sign, even if education and health services continue to pull more than their share of the weight."

The ADP report was released ahead of tomorrow's June jobs report, which is expected to show the addition of 115,000 new nonfarm payrolls. This data will give us "a better understanding of the June labor market," says Renter. "It's likely to illustrate steady stability — both nothing alarming and nothing to get too optimistic over."

Dow Hits More Highs as Consumers Get More Confident: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 20:12:57 +0000

Investors, traders and speculators observed the end of the second quarter and the first half of the year on Tuesday by extending a holiday-week risk-on rally. Technology took the lead, as chipmakers celebrated their best-ever three-month gain, and another survey suggested consumers are feeling better about the broader economy.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose more than 80% from April through June on demand for chips, hardware and memory to sustain a revolutionary buildout for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure.

The index of semiconductor stocks is up more than 90% so far in 2026, putting it on track for its best performance since the peak of the dot-com boom in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

At the closing bell, the Nasdaq Composite was up 1.5% at 26,213. The tech-heavy index shed 2.8% in June, but it was higher by 21.4% for the second quarter and has added 12.8% so far in 2026.

The S&P 500 added 0.8% to 7,499, leaving the broad-based index down 1.1% for the month, but up 14.9% for the quarter and 9.5% for the year.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average inched up 0.3% to 52,317, a second straight all-time closing high. The blue-chip index was higher by 2.5% in June, also notching a new all-time monthly closing high.

Papa Dow, 130 years old as of May 26, added 12.9% in the second quarter and 8.9% during the first six months of the year.

Friday, July 3, is a stock market holiday, with the stock and bond markets closed to observe the Fourth of July.

An update on the confidence game

The front-month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures contract was down 0.9% to $70.09 per barrel on Tuesday, as the U.S. and Iran continue to negotiate a durable truce that will unclog the Strait of Hormuz.

WTI traded at $67.02 on February 27, the day before the war in the Middle East began, and $101.38 on March 31. The North American oil benchmark has now declined by more than 40% from its wartime peak of $119.48 on March 9.

In a related development, The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index printed at 91.2 this month vs 90.6 in May. The survey was conducted between June 1 and June 23.

According to The Conference Board Chief Economist Dana Peterson, "Consumer confidence inched up in June as falling oil prices in recent weeks provided some relief to consumer inflation fears."

Good defense was the best way to play offense today

AeroVironment (AVAV, +18.8%) showed why it's one of the best defense stocks to buy right now when the dronemaker reported better-than-expected quarterly results but lighter-than-forecast annual guidance after the closing bell on Monday.

AVAV retraced much of a year-to-date decline of more than 40%, as markets recognized solid numbers in the aggregate amid management's efforts to recover from the loss of a government contract and fix the impact of an accounting error that resulted in a goodwill-related impairment charge.

AeroVironment posted fiscal fourth-quarter earnings of $1.84 per share on revenue of $642 million vs a Wall Street forecast for EPS of $1.46 on revenue of $556 million. Management guided to EPS of $3.02 to $3.34 on revenue of $2.1 billion to $2.2 billion for fiscal 2027, while analysts see EPS of $3.84 on revenue of $2.2 billion.

“Fiscal 2026 marked a transformational year for AV," CEO Wahid Nawabi said in a statement, noting that his company is "well-positioned to capture the rising global demand across lethal and non-lethal drones, counter-UAS, space and advanced technologies."

CNXC adjusts its targets

Concentrix (CNXC, -11.2%) seemed to confirm market concerns about the effects of AI-based tools on companies that provide software-based customer experience and business outsourcing services, as management cut its top- and bottom-line guidance for the coming quarter and the full fiscal year.

Concentrix, an industrial stock that actually includes "scaling secure AI technologies" among its professional services capabilities, reported a narrow second-quarter miss: EPS of $2.63 on revenue of $2.46 billion against a consensus estimate of $2.64 on $2.47 billion.

But markets, all forward-looking here, focused on third-quarter EPS guidance of $2.65 to $2.77 on revenue of $2.465 billion to $2.490 billion against a consensus EPS estimate of $3.08 on revenue of $2.53 billion.

That's short almost 14% at the midpoint for the bottom line, 2% at the top. And full-year EPS guidance is short about 7% at the midpoint vs Wall Street's forecast, while revenue guidance shows a 1% expectations deficit.

Stocks Rally to Start a Big Holiday Week: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 20:12:55 +0000

The main equity indexes gapped up, slumped briefly, then surged again to start a holiday-shortened week on a positive note. The Nasdaq Composite and the S&P 500 ended their respective five-session losing streaks during a risk-on rally that also lifted the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its first-ever close above 52,000.

"We typically rally into holiday weekends," Louis Navellier of Navellier & Associates observes, "and it would be downright un-American not to be optimistic heading into the Fourth of July, especially considering it is the 250-year anniversary celebration."

Friday, July 3, is a stock market holiday, with the stock and bond markets closed to observe the Fourth of July.

As Navellier explains, the market is also benefiting from a realignment of the Russell 2000 Index and resulting demand for small-cap stocks and mid-cap stocks. "Additionally," he writes, "SpaceX (SPCX, +7.2%) was added to the Russell 1000 at the start of the week."

Navellier expects "fundamentally superior stocks" to enjoy a collective bounce "from institutional investors making their portfolios 'extra pretty' before they do their quarter-end reviews."

Comcast breaks up

Communication services stocks paced the rally at a sector level after Comcast (CMCSA, +4.5%) announced a plan to spin off NBCUniversal and Sky into a separate publicly traded company.

"Comcast will continue to build on its leadership in connectivity," co-CEO Mike Cavanaugh said in a statement announcing the split, "while NBCUniversal, together with Sky, will have the scale, brands, content and financial resources to compete as a premier global media and entertainment company."

Charter Communications (CHTR, +9.4%), a rumored acquisition target for Comcast's connectivity business amid a merger market that's heating up, was among the top-performing S&P 500 stocks on Monday.

Another sector stalwart, Alphabet (GOOGL, +4.8%), was among the top-performing Dow Jones stocks during its first trading day as a member of that price-weighted index. Verizon Communications (VZ, -5.3%), removed from the Dow to make room for GOOGL, fell sharply.

At the closing bell, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was up 2.1% to 25,820, the broad-based S&P 500 had added 1.2% at 7,440, and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was higher by 0.6% to 52,182.

Will a World Cup stock score this week?

It's a mostly quiet week on the earnings calendar, except for Nike (NKE, +1.8%). Down 35% year to date through Friday, one of Wall Street's top World Cup stock picks will report fiscal fourth-quarter results after the closing bell on Tuesday.

Stifel analyst Peter McGoldrick is "not ready to call a bottom" for NKE stock. "Our thesis states dominant market position is unlikely to translate to value creation absent 1) a favorable change in consumer preference, or 2) a reinvigoration of the innovation pipeline at scale," McGoldrick writes.

The analyst reiterated his Hold rating on the consumer discretionary stock but cut his 12-month target price from $56 to $50, citing lackluster performance and erosion of its share of the athletic market.

According to McGoldrick, "Investors will focus on FY27 guidance, capacity for topline growth, and EBIT margin rebound from trough levels in FY26." At the same time, he notes, management has little incentive to raise expectations before its traditional investor day in the fall.

Supreme Court says the Fed might be exceptional

The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that President Donald Trump can fire Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter. But can President Trump fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook? Well, no, at least not yet.

Writing for a 5-4 majority in Trump v. Cook (pdf), Chief Justice John Roberts said the Trump administration's interpretation of the law "would in effect transform the Federal Reserve's for-cause protection into at-will employment — an interpretive leap out of step with the statute Congress enacted and our Nation's tradition of central banking protected from political interference."

But Roberts left open the possibility that Trump can remove Cook, pending the Fed governor's case against the president in a lower federal court.

"To be clear," the chief justice explained, "the ultimate question of whether the President can remove Cook for cause will depend in part on the underlying facts. In this opinion, we have not addressed the facts, as they have yet to be found or analyzed under the relevant legal standards."

In a separate 6-3 decision, the Court abandoned a 91-year-old precedent and expanded President Trump's authority over (most) of the executive branch.

"If anything more is left of Humphrey's," Roberts wrote for the majority, referring to the 1935 decision in Humphrey's Executor v. United States that established a principle of independence for federal agencies, "we overrule it."

Stocks Struggle After OpenAI IPO Blow: Stock Market Today

karee.venema@futurenet.com (Karee Venema) — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 20:11:31 +0000

Stocks opened lower Friday as tech stocks slumped on reports that artificial intelligence (AI) giant OpenAI is considering delaying its initial public offering (IPO). And while the main equity indexes were in positive territory by lunchtime thanks to strength in defensive sectors, including healthcare and consumer staples, momentum faded into the close.

Late Thursday, The New York Times reported that advisers to OpenAI are encouraging CEO Sam Altman to delay the ChatGPT parent's offering until 2027. This comes amid recent volatility in SpaceX (SPCX, +0.2%), which went public earlier this month in the biggest IPO ever.

OpenAI confidentially filed its IPO paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission in early June, with some suggesting it could go public as soon as Q3 2026.

But a potential delay "is a rational, strategically sound decision by one of the most sophisticated management teams and advisory networks in the technology industry," says Luke Lango, lead technology and cryptocurrency analyst at InvestorPlace.

Lango believes OpenAI would be going public "in a competitive environment where Anthropic's rapid progress has created legitimate uncertainty about long-term market share dynamics" and "in a market that just watched SPCX's $1.75 trillion IPO produce more volatility than anyone wanted."

The news sent the Nasdaq Composite down more than 1% at Friday's open, though the tech-heavy index closed with a more modest loss of 0.2% to 25,297. Memory chip stocks created some of the biggest headwinds for the Nasdaq, with Micron Technology (MU, -6.7%) and Sandisk (SNDK, -10.5%) both posting notable losses on Friday.

Elsewhere, the broader S&P 500 slipped 0.05% to 7,354, while the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average — which will add Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL, -2.2%) to its 30-stock roster on Monday — fell 0.09% to 51,876.

ON Semiconductor sinks 24% on deal drama

ON Semiconductor (ON) was another notable tech loser on Friday, sinking 23.7% to make it the worst S&P 500 stock of the day, after the chip manufacturer said it will buy Synaptics (SYNA, -3.7%) in an all-stock deal valued at roughly $7 billion. This also marks ON's largest single-day drop since October 2023.

"By adding Synaptics' differentiated Edge AI compute franchise and strong portfolio of human-machine interface and wireless connectivity solutions, onsemi is expected to extend its capabilities beyond power and sensing to intelligent systems, delivering greater value to a broad range of end markets," ON Semi explained in the press release.

The reaction from market participants is likely "an investor preference for a data center rather than edge enhancement," says B. Riley Securities analyst Craig Ellis. But Ellis believes it's "a logical product line extension play from data center AI toward the edge for significant SAM expansion into a $100 billion CY30 AI opportunity now including more humanoids and robotics."

Ellis reiterated his Buy rating on ON and lifted his price target to $135 from $118.

Moderna stock soars on sector rotation, drug news

On the plus side of Friday's ledger was Moderna (MRNA), which rose 12.6% to put it at the top of the S&P 500. In addition to a broader rotation into defensive stocks, the drugmaker got a boost after unveiling its first in vivo CAR-T autoimmune therapy program during Thursday's investor day.

"We do think there is investor interest more broadly in the oncology pipeline and new sources of future growth and diversification beyond infectious disease and COVID/Flu, etc.," says UBS Global Research analyst Michael Yee.

But the new programs discussed on Thursday won't be potential growth drivers until at least 2030, Yee says. As such, focus for now is on the company's INT cancer vaccine, with Phase III data expected later this year, and lowering operational expenditures to reach breakeven.

Yee has a cautious Neutral (Hold) rating on the healthcare stock and a $45 price target — more than 30% below its current price.

Micron Stock Surge Fails to Boost Nasdaq: Stock Market Today

karee.venema@futurenet.com (Karee Venema) — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 20:07:50 +0000

Stocks were volatile Thursday as market participants weighed mixed signals from the tech sector. Wall Street also sifted through the latest inflation data, which came in better than expected, but is unlikely to change the trajectory for interest rates this year.

At the close, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.1% at 51,920, while the broader S&P 500 was fractionally lower at 7,357 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was down 0.5% at 25,358.

Caterpillar (CAT) was the best Dow Jones stock today, adding 6.3% to bring its daily win streak to seven. The industrial stock is also the best-performing Dow component of the year, up nearly 85% so far, on expectations that the heavy equipment maker will capitalize on demand for the artificial intelligence/data center buildout.

UBS Global Research analyst Steven Fisher thinks power generation opportunities will remain strong in the U.S. "until either grid investment ramps up materially or large turbine production capacity ramps up."

And this should support Caterpillar's "earnings growth, along with continued dealer inventory build in construction, a pickup in the mining cycle, and more oil & gas customer investments."

However, Fisher has a Neutral (Hold) rating on the blue chip stock and a $900 price target — below its current price — noting that its upside potential is likely limited from here given CAT's strong run up the price chart.

Apple sinks on MacBook, iPad price hikes

Apple (AAPL), on the other hand, was the worst-performing Dow stock on Thursday, sinking 6.2% on news the company will be hiking prices on several of its products, including the MacBook and iPad.

Earlier this month, outgoing CEO Tim Cook warned that "price increases are unavoidable" given higher costs for components such as memory chips. And the company implemented the hikes today, raising prices for most of its products by $100 to $200.

For instance, as Tech Radar reports, the new MacBook NEO is now priced at $699, up from $599. And the 12-inch MacBook Air costs $1,299 to start, up from $1,099 previously.

Passing these "increased costs onto consumers is emblematic of the substantial expenses associated with AI technologies, which have raised concerns about the capital-return prospects of the initiatives," says José Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers. "Also, the need to increase prices is undermining hopes that related projects will offer deflationary relief."

Micron soars 16% on memory chip demand

One company that is benefiting from higher semiconductor costs is Micron Technology (MU), which soared 15.8% — and gained $186 billion in market value — after the memory chipmaker reported its fiscal third-quarter results.

For the three months ending May 28, Micron said earnings rose to $25.11 per share from $1.91 per share in the year-ago period. Revenue surged nearly 350% to $41.5 billion. Analysts expected earnings of $20.05 per share on $35 billion in revenue.

"Micron's record fiscal Q3 financial results and even stronger outlook for Q4 reflect the strategic value of memory in the AI era," said Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra in the earnings release.

For fiscal Q4, the company guided for earnings of $31 per share at the midpoint and revenue of $50 billion.

"MU delivered another strong quarter, reinforcing our constructive view on memory's role in AI and the increasing supply-side discipline supporting a more durable cycle," says BofA Securities analyst Vivek Arya.

Even with the tech stock up more than fourfold for the year to date, Arya believes its "valuation remains compelling," and raised his price target to $1,550 from $1,500 — representing implied upside of 27% from current levels.

PCE comes in better than expected, but keeps rate cuts out of reach

In economic news, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) this morning said the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (PCE) — the Federal Reserve's preferred measure of inflation — rose 0.4% from April to May and was 4.1% higher from the year prior.

Core PCE, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, was 0.3% higher month over month and up 3.4% year over year.

"Oil prices are heading lower but the inflation problem remains, as core PCE is up 3.4% since last year and showing no signs of abating," says Sonu Varghese, chief macro strategist at Carson Group. "This isn't about energy and tariffs either, as AI-related bottlenecks are also pushing inflation higher."

Varghese believes that the Fed's job only gets harder from here, especially as the labor market continues to improve. "But we think the committee will avoid rate hikes this year as a majority wait for inflation to pass, allowing the economy (and markets) to run hot."

Futures traders, however, expect the next move to be a rate hike. According to CME Group FedWatch, betting odds are for the Fed to raise the federal funds rate by a quarter percentage point by year's end.

Dow Holds Gains as Markets Price the AI Boom: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 20:11:32 +0000

Another big rebound on the other side of the world suggested stocks would rise in the U.S., too, and that's what happened early on Wednesday. But investors, traders and speculators remain wary about the speed and scale of the artificial intelligence (AI) buildout.

South Korea's KOSPI Index bounced back in a big way after a sharp sell-off from new highs, just as it did in March and April, rising as much as 4.6% and finishing with a gain of 3.3%.

More than half of the KOSPI's value is tied to Samsung Electronics (SSNLF) and SK Hynix (HXSCL), which were up 9.8% and 1.0%, respectively, on their local exchange.

Fellow semiconductor stocks such as Nvidia (NVDA, -0.5%) enjoyed some stateside follow-through, as tech- and AI-related names attracted dip-buyers through midday. Selling pressure returned after lunch.

Industrials, utilities and consumer discretionary stocks — most notably big box retailer Home Depot (HD, +5.7%) — paced the rally over here at a sector level.

"The recent volatility in AI-related names — particularly chip stocks — has been widely described in terms of 'technical exhaustion'," observes Daniel Skelly, head of Morgan Stanley's wealth management market research and strategy team.

Skelly sees evidence of weakness in the fundamental story, too, "including possible AI-model pricing wars and increased sensitivity about spending among AI hyperscalers."

By the closing bell, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite had slipped 0.4% to 25,476, and the broad-based S&P 500 was down 0.1% at 7,358. But the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average held on for a 0.4% gain to 51,848.

Warsh has a legendary act to follow

That the front-month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures contract was down another 4.3% to $70.06 per barrel on Wednesday will relieve consumers and policymakers worried about inflation. That the 2-year Treasury yield backed off from 52-week highs today to 4.148% vs 4.200% on Tuesday will comfort anyone watching interest rates.

That they're calling what happened in South Korea yesterday "Black Tuesday" is a reminder that new Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh has a tough act to follow. But so did Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen and Jerome Powell.

Indeed, Alan Greenspan, who passed away on Monday, is the model for the modern Fed chair.

Whether you need to know how to run a central bank (or you're forming a jazz band), the old Fed chair has answers for you.

Here are five lessons (we can all learn) from Alan Greenspan.

Papa Dow trades VZ for GOOGL

Alphabet (GOOGL, -0.2%) will be the latest Magnificent 7 stock to join the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P Global announced on Tuesday.

The Google parent will replace Verizon Communications (VZ, -2.1%) in the price-weighted index before the opening bell this Monday, June 29, with the swap reflecting a divergence among communication services stocks at a moment defined by AI.

As S&P Global notes, adding Alphabet will "broaden and strengthen" Papa Dow's exposure to AI, as well as advertising, cloud infrastructure, hardware, autonomous mobility, healthcare technology and media distribution.

"Its larger market capitalization and share price, together with the breadth of its businesses, make it a more representative Communication Services constituent in the DJIA," the data provider says.

S&P Global also said Honeywell (HON, +2.3%) will remain one of the 30 Dow Jones stocks after it completes the spinoff of Honeywell Aerospace on June 29.

Micron is reporting earnings right now

Micron Technology (MU, -0.4%) hit a new all-time high on Monday, but the tech stock put up red numbers during the two trading sessions ahead of its post-closing-bell turn on the earnings calendar today.

Of course, a year-to-date gain of 268.7% through Tuesday means expectations are still sky-high; indeed, Wall Street expects management to report earnings growth of 950% on revenue growth of 276%.

Those are big numbers. And they make sense, according to Wedbush analyst Matt Bryson.

"With numbers moving higher, demand for AI seemingly set to remain robust through CY2027 (if not 2028), limited likelihood of oversupply over the next 18 months, and finally a strong likelihood MU exceeds our estimates," the analyst argues, "we see no reason to shift our positive view on the name."

Bryson reiterated his Overweight (Buy) rating and raised his 12-month target price on MU stock from $550 to $1,300 in a preview of management's fiscal third-quarter report.

Nasdaq Falls 579 Points on Global AI Bubble Fear: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 20:13:48 +0000

A steep sell-off in South Korea spread to Europe and the U.S. on Tuesday, as investors, traders and speculators asked hard questions about the sustainability of capex plans amid what so far has seemed to be an ever-expanding artificial intelligence (AI) boom. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is talking up another cutting-edge corner of the stock market.

The KOSPI Index, which includes South Korea-based semiconductor stocks such as Samsung Electronics (SSNLF) and SK Hynix (HXSCL), fell 910 points, or 9.99%, to 8,203 on Tuesday. The two chipmakers, which account for more than half of the KOSPI's value, had led the index past the 9,100 level for the first time ever on Monday.

By the closing bell, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was off 2.2% at 25,587, the broad-based S&P 500 had declined by 1.4% to 7,365, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.1% at 51,666.

"There is a great near-term buying window for many of the high-flying memory and other technology stocks," Louis Navellier of Navellier & Associates observes, noting that memory stocks showed relative strength on Monday as the Nasdaq sold off late, "but lost their mojo" because of what happened overseas.

Indeed, Navellier expects Micron Technology (MU, -13.2%) to announce record top- and bottom-line results after the closing bell on Wednesday. "The last correction in AI-related stocks this month only lasted four trading days," he writes, "so every dip should be viewed as a buying opportunity."

The front-month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures contract was down 0.7% to $73.34 per barrel and has now retreated almost 40% from its wartime highs near $120, as inflation pressure from the Strait of Hormuz continues to ease.

Meanwhile, the 2-year Treasury yield ticked up to another new 52-week high on Tuesday before settling at 4.200% vs 4.219% on Monday, as markets continue to price in a path for short-term interest rates under new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh.

Big Blue gets a quantum bounce from the White House

International Business Machines (IBM, +5.0%) was No. 1 among the 30 Dow Jones stocks on Tuesday, as markets bid up the old-school technology firm on word from the White House of two new executive orders designed to accelerate quantum innovation and to protect against cryptographic attacks.

D-Wave Quantum (QBTS, +2.2%) showed green numbers, too. But quantum computing wasn't immune to broader selling pressure in the tech space, with Rigetti Computing (RGTI, -0.5%) and IonQ (IONQ, -0.8%) lower for the day.

Infleqtion (INFQ, +12.0%), which completed its initial public offering (IPO) in February, and Quantinuum (QNT, +13.5%), a former subsidiary of Honeywell (HON, -2.5%) that debuted as a standalone public company on June 4, did post big gains.

"Quantum technologies represent the next generation of innovation across computing, sensing, and networking, with enormous significance for our country's economic growth, scientific research, and cyber security," President Donald Trump said on Monday. "It's really a big deal that we're doing."

ARK is buying more SPCX

SpaceX (SPCX, +1.0%) enjoyed its first positive session since last Tuesday after ARK Invest revealed through its trade notification system that it purchased a total of 210,121 SPCX shares.

The ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK, -2.1%) added 131,837 shares, the ARK Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF (ARKQ, -2.8%) 43,486. The ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW, -2.0%) and ARK Space Exploration & Innovation ETF (ARKX, 1.7%) bought 21,506 and 13,292 shares, respectively.

On Monday, SPCX stock was down more than 16%, and its market cap declined by about $400 billion. According to Dow Jones Market Data, that's the second-biggest single-day loss for any company in stock market history.

Susquehanna analyst Charles Minervino initiated coverage of SPCX with a Neutral (Hold) rating and a $170 12-month target price. "The current valuation requires premium multiples on very aggressive revenue and EBITDA growth assumptions," Minervino says. "With some of the markets that SPCX operates in being relatively unproven, we believe a wide range of outcomes exist."

Stocks Are Mixed as SpaceX Seeks Its Orbit: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 20:10:24 +0000

The main equity indexes were mixed on Monday, as market participants continued to monitor negotiations between the U.S. and Iran and the status of the Strait of Hormuz. Investors, traders and speculators also observed the passing of Alan Greenspan, who led the Federal Reserve for almost 20 years and was among the most important central bankers of our time.

At the closing bell, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.3% to 51,712, but the S&P 500 was down 0.4% to 7,472, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite had shed 1.3% at 26,166.

Communication services stocks were the worst-performing group, with the sector weighed down by recent addition SpaceX (SPCX, -16.4%) posting a third straight daily decline less than two weeks after the biggest IPO ever.

The front-month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures contract fell by 2.0% to $74.35 per barrel. WTI has retraced about 86% of its surge to $119.48 on March 9, the intraday peak amid war in the Middle East.

The 2-year Treasury yield ticked up/down to 4.232% from 4.179% on Thursday, with the market-based barometer of short-term interest rates hitting another 52-week high on Monday.

Following its two-day meeting last week, the Fed held the federal funds rate steady at 3.50% to 3.75%. You can catch up on news and developments around the FOMC meeting at our June Fed meeting blog.

Alan Greenspan, the 'Maestro' of the modern Fed

Whether you deem the development positive or negative, and even if it's just the way things have always been in your experience, it's fair to say Alan Greenspan is the template for the modern celebrity Fed chair.

Greenspan, who led the world's most important central bank from 1987 until 2006, died on Monday at 100 years old.

Nominated by Ronald Reagan to succeed Paul Volcker, a historical figure in his own right, he led the central bank under a total of four presidents, including Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

After assuming leadership of the Fed on August 11, 1987, Greenspan guided Washington, D.C., and Wall Street out of Black Monday that October and into an economic boom that lasted, almost uninterrupted, through the 1990s.

"Since becoming a central banker," he testified to Congress in September 1987, "I have learned to mumble with great incoherence. If I seem unduly clear to you, you must have misunderstood what I said."

Later, in December 1996, he wondered, "But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions," as the dot-com era unfolded.

Greenspan, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Treasury Deputy Secretary Larry Summers famously formed what Time magazine called the "committee to save the world" in February 1999.

Bob Woodward of The Washington Post titled his 2000 biography "Maestro: Greenspan's Fed and the American Boom." That was well before his retirement from the central bank in 2006.

It also preceded the Global Financial Crisis/Great Recession of 2007-09, a series of events that earned Greenspan another nickname, "Mr. Bubble," bestowed when he no longer held any real power.

MU sees strong demand

Micron Technology (MU, +6.8%) extended its 2026 rally on Monday as markets prepared for the tech stock to report fiscal third-quarter results after the closing bell on Wednesday.

MU is up nearly 300% so far this year, the semiconductor stock rising along with demand for the memory and storage hardware essential to the still-accelerating artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure buildout.

Indeed, Susquehanna analyst Mehdi Hosseini is on the lookout for cracks in Micron's big gross and operating margin numbers: "While the durability of GM above 80% remains a central question," he writes "we believe the more important issue is whether OM can sustain a 70%-75% range over a multi-quarter — or even multi-year — period."

Hosseini's model shows normalization for margins beginning in fiscal 2028. "Nonetheless," the analyst concludes, "with annualized EPS potentially reaching $160 in FY27, we continue to see meaningful upside to the stock relative to our $1,750 price target."

What will FDX deliver on Tuesday?

FedEx (FDX, +1.2%) hasn't put up year-to-date gains quite like MU's, but it is among the top 10% of S&P 500 stocks so far in 2026 with a total return of greater than 40%. That performance through Monday was supported by recently raised guidance, as well as the completion of much of its corporate restructuring.

"While the market will naturally look for forward commentary," Stifel analyst J. Bruce Chan writes in a preview of FedEx's post-closing-bell turn on the earnings calendar this Tuesday, "we believe this print will be centered around: whether FedEx can deliver against its updated FY26 framework."

Chan, who reiterated his Buy rating and his $442 12-month target price for the industrial stock, will focus on the core Federal Express (FEC) parcel business and whether strength from last quarter carried through a more normalized non-peak quarter.

"Although the near-term print still includes several moving pieces," he concludes, "the larger outlook has improved materially, especially with the parcel business showing evidence of better revenue quality, stronger yield management, improved network efficiency, and more disciplined cost execution."

Stocks Rally on Middle East Peace, Apple-Intel Deal: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 20:10:38 +0000

Stocks gapped up at the opening bell on Thursday and ended a holiday-shortened week on an upbeat note after the U.S. and Iran reached an agreement that opens the Strait of Hormuz on a provisional basis for 60 days.

The prospect of peace in the Middle East and relief from an energy shock revived animal spirits dulled by Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh's hints of higher interest rates during the press conference after the first Fed meeting of his tenure.

By the time the closing bell rang, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.1% for the day and 0.7% for the week at 51,565, good enough for another new all-time weekly closing high.

The S&P 500 had added 1.1% at 7,500, bringing the broad-based index to a 0.9% gain for the week. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was up 1.9% on Thursday and 2.4% for the four days at 26,517.

The front-month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures contract declined by 0.4% to $75.71 per barrel. WTI was down more than 10% this week and is now just 13% above its closing price on February 27, the day before the war in the Middle East began.

The 2-year Treasury yield ticked up to 4.177% from 4.163% on Wednesday. This market-based barometer of short-term interest rates hit a 52-week high on Thursday.

Following its two-day meeting this week, the Fed held the federal funds rate steady at 3.50% to 3.75%. Its short statement concluded with a firm commitment to the inflation half of its dual mandate: "The Committee will deliver price stability."

As Louis Navellier of Navellier & Associates notes, Warsh "was perceived as more hawkish than hoped for" during his first (and maybe last) FOMC press conference.

"The commentary Warsh gave made it clear that, currently, unless inflation falls much closer to the 2% target, which he made clear would not be changed, a rate hike was likely by year's end," Navellier concludes.

You can catch up on news and developments around the FOMC meeting at our June Fed meeting blog.

Apple and Intel are making a deal

Intel (INTC, +10.6%) was among the top-performing S&P 500 stocks on Thursday, and Apple (AAPL, +0.7%) was higher, too, after President Donald Trump posted about a big deal between the two iconic American companies early Thursday morning.

"Apple has agreed to work with Intel to design and build its Chips in America," Trump said in a lengthy post on Truth Social. "The Technology the World relies on was invented in America," he began. "We all remember 'Intel Inside.'"

Indeed, we do, and the president wants to undo the work of his predecessors who allowed "Taiwan and others [to] steal our Semiconductor Factories" and "forgot to protect our Industries with TARIFFS."

Neither Intel nor Apple confirmed the president's post, though The Wall Street Journal reported on May 8 that the companies had reached a preliminary chipmaking agreement.

Elsewhere in an otherwise rapidly expanding tech universe, SpaceX (SPCX, -3.6%) posted a second straight down day amid the afterburn from the biggest IPO ever.

Big Blue has no bounce

International Business Machines (IBM, -5.1%) was the worst-performing Dow Jones stock on Thursday, sliding along with Accenture (ACN, -16.3%) after the fellow IT services provider shared worse-than-expected top-line guidance for its full fiscal year, citing operating conditions in the Middle East.

CEO Julie Sweet said during the tech stock's conference call that the war was impacting spending plans for many of its clients. Management also noted market concerns about the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on its business.

Accenture now expects to see revenue growth of 3% to 4%, down from an estimate of 3% to 5% in March. ACN stock had its worst day on record on Thursday.

Dow Falls 507 Points as Fed Chair Warsh Speaks of Price Stability: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 20:07:59 +0000

The main equity indexes were moving sideways through midday on Wednesday, as markets awaited word from the new leader of the world's most important central bank about inflation, interest rates and economic growth. All three fell sharply following the release of the first FOMC policy statement under the leadership of new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh.

Maybe it's a little too simple, maybe it's not when the new chair is as loudly committed to keeping a tighter lid on Fed communications as this one is, but the Federal Open Market Committee used 344 words to announce a historically split decision following its April meeting, the final one under Jerome Powell's leadership.

Today, the FOMC approved a 132-word statement to announce a unanimous 12-0 decision to hold the target range for the federal funds rate steady at 3.50% to 3.75% "in support of the Federal Reserve's dual mandate." The FOMC also "reaffirmed its policy of maintaining ample reserves in the banking system."

Economic growth is solid "despite elevated uncertainty that owes, in part, to the conflict in the Middle East," with strength in productivity and capital investment. Job growth is keeping up with labor force growth, and the unemployment rate is steady.

Noting that inflation is above the Fed's 2% target "in part reflecting supply shocks that have driven price increases in certain sectors, including energy," the Warsh Fed delivered a terse conclusion: "The Committee will deliver price stability."

You can catch up on news and developments around the FOMC meeting at our June Fed meeting live blog.

Will the Fed raise the federal funds rate?

Market-based interest rates were up across the maturity spectrum, with the 2-year Treasury yield, widely watched as a gauge of short-term policy, rising to 4.216% from 4.047% on Tuesday.

CME FedWatch, which tracks the probability of rate cuts and rate hikes based on 30-day fed funds futures prices, indicates the Warsh Fed could raise interest rates as soon as October.

Continuing uncertainty about the details of a memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran that would open the Strait of Hormuz lifted the front-month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures contract by 0.3% to $75.49 per barrel.

By the closing bell, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average had declined by 1% to 51,493, despite reaching another new all-time high on an intraday basis. The broad-based S&P 500 was down 1.2% at 7,420, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was off 1.3% at 26,021.

AVGO is an 'aggressive buy'

Broadcom (AVGO, +4.3%) led a rally for semiconductor stocks after Morgan Stanley analysts Harlan Sur and Mayur Ramdhani reiterated their Overweight (Buy) rating and said they'd be "aggressive buyers at current levels."

Indeed, the analysts see potential upside of 47.6% from AVGO's closing price on Wednesday based on their 12-month target price of $580. And it'll get there because of its "significant dominance" in advanced chip packaging and design.

Sur and Ramdhani note that Broadcom has helped Alphabet's (GOOGL, -2.5%) Google unit develop 14 advanced chips during a decade-long partnership, though markets have questioned the durability of that arrangement given Alphabet's ambitions to take chipmaking in-house.

AVGO was down 21.8% from its all-time closing high of $481.57 on June 2 through June 16, trimming its year-to-date gain to 9.1%. But Broadcom's trailing-12-month return is back well above 50% after today's price action.

Did a defensive stock take a SPCX hit?

Verizon Communications (VZ, -1.8%) is one of the best defensive stocks amid elevated uncertainty, but it does face rising competitive pressure from one of the hottest names in the market: SpaceX (SPCX, -5.0%).

UBS analyst John Hodulik framed the problem at a conference in December in a three-part question to CEO Greg Sankey of Verizon's "terrestrial" mobile service peer AT&T (T, -3.0%) about "low Earth orbit" service providers.

"Do you see LEO infrastructure as a complement or a substitute to terrestrial networks? How do you expect the business model of the LEO providers to evolve over time? And is it something that we should worry about as terrestrial mobile investors?"

AT&T and Verizon aren't staying Earth-bound, but they are using AST SpaceMobile (ASTS, +3.9%) rather than SpaceX unit Starlink to pursue their extraterrestrial ambitions. And AST lacks launched satellite capacity right now.

Hodulik reiterated his Neutral (Hold) rating on VZ stock and a $48 12-month target price after management introduced new service and device plans on June 15, as well as a loyalty program focused on customer retention.

Verizon expects the plans and the program "to be accretive to revenue and EBITDA growth and drive continued churn reduction." Management also confirmed its full-year financial guidance.

SPCX stock, meanwhile, had its first down day as a publicly traded company, three trading sessions after it debuted with the biggest IPO ever.

Dow Notches New High as Tech Stocks Drop: Stock Market Today

karee.venema@futurenet.com (Karee Venema) — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 20:11:56 +0000

Blue chip stocks emerged as the clear winners Tuesday, with strong gains in several high-priced names sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average to a new record high. But weakness in the tech sector kept pressure on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite.

After trading above 52,000 in intraday trading, the Dow closed up 0.6% at 51,999, its highest settlement ever. JPMorgan Chase (JPM, +3.7%) and Visa (V, +2.9%) were the best Dow Jones stocks today. With JPM trading at $331 per share and V at $333 per share, these two have an outsized influence on the price-weighted Dow.

Today marks the Dow's first foray above 52,000 — which happened just 12 trading days after it climbed above the 51,000 level for the first time. According to Dow Jones Market Data, this is the shortest amount of time the 30-stock index has taken to cross two 1,000-point thresholds since March 2021, when it took five days to rise from 32,000 to 33,000.

But the broader S&P 500 fell 0.6% to 7,511 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq slumped 1.2% to 26,376 as several of the market's recent highfliers sold off.

Intel (INTC), for one, slumped 8.5%, but remains 220% higher for the year to date. Lumentum Holdings (LITE, -8.6%) and Marvell Technology (MRVL, -9.8%) also closed with sizable losses, but have still tripled in price this year.

SpaceX briefly rockets past Amazon's market cap

One notable tech stock that finished in positive territory today was SpaceX (SPCX). Shares jumped 4.8% on news that Elon Musk's satellite and space exploration company is buying AI coding startup Cursor for $60 billion. SPCX stock is now trading nearly 50% above the $135 initial public offering (IPO) price.

The stock went public last Friday in the biggest IPO ever, and its first-day surge gave the company a market valuation of more than $2 trillion. Today's pop puts its market cap at $2.642 trillion — just below Magnificent 7 stock Amazon.com (AMZN, -0.04%) and its $2.646 trillion valuation. (SPCX briefly topped AMZN's market cap intraday.)

SpaceX remains the sixth-largest U.S. company by market cap.

Oil prices continue to drop ahead of U.S.-Iran peace deal

While technology (-2.3%) was the biggest decliner of the 11 S&P 500 sectors today, energy (-0.3%) also saw notable losses as oil prices continued to decline.

Front-month West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell 5.8% to $76.05 per barrel — their lowest close since March 3.

This comes after the U.S. and Iran agreed to sign a peace plan this Friday, and President Donald Trump said that the Strait of Hormuz will reopen.

"The persistent slide in crude oil prices, which accelerated this week following positive U.S.-Iran developments, is incredibly bullish for markets," says José Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers.

He adds that the sharp decline in energy costs ahead of this week's Federal Reserve meeting — the first for new Chair Kevin Warsh — "offers favorable first-impression dynamics and raises the likelihood of an increasingly patient central bank willing to look through the current short-term inflation as a one-time shock."

How will markets react to a Warsh-led Fed?

If Warsh is "perceived as more dovish than expected, it should be bullish for stocks," says Louis Navellier of Navellier & Associates. "If he's hawkish, it could bring volatility."

It's all but expected that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates unchanged tomorrow, given that the labor market remains steady even as inflation has accelerated.

But market participants will be eyeing the Summary of Economic Projections (SEP) and dot plot to see where the Warsh-led Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) expects the federal funds rate, unemployment rate and inflation rate to be over the short and long term.

You can follow along with the latest news and updates on the June Fed meeting on our live blog.

Dow Hits New High on Iran Deal: Stock Market Today

karee.venema@futurenet.com (Karee Venema) — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 20:08:03 +0000

Stocks jumped out of the gate and stayed higher through the close as market participants cheered news of potential peace in the Middle East. Oil prices, meanwhile, cratered as reports of a deal to end the months-long war circulated, though the Federal Reserve is still likely to stay on hold at this week's meeting.

Over the weekend, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced on X "that the Peace Deal between the United States of America and Islamic Republic of Iran has been REACHED." President Donald Trump later confirmed the news.

"The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. In a separate post, the president noted that the Strait of Hormuz will be open "upon the signing of the Deal on Friday."

Oil prices fell as a result, with front-month West Texas Intermediate crude futures tumbling 4.9% to $80.75 per barrel — their lowest settlement since early March.

Stocks, on the other hand, soared. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.9% at 51,671 — a new record closing high — the broader S&P 500 was 1.7% higher at 7,554, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite had jumped 3.1% to 26,683.

Sinking oil prices won't change the Fed's path this week

The Federal Reserve will kick off its June policy meeting tomorrow and deliver its first statement under the leadership of new Chair Kevin Warsh on Wednesday afternoon.

Spiking oil prices as a result of the war in Iran have accelerated inflation, putting the chances for rate cuts this year at zero. And while energy prices are down from their wartime highs, it's unlikely the Federal Open Market Committee will lower the federal funds rate anytime soon.

However, what this does is quiet calls for rate hikes, which have increased in recent weeks.

Roku drops despite $22 billion buyout offer

In single stock news, Roku (ROKU) fell 1.9% even after Fox (FOX, -15.2%) said it will buy the streaming device maker in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $22 billion, or $160 per ROKU share — a more than 11% premium to the stock's June 12 close.

Typically, stocks rise to the per-share offer once the offer is announced, but Roku surged nearly 23% on Friday on rumors of a potential buyout so some of the premium was already priced in.

TD Cowen more than doubles its Micron price target

Micron Technology (MU) was on the positive side of the ledger today, surging 10.8% after TD Cowen analyst Krish Sankar reiterated a Buy rating on the red-hot chip stock and lifted his price target to $1,500 from $660. This new target price represents implied upside of 38% to current levels.

Sankar believes demand for the memory chipmaker's products will help pricing strength "persist into the second half of calendar year 2027." Additionally, he sees Micron's role in artificial intelligence as "structural, not cyclical," which will provide a tailwind for earnings over the next several years.

Micron will report its fiscal third-quarter results after the June 24 close and Wall Street is expecting revenue to rise nearly fourfold from the year prior and earnings to surge to $19.69 per share from $1.91 per share.

SpaceX soars in first full trading day

SpaceX (SPCX) also had a strong showing in its first full session. After closing Friday more than 19% above its IPO price, SPCX stock finished Monday up 19.6% at $192.50.

The SpaceX IPO "has reinvigorated the tech trade," says Louis Navellier of Navellier & Associates. "The success of such a huge IPO, now valued at $2.26 trillion, paves the way for the other outsized IPOs in the pipeline: Anthropic and OpenAI."

Stocks Pop on SpaceX IPO, Hormuz Peace Plan: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 20:08:28 +0000

The main equity indexes were mixed this morning, ahead of the debut of Elon Musk's SpaceX as a publicly traded company. The size and the scope of it were not sufficient to cover the market's questions about the war in the Middle East, inflation and simpler things such as seasonality. Indeed, the biggest initial public offering (IPO) in stock market history happened on a Friday weeks into Wall Street's traditional summer trading period.

SpaceX (SPCX) started trading at about 11:45 am Eastern Standard Time and immediately popped 11.1% from its $135 offering price to $150. SPCX closed up 19.2% at $160.95, making Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire. We're following everything about the explosive debut on our live SpaceX IPO blog.

Meanwhile, all three main indexes rallied on firmer word of a potential agreement between the U.S. and Iran that would open the Strait of Hormuz. According to Bloomberg, an interim deal is likely to be reached and could be signed as soon as next week at the Group of Seven meeting in France.

The front-month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures contract declined by nearly 4% to $84.35 and ended the week down 6.8%. WTI has risen by 25.9% since the war in the Middle East began on February 28.

By the closing bell, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.7% at 51,202. Papa Dow's rally was enough to push into the green for the week with a gain of 0.7%.

The S&P 500 was higher by 0.5% at 7,431 on Friday, and the broad-based index ended the five days with a gain of 0.6%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite added 0.3% on Friday and was up 0.7% for the week at 25,888.

Sentiment is up on SpaceX Day

Preliminary results from the University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers show its Consumer Sentiment Index rose to 48.9 in June from 44.8 in May and surpassed a consensus estimate of 47.8.

"Even with June's early gains, however, views of the economy are still relatively dour," Surveys of Consumers Director Joanne Hsu said. "They feel burdened by the recent escalation in inflation and worry that higher inflation could remain stubborn going forward, particularly in the short run."

LPL Financial Chief Economist Jeffrey Roach sees potential relief on the horizon: "We expect inflation pressures to ease after the Iran conflict simmers and the subsequent improvement in supply chains."

At the same time, as far as interest rates are concerned, hotter-than-expected May Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Producer Price Index (PPI) data "suggest the Fed will remain on hold for the next few meetings and will remove any accommodative bias at next week’s meeting."

The wild card remains the war in the Middle East, which, if it persists, would generate "stronger inflation headwinds will put a damper on the growth trajectory," according to Roach.

Adobe gets bricked

Adobe (ADBE, -6.8%) sat out the rally after management of the tech stock reported expectations-beating top- and bottom-line results for its second quarter and raised full-year guidance.

"Adobe delivered record revenue of $6.62 billion in Q2," CEO Shantanu Narayen said in a statement, "reflecting strong AI-driven demand across our customer groups."

The software maker now expects to report earnings of $24.35 to $24.45 per share on revenue of $26.5 billion to $26.6 billion vs a Wall Street forecast for EPS of $23.54 on revenue of $26.1 billion.

Stifel analyst J. Parker Lane cut his rating on ADBE from Buy to Hold after the release, noting that management "meaningfully lowered" its fiscal second-half organic annual recurring revenue estimate.

"The company also announced the departure of CFO Dan Durn," Lane writes, "adding more leadership uncertainty into the mix, with CEO Shantanu Narayen expected to step down from his role this year."

CFRA slaps a 'sell' on SPCX

A little more than an hour after SPCX started trading, CFRA analyst Keith Snyder slapped what FactSet classified as a "Sell" rating on the stock, specifying a $115 12-month target price. That's 28.5% below its closing price on Friday.

"We have a negative outlook given dependence on unproven outcomes including Starship commercialization, orbital AI compute, and xAI monetization," Snyder writes in a research note.

According to Snyder, Starlink, the strongest segment, faces multiple risks, including capacity expansion needs, regulatory approvals and competition from terrestrial broadband and low-Earth orbit systems.

"We believe the market assigns too much value to future optionality and insufficient discount to execution risk," the analyst concludes.

Dow Adds 929 Points on New Signs of Peace: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 20:10:05 +0000

The main equity indexes gapped up on Thursday despite another hotter-than-forecast inflation report, this time on the producer side, as President Donald Trump continued to share updates on negotiations with Iran via social media. Stocks held their gains through the trading session and surged late, with investors, traders and speculators apparently poised for whatever comes next in the Middle East, be it more war or real peace.

By the closing bell, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 1.9% at 50,848, the broad-based S&P 500 was higher by 1.8% at 7,394, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite had added 2.5% at 25,809.

The front-month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures contract declined from an intraday high of $93.64 per barrel and closed down more than 4% at $86.42 after the president walked back a threat to strike Iran "VERY HARD" on Thursday night and take "total control" of its oil and gas assets.

"Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved," Trump posted on Truth Social, "I have, as President of the United States of America, cancelled the scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran this evening."

PPI is hot, too

Before the opening bell, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said the Producer Price Index (PPI) accelerated in May to its fastest annual pace, 6.5%, since November 2022, when the headline print was 7.4%.

The data on producer prices follows Wednesday's hotter-than-expected May Consumer Price Index (CPI) numbers. Wholesale inflation was 1.1% in May, consistent with the revised estimate for April.

According to the BLS, "Nearly 80 percent of the May advance in final demand prices is attributable to a 2.8-percent increase in the index for final demand goods."

That category includes energy costs, which increased by 10.7% in May, topping the previous record for a monthly gain of 10.4%, set in March.

BofA double upgrades INTC

Intel (INTC, +9.3%) was among the top-performing S&P 500 stocks on Thursday after BofA Securities analyst Vivek Arya upgraded the chipmaker from Underperform (Sell) to Buy and raised his 12-month target price from $96 to $135.

Arya explains bypassing a Hold rating by noting "higher confidence in INTC's opportunity to help address industry constraints in leading edge wafers/packaging."

The analyst also says Intel is well positioned to capture a "much larger" segment of the agentic central processing unit market, with server CPU sales tracking toward 25% of a total addressable market (TAM) of approximately $170 billion by 2030.

Intel's share of that TAM — about $40 billion — should support earnings per share of $6 by 2030, up from an older estimate of $3 to $4 and vs a profit of 42 cents in 2025 and a loss of 13 cents in 2024.

Wall Street questions Oracle's guidance

Oracle (ORCL, -8.6%) saw steep downside on Thursday after management reported expectations-beating top- and bottom-line results for its fiscal fourth quarter, but guided to higher capex and softer revenue than Wall Street anticipated. Multiple analysts suggest the sell-off is a buying opportunity in one of the artificial intelligence stocks that's booming right now.

Indeed, ORCL was down double-digits in aftermarket trading immediately following its post-closing-bell report on Wednesday "for no apparently good reason," according to Guggenheim analyst John DiFucci.

"We view these results as validation of Oracle as our Best Idea based on superior technology enabling it to provide better performance at a lower price in a burgeoning hyper growth market," the analyst writes, "which should eventually turn into a cash flow waterfall." DiFucci has a Buy rating and a $400 12-month target price on ORCL stock.

D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria reiterated his Buy rating and raised his 12-month target price on ORCL from $200 to $225. "Oracle continues to deliver infrastructure at an accelerating pace," Luria observes, "with management highlighting expectations for F1Q27 delivery approaching 1 gigawatt, nearly the same capacity delivered in the prior four quarters combined."

At the same time, while reiterating his Outperform (Buy) rating and lowering his 12-month target price from $275 to $240, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives expressed some caution because of Oracle's growing debt, despite strong growth in remaining performance obligations (RPO).

As Ives explains, "Adding more debt to the capital structure is not a move the Street wants to see and continues to create this 'tug of war' on the name between RPO and the necessary capital raises/AI datacenter buildout in the near-term."

Dow Dives 953 Points on Iran, Inflation Worries: Stock Market Today

karee.venema@futurenet.com (Karee Venema) — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 20:13:49 +0000

Stocks opened lower Wednesday and stayed there through the close as geopolitical worries ramped up after the U.S. launched strikes against Iran late Tuesday and President Donald Trump threatened more attacks. Another red-hot inflation reading weighed on sentiment, too.

President Trump kept to his word. After saying on Tuesday that the U.S. "must, of necessity, respond" to the shooting down of an Army Apache helicopter, the military launched multiple strikes against Iranian targets last night.

And in an early morning Truth Social post, Trump criticized Iran, saying it has "taken too long to negotiate a deal," and "will have to pay the price." Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office later in the day, Trump said that "we're going to be attacking them" and "we're going to hit them again hard today."

The news sent oil prices soaring today, with front-month West Texas Intermediate crude futures climbing 2.1% to $90.03 per barrel.

The stock market, on the other hand, finished the day in negative territory. At the close, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.9% at 49,918, the broader S&P 500 was off 1.6% at 7,266, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was 2.0% lower at 25,169.

Higher energy prices keep inflation hot

While oil prices have pulled back from their early April highs near $113 per barrel, they're still up more than 35% since the war in Iran began in late February. And this has had a noticeable impact on inflation.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), headline inflation was up 0.5% from April to May and 4.2% higher than the year prior. While the monthly increase decelerated from April's 0.6%, the annual rise was up from 3.8% the month prior and marked the highest yearly pace since April 2023.

Energy costs had the biggest impact on the May CPI report. "The index for energy rose 3.9 percent in May, after rising 3.8 percent in April and 10.9 percent in March. The energy index accounted for over sixty percent of the monthly all items increase," wrote the BLS in its report.

Core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, rose 0.2% month over month and 2.9% year over year. This compares to April's increases of 0.4% and 2.8%, respectively.

Ahead of next week's Federal Reserve meeting — the first with Kevin Warsh at the helm — many are wondering if higher inflation readings mean the central bank's next move will be a rate hike.

But Skyler Weinand, chief investment officer at Regan Capital, doesn't see that happening any time soon. "It's clear that rate cuts are off the table, and while there is chatter about a potential rate hike, we believe it's unlikely that we'll see a rate hike before the midterm elections, and any such hike is likely a year away," he says.

Nike gets downgraded ahead of earnings

Two-thirds of Dow Jones stocks closed lower today, and Nike (NKE, -1.5%) was one of them. This came after RBC Capital analyst Piral Dadhania downgraded the blue chip stock to Sector Perform from Outperform, the equivalents of Hold and Buy, respectively.

The analyst says that Nike's turnaround efforts under CEO Elliott Hill are "making progress," but at a "slower and narrower" pace than anticipated. He also does not expect the World Cup or inventory cleanup to create any sustainable revenue boosts this year.

In addition, Dadhania lowered his price target on NKE to $50 from $70, though this is hardly the lowest on Wall Street. That distinction goes to BNP Paribas Exane's $23 target price for Nike, representing implied downside of nearly 50% to current levels.

The athletic apparel and footwear maker is slated to disclose its fiscal fourth-quarter results after the June 30 close. Analysts expect earnings to rise roughly 16% year over year, but revenue to decline by about 2%.

Casey's climbs 20% in a down day

Elsewhere on Wall Street, Casey's General Stores (CASY) surged 20.3% — making it the best S&P 500 stock today — after the convenience store chain said fiscal fourth-quarter earnings rose 66% year over year and revenue was 14.5% higher.

The company also said its board of directors approved a 14% hike to its quarterly dividend earlier this month, marking the 27th consecutive year it has increased its payout.

"Casey's reported an exceptionally strong fiscal fourth quarter," says William Blair analyst Phillip Blee, with the company seeing a "nice tailwind" from spiking gas prices. He expects "a series of beat-and-raise prints throughout the upcoming fiscal year," given strong sales both inside the store and at the gas pumps.

Casey's General Stores was added to the S&P 500 Index in early April, replacing the now-private Hologic. Since then, its share price is up more than 22%.

Nasdaq Slides as Chip Stocks Slump: Stock Market Today

karee.venema@futurenet.com (Karee Venema) — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 20:10:37 +0000

The main equity indexes opened comfortably higher Tuesday but quickly erased these early gains amid escalating geopolitical tensions. A bearish reversal in chip stocks created headwinds, too, as market participants sought out more defensive plays.

The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average, broader S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite were each roughly 1% higher out of the gate today, but were staring at stiff losses by lunchtime. At the close, the Dow was up 0.2% at 50,872, but the S&P 500 was 0.3% lower at 7,386, and the Nasdaq was off 1% at 25,678.

Sentiment took a hit after President Donald Trump said Iran shot down a U.S. military helicopter and that "the United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack."

Trump's post on Truth Social temporarily caused oil prices to spike, but front-month West Texas Intermediate crude futures finished the session down 3.4% at $88.20 per barrel after Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC that traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is "rising very meaningfully."

Fear gauge spikes, defensive stocks see upside

Evidence of investors' skittishness was seen in the Cboe Volatility Index (VIX) Tuesday, with the market's "fear gauge" jumping 5% to 19.86.

Gains in several defensive sectors, including real estate (+2.1%), healthcare (+1.3%) and consumer staples stocks (+1.0%) also signaled a more cautious stance from market participants.

J. M. Smucker (SJM, +10.4%) was the best S&P 500 stock today as the packaged-food maker's better-than-expected earnings and revenue for its fiscal fourth quarter offset its forecast for declining revenue in its new fiscal year.

Ahead of SJM's earnings report, UBS Global Research analyst Peter Grom reiterated a Buy rating on the defensive stock, saying the company's "setup remains among the best in the group as SJM will likely underwrite on-algorithm bottom-line growth for fiscal 2027, a rarity relative not only to Packaged Food peers but also across our whole Staples universe."

And while Grom expected weaker top-line guidance, he noted that "investors view SJM's portfolio as more immune to the ongoing challenges across the industry."

Micron's sell-off is an "opportunity," says UBS

Only two of the 11 S&P 500 sectors finished in the red today — technology (-1.8%) and energy (-1.6%). But given that the S&P 500 and Nasdaq are weighted by market capitalization rather than price as is the Dow, the selling in mega-cap tech stocks had an outsize impact.

Several of Wall Street's trillion-dollar stocks, including Nvidia (NVDA, -0.2%), Apple (AAPL, -3.6%) and Broadcom (AVGO, -1.1%) closed lower.

Memory chipmaker Micron Technology (MU), which catapulted north of a $1 trillion market cap late last month, also finished in the red, shedding 1.4%. Shares are now down more than 13% since June 3, but Wall Street isn't worried.

Indeed, MU remains one of analysts' top-rated S&P 500 stocks. Of the 44 analysts covering the tech stock tracked by S&P Global Market Intelligence, 39 say it's a Buy or Strong Buy, four have it at Hold and one says Sell. This works out to a consensus Strong Buy rating.

UBS Global Research analyst Nicolas Gaudois on Monday reiterated his Buy rating and $1,625 price target — representing implied upside of nearly 75% to current levels.

Gaudois says Micron's recent sell-off creates an "opportunity" for investors, as "checks point to continuing upside in demand [for memory chipmakers], not downside, which is likely to persist on agentic AI demand."

What to expect from the May CPI report

The war in Iran and semiconductor volatility are top of mind for Wall Street this week, but market participants will also be watching Wednesday morning's release of the May Consumer Price Index (CPI).

Energy prices have soared in recent months as a result of the conflict in the Middle East, which has caused recent inflation readings to come in hot and erased any expectations for rate cuts this year.

According to CME Group FedWatch, futures traders don't expect any rate cuts at all in 2026. Earlier this year, betting odds were for at least one quarter-point cut.

The Federal Open Market Committee may even consider rate hikes this year, writes David Payne, staff economist and reporter for The Kiplinger Letter, in the Kiplinger inflation outlook. "The Fed generally discounts energy price fluctuations in its deliberations on interest rate policy. But the central bank will also note that 'core' inflation (excluding food and energy) is likely to creep upwards as the year progresses," he explains.

The May CPI report hits one week before the Fed — now led by Chair Kevin Warsh — issues its latest policy decision. Economists expect headline inflation to be up 4.3% year over year, which would be the highest annual increase since April 2023.

Nasdaq Leads as Chip Stocks Bounce: Stock Market Today

karee.venema@futurenet.com (Karee Venema) — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 20:09:30 +0000

Stocks opened higher across the board Monday as chips stocks rebounded from Friday's drubbing. But while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite and the broader S&P 500 held their gains through the close, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was not so resilient.

At the close, the Nasdaq was up 0.9% at 25,929 and the S&P 500 was 0.3% higher at 7,405. The Dow, on the other hand, was down 0.2% at 50,786.

On Friday, a broad sell-off in semiconductor stocks weighed down the three main equity benchmarks, with the Nasdaq incurring its biggest one-day drop in over a year.

"The AI-fueled tech rally got a bit of a reality check last week, but after nine straight up weeks, the market was arguably due for at least a reset," says Chris Larkin, managing director of trading and investing at E*TRADE from Morgan Stanley. "The fact that Friday's strong jobs report appeared to add fuel to the selling indicates the market could be even more focused on inflation going forward."

And while Larkin says Friday's sharp losses did not "derail the rally," it does suggest market participants are "more sensitive to negative surprises in the near term."

This makes the Wednesday morning release of the May Consumer Price Index (CPI) an even bigger economic calendar event than usual, because recent hot inflation readings have erased any expectations for rate cuts this year.

According to CME Group FedWatch, futures traders don't expect any rate cuts at all in 2026. Earlier this year, betting odds were for at least one quarter-point cut.

Wednesday's inflation date hits one week before the Fed — now led by Chair Kevin Warsh — issues its latest policy decision.

Intel, Micron lead chip rebound

Chip stocks created the biggest buying pressure to start the week, rebounding after disappointing Broadcom's (AVGO, +2.8%) guidance sparked an industry-wide meltdown.

Intel (INTC, +11.2%) and Micron Technology (MU, +9.9%) were the best-performing S&P 500 stocks Monday, followed closely by KLA Corp. (KLAC, +9.3%).

Meanwhile, Marvell Technology (MRVL), which will join the S&P 500 ahead of the June 22 open — replacing Pool (POOL, -2.5%) — surged 9.6%.

S&P Global also announced that data center solutions firm Flex (FLEX, -0.7%) will replace The Campbell's Company (CPB, -0.9%) on the S&P 500, effective June 22.

Apple slips as WWDC kicks off

Not all tech stocks were higher to start the week. Apple (AAPL), for one, dropped 1.9% as the iPhone parent kicked off WWDC 2026, its annual developers conference.

In addition to unveiling new child safety features for parents and its latest operating systems, the company also gave a highly anticipated update to its artificial intelligence strategy.

For one thing, Apple is rebranding Siri as "Siri AI" and it will use Apple Intelligence to become "a profoundly more capable assistant," said Mike Rockwell, VP of engineering at Apple.

The company also announced new ways users can utilize Apple Intelligence, including fixing insecure passwords and analyzing videos taken with the Home app.

Earlier this year, Apple said that it signed a multi-year agreement with Alphabet's (GOOGL, -1.4%) Google to use its Gemini AI model to power Siri and Apple Intelligence.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives thinks Apple's AI initiatives will be a game-changer for the Dow Jones stock.

"We strongly believe this will be the start of AI monetization period of the Apple ecosystem as the company will continue lay the foundation through its new operating system updates across mac, iOS, iPad, and others with its iOS 27 update," Ives writes in a June 4 research note.

And the company's AI monetization efforts "will ultimately add $75 to $100 to Apple stock and that is not being factored into the current multiple in our view," he says. "We see a golden path ahead for Apple in this AI era … it starts at WWDC."

Nasdaq Falls 1,121 Points on Fear of an AI Bubble: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 20:19:04 +0000

(Image credit: Getty Images)

All three main equity indexes closed lower on Friday, as the AI trade unwound a little more in the wake of weak guidance from a major chip player. Meanwhile, a much stronger-than-expected nonfarm payrolls report sapped almost all hope for lower interest rates this year.

The front-month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures contract was down 2.9% to $90.32 per barrel on Friday but rose 3.4% this week. The U.S. and Iran are in a stalemate in the Middle East, and the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, with Saturday marking 100 days since the war began on February 28.

Broadcom (AVGO, -7.9%) was a big drag on two of the main equity indexes again in the aftermath of the semiconductor stock's underwhelming guidance, the Roundhill Magnificent 7 ETF (MAGS, -3.8%) posted a steep loss and Nvidia (NVDA, -6.2%), the leader of the AI revolution, finished down more than 6% amid a sea of red for tech.

At the closing bell, the Nasdaq Composite was down 4.2% for the day and 4.7% for the week at 25,709. The broad-based S&P 500 had shed 2.6% to 7,383, finishing the five days with a loss of 2.6%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit another new all-time high on an intraday basis early in the session but finished down 1.4% at 50,866. The index of blue chip stocks finished the week lower by 0.3%.

Hot jobs report sends rates higher

The May jobs report was a lot stronger than expected, which is generally good news for consumers and the broader economy. But it's bad news for investors, traders and speculators who want to see lower interest rates.

The 2-year Treasury yield, the market's measure of the Fed's intentions for the federal funds rate, ticked up to 4.16% from 4.049% on Thursday and 4.014% on Friday, May 29.

The 10-year Treasury yield, considered a broad measure of the economy but also the basis for the cost of corporate debt and auto loans, rose to 4.542% from 4.477% on Thursday and 4.453% last Friday.

New Fed Chair Kevin Warsh might be able to do several things to change the central bank right now, but it looks like he won't be able to cut interest rates as soon as President Donald Trump would like. The next Fed meeting, for what it's worth, runs from June 16-17.

IBM leads the Dow lower

International Business Machines (IBM, -5.6%) was the three worst-performing Dow Jones stock on Friday, sliding again after posting losses of 7.2% on Wednesday and 1.3% on Thursday. Big Blue was up 7.6% on Monday and 2.7% on Tuesday, hitting a new 52-week high of $332.46 intraday, after management announced a $10 billion investment in quantum computing over the next five years.

IBM traded at its 52-week low of $212.34 intraday on May 13, so it's a 56.6% bottom-to-top run in about two and half weeks that's being digested.

As Wedbush analysts Matt Bryson and Antoine Legault explain, IBM is focused on building a "fault-tolerant" quantum computer by 2029, IBM Quantum Starling. Its planned investment is "another validation of quantum technology's potential."

"While we view IBM's 2029 goal as the de facto industry standard at this point (with most vendors targeting 2029/2030 for quantum equivalency)," the analysts write, "the scale of capital and a dedicated domestic foundry arguably give IBM's goal more weight than a standalone roadmap slide."

IBM was also named a partner for Nvidia's Vera Rubin AI accelerators.

TTAN is a blue-collar tech stock

ServiceTitan (TTAN, +4.1%) is definitely a tech stock according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, but it makes software for plumbers, electricians and other blue-collar tradespeople. That distinction hasn't exempted it from the existential crisis for software stocks in 2026.

But a team of Morgan Stanley analysts led by Josh Baer sees TTAN as a "Top Pick" based on a "clean beat" for fiscal first-quarter results, including gross transaction volume, revenue, margins and free cash flow. Full-year guidance was ahead of Wall Street's forecast, too.

The analysts reiterated their Overweight (Buy) rating and raised their 12-month target price from $118 to $124 after ServiceTitan reported earnings on Friday.

As Baer and his colleagues note, growth accelerated for ServiceTitan. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence and its opportunity in the commercial space "expand the story," the fiscal 2027 setup "looks attractive," and TTAN's valuation "remains compelling."

At the same time, the analysts write, ServiceTitan is "well positioned for AI," based on ownership of "vast proprietary data sets serving as a moat." It also "enjoys current and future potential for high market share to yield large installed bases into which it can sell its AI solutions."

Broadcom Can't Cap Dow's 874-Point Bounce: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 20:10:55 +0000

(Image credit: Getty Images)

The oldest of the three main equity indexes hit new highs on Thursday, helped by its heavy exposure to blue-chip healthcare and financial names. But it was a difficult day for one of the biggest publicly traded companies in the world – a major player in the AI boom. At the same time, technology was one of only two sectors in the red at the end of a trading session defined by some semiconductor weakness but broad strength just about everywhere else.

By the closing bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had added 1.7% to 51,561 – another new all-time closing high. The S&P 500 was up 0.4% at 7,584, but the Nasdaq Composite had slipped 0.1% to 26,830.

The front-month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures contract was down 2.9% to $93.22, as President Donald Trump said a Middle East peace deal could be completed "this weekend," while Iranian Foreign Minister Sheikh Jarrah Jaber Al-Ahmad Al Sabah countered that there's been no "significant progress" toward an agreement.

"One day of weakness doesn't necessarily signal the sudden demise of the chip rally," observes Daniel Skelly, head of Morgan Stanley's Wealth Management Market Research & Strategy team. "But it is a reminder that on a longer-term basis, history suggests semiconductor outperformance could slow and the rest of the market could catch up."

As Skelly sees it, investors may want to focus on "opportunities in areas of the market that are positioned to benefit most from AI adoption and monetization, including financials and health care," rather than AI stocks that have already seen "extreme" runs higher.

UNH gets upgraded

Indeed, UnitedHealth Group (UNH, +5.2%) was the top-performing Dow Jones stock on Thursday, as its recovery from recent setbacks, including a federal investigation of its Medicare Advantage business and the assassination of a top executive, is gaining pace – with a little help from artificial intelligence.

Morgan Stanley analyst Erin Wright reiterated her Overweight (Buy) rating on UNH and cited it as her top pick in the managed care space, noting management's confidence that positive utilization trends from January through March carried into April.

Wright is broadly optimistic about UnitedHealth and its managed-care peers for another big reason: AI. The analyst notes that adoption across the ecosystem is well beyond pilot programs and that artificial intelligence is embedded across core workflows.

In short, according to Wright, healthcare stocks are primed for AI, and companies like UNH are all in on the technology. The analyst raised her 12-month target price for the stock to $453 from $395 based on potential cost savings, revenue upside and long-term value creation.

Meanwhile, BofA analyst Kevin Fischbeck raised his rating on UNH to Buy from Neutral and upped his 12-month target price from $420 to $450, noting that UnitedHealth is well positioned within the managed-care industry should utilization trends continue to moderate.

AVGO is a big drag

Broadcom (AVGO, -12.6%) is still one of the top 10 companies in the world based on market cap. But it is about $29 billion smaller than it was yesterday at this hour. And because of its sheer size, it pulled on market-cap-weighted indexes such as the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite today.

Management's forward-looking guidance and conference-call commentary left investors, traders and speculators cool on the semiconductor stock after its hot run into its post-closing bell earnings announcement on Wednesday.

Broadcom reported earnings of $2.44 per share, up from $1.58 a year ago and better than Wall Street's forecast for $2.40. Revenue of $22.19 billion was up 47.9% and topped an estimate of $22.13 billion.

The chip maker expects fiscal third-quarter revenue growth of approximately 84% to around $29.4 billion vs a Wall Street forecast of $28.25 billion.

As Susquehanna's Christopher Rolland notes, CEO Hock Tan confirmed on Broadcom's call that the company would now only sell chip solutions to its customers and no longer sell racks to Anthropic, explaining soft guidance. Rolland reiterated his Positive (Buy) rating and his 12-month target price of $490 for AVGO, noting that "broader demand here remains 'insatiable' as AI semis bookings in the quarter reached >$30B."

Still, Macquarie analyst Arthur Lai cut his rating on AVGO to Neutral (Hold) from Outperform (Buy) and reduced his 12-month target price from $513 to $437, citing Alphabet (GOOGL, +3.7%) subsidiary Google's accelerating effort to make its own chips.

Dow Slides 620 Points as Rally Pauses: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 20:09:21 +0000

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Stocks were down on Wednesday after five days of record closes for the main equity indexes, as investors, traders and speculators stepped back to assess the broader market landscape amid still-simmering tensions in the Middle East. A continuing flow of solid earnings and economic data were also top of mind.

The front-month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures contract was up 2.5% to $96.08 per barrel, as the U.S. and Iran launched attacks on each other overnight amid an uneasy ceasefire. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed.

"Both sides are well aware of the clock ticking towards true shortages of petroleum products, but the brinkmanship continues," Louis Navellier of Navellier & Associates observes. "The market has been looking past the energy issue, as it typically is focused on at least 6-12 months ahead. One way or another, the Strait has to be reopened by then."

Meanwhile, as Navellier notes, markets are focused on "incredibly strong earnings forecasts," including mid-20% bottom-line growth for the S&P 500 in 2026 and more growth in 2027. "The AI theme is generating massive spending," he explains, "and the offsetting risk of job replacement by smart software is now being questioned by recent labor statistics."

Indeed, Broadcom (AVGO, -0.5%), among the semiconductor stocks benefitting from the AI boom, is scheduled to report fiscal second-quarter earnings after the closing bell this evening, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the May jobs report before the opening bell on Friday.

At the closing bell, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.2% at 50,687, the broad-based S&P 500 had lost 0.7% to 7,553, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was lower by 0.9% at 26,853.

PANW is the "Wemby" of cybersecurity stocks

Palo Alto Networks (PANW, -5.6%) beat analyst expectations for revenue and earnings, and management boosted full-year guidance. But cybersecurity stocks struggled Wednesday amid a broader pullback for software on renewed fears about the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on companies that write code.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said it was a "Wembanyama-like" quarter, comparing Palo Alto Networks to 7-foot-4-inch Victor Wembanyama of the San Antonio Spurs, who will take on the New York Knicks in Game 1 of the NBA Finals after the closing bell tonight.

Ives reiterated his Outperform (Buy) rating and raised his 12-month target price from $300 to $340, noting that Palo Alto Networks is too big not to get more deals as the cyber AI leader.

"PANW remains one of our favorite cyber names to own in 2026," Ives writes, "as we continue to believe the platformization approach is still in the early stages of playing out." The analyst sees the consolidation theme accelerating "as more enterprises turn to PANW for advanced cyber-AI solutions."

Is GME more than a meme stock?

GameStop (GME, +6.1%) might be the most notorious mid-cap stock in the market, known these days mostly for the memes rather than its operations. But the share price of the specialty retailer soared after management reported its highest-ever quarterly net income for the three months ended May 2.

Fiscal first-quarter profit grew to $389.6 million vs $44.8. Operating income was also a company record, $143.3 million vs an operating loss of $10.8 million a year ago. Management noted that year-over-year revenue growth of 14% was driven by collectibles sales.

GameStop also announced that its board of directors has approved a $2 billion, three-year stock buyback plan.

In the aftermath of its failed hostile takeover of fellow consumer discretionary stock eBay (EBAY, -0.06%), GameStop claims cash, marketable securities, digital assets and related receivables, and collateral pledged for derivative assets of $9.7 billion.

In addition to raising GME's profile again with its unsolicited bid for EBAY, CEO Ryan Cohen has shifted GameStop's business model from video games to higher-margin collectibles, trading cards and other memorabilia.

Alphabet Sits Out Tuesday's Tech Stock Surge: Stock Market Today

karee.venema@futurenet.com (Karee Venema) — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 20:16:09 +0000

(Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Stocks got off to a rocky start Tuesday, but another day of strong gains for tech stocks lifted all three main equity indexes higher into the close. Energy stocks also gave a boost to the broader market as oil prices climbed for a second straight day.

At the close, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.5% at 51,307, the broader S&P 500 added 0.1% to 7,609, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 0.03% to 27,093 — new all-time highs.

Meanwhile, amid no new headlines regarding the war in Iran, front-month West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose more than 1% to settle at $93.69 per barrel.

This helped boost several energy stocks, including Chevron (CVX, +0.9%) and Exxon Mobil (XOM, +0.1%).

Jensen Huang calls Marvell the "next trillion-dollar" stock

Marvell Technology (MRVL) was the best-performing S&P 500 stock today, surging 32.5% after Nvidia (NVDA, -0.7%) CEO Jensen Huang said he believes the chipmaker will be the "next trillion-dollar company."

Speaking at the Computex 2026 AI exhibition, Huang said that Marvell's networking and computing chips are essential to connecting all the pieces across data centers.

"We've distributed and disaggregated computing so that it runs across these enormous clusters, so that we could get aggregating the total compute, the total memory, the total bandwidth that we have, and what makes it possible is connectivity," Huang added.

In late March, MRVL shares surged after Nvidia disclosed a $2 billion stake in the semiconductor stock — and longer term, it's up nearly fourfold in the past 12 months. But its current market cap is just above $254 billion, meaning its share price would need to quadruple to reach that $1 trillion mark.

Alphabet sinks on $80 billion stock offering

Not all AI stocks were higher today, though. Alphabet (GOOGL), which is technically a communication services stock, slumped 3.9% after the Google parent said it will raise $80 billion through an equity offering to fund its AI capital expenditures budget for this year and next.

GOOGL also said that it will sell $10 billion of Class A common stock and Class C capital stock (ticker: GOOG) to Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) at a discount to where both are currently trading.

"Alphabet intends to use the net proceeds from the concurrent underwritten public offerings and the concurrent private placement for general corporate purposes, including capital expenditures to scale AI infrastructure and global compute," the company explained in its press release (PDF).

In April, Alphabet raised its 2026 capex guidance to $180 billion to $190 billion and said it expects its 2027 spending to reach similar levels.

Alphabet's announcement "is raising concerns about high AI-related expenses against the backdrop of uncertain profitability profiles," says José Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers. However, he notes that "strengthening confidence in a solid economy is countering those concerns."

JOLTS comes in higher than expected

One such sign of a stable economy came in the form of this morning's Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), which showed 7.6 million job openings in April — the highest level since May 2024 and more than economists expected.

The report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) also showed that hires and separations both declined by roughly 400,000 in April.

"The sharp jump in job openings, combined with declining separations, points to robust employer demand for labor," write Raymond James economists. "This reinforces our view that the labor market is on track for further strength this year following last year's weakness."

The JOLTS data arrived ahead of this Friday's release of the May jobs report, which is expected to show the U.S. added between 75,000 and 85,000 new jobs last month.

Stocks Hit Highs as Trump Eases Iran Worries: Stock Market Today

karee.venema@futurenet.com (Karee Venema) — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 20:08:19 +0000

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Stocks were choppy Monday as market participants weighed a continued rise in tech stocks against reports that a potential peace plan in the Middle East is in peril.

Wall Street is also looking ahead to Friday's key jobs report — the first of Kevin Warsh's stewardship at the Federal Reserve — which lands two weeks before the June Fed meeting.

Nvidia (NVDA, +6.3%) wowed Wall Street over the weekend, with the artificial intelligence (AI) bellwether unveiling a new processor chip for PCs. The new superchip, RTX Spark, will integrate designs from Arm Holdings (ARM) — sending its shares soaring 15.7% to start the week.

Fellow Dow Jones stock Microsoft (MSFT, +2.3%), who Nvidia is collaborating with on its new chip, also climbed on the news, while chipmaker Intel (INTC, -4.7%) slumped.

BofA Securities analyst Vivek Arya reiterated his Buy rating on NVDA following its appearance at the 2026 Computex AI exhibition this weekend and said it remains a top pick.

"Overall, we see a continued strengthening of NVDA's systems moat and expanding [its] serviceable addressable market from GPU racks to CPUs, networking/optics, storage/security, enterprise software and now personal AI PC," says Arya.

Trump responds after Iran calls off peace plan, shuts Strait of Hormuz

The big rally in the technology sector helped the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (+0.4% to 27,086), the broader S&P 500 (+0.3% to 7,599), and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.09% to 51,078) close at new record highs, but gains were contained on revamped geopolitical worries.

Iranian media reported on Monday that Tehran will stop negotiating with the U.S. via intermediaries and will close the Strait of Hormuz in reaction to Israel's military attacks on Lebanon, which it says are ceasefire violations.

President Donald Trump attempted some damage control this afternoon, posting on Truth Social that talks with Iran "are continuing, at a rapid pace," and noting that after talking with Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, "there will be no Troops going to Beirut."

Still, oil prices took a notable jump higher to start the week, with front-month West Texas Intermediate crude futures climbing more than 5% to settle at $92.16 per barrel.

Berkshire unveils its latest big buy

Elsewhere on Wall Street, Taylor Morrison Home (TMHC) surged 22.3% after Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B, -0.9%) said it would buy the homebuilder for $72.50 per share — a 24% premium to its May 29 close.

The all-cash deal, which represents an enterprise value of roughly $8.5 billion, will combine Taylor Morrison with manufactured homebuilder Clayton Homes, which Berkshire bought in 2003, to create a top-five U.S. builder by volume.

UBS Global Research analyst John Lovallo views the acquisition as "a strong vote of confidence in the mid-long term outlook for the homebuilding industry, including what we estimate to be a market that is underbuilt by roughly 7 million units."

The transaction is expected to close in the second half of this year.

Dell Earnings Drive Tech Stocks Higher: Stock Market Today

karee.venema@futurenet.com (Karee Venema) — Fri, 29 May 2026 20:05:52 +0000

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Stocks were choppy Friday as market participants awaited updates on negotiations with Iran. A continued rally in tech stocks kept the price action positive into the close, with all three main equity indexes ending the week at new all-time highs.

Following news on Thursday that the U.S. and Iran agreed to extend their ceasefire for 60 days, President Donald Trump on Friday said via a Truth Social post that he is making "a final determination" on a Middle East peace plan. According to Trump, Iran must agree to "never have a Nuclear Weapon or bomb" and to reopen the Strait of Hormuz "immediately."

The latest update sent oil prices sliding again, with front-month West Texas Intermediate crude futures falling 1.7% to $87.36 per barrel — their lowest settlement since mid-April. For all of May, oil prices tumbled 17%, marking their worst monthly performance since early 2020, according to FactSet.

As for equities, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.7% to 51,032, the broader S&P 500 gained 0.2% to 7,580, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.2% to 26,972 — fresh record closing highs. All three also finished notably higher for the week and the month.

Dell soars 33% after earnings

Tech stocks continued their march higher, with Dell Technologies' (DELL) 32.8% post-earnings pop giving the sector a boost today.

The PC maker saw its fiscal 2027 first-quarter earnings more than triple year over year and its revenue surge 88%, thanks to strong demand for its AI-optimized servers.

Dell also gave fiscal Q2 and full-year guidance that blew away analysts' estimates. "DELL believes it is well positioned within the generative AI opportunity, given its unique position both in the enterprise IT market and in the PC space," writes Argus Research analyst Jim Kelleher, who raised his price target on Dell to $460 from $200 after earnings.

And for all of fiscal 2027, the analyst expects "Infrastructure growth driven by AI acceleration and improving AI PC sales to meaningfully offset margin pressure from higher memory costs."

One stakeholder that was widely cited as a big winner from today's price move is President Trump, who, according to ethics filings, bought $1 million to $5 million in DELL shares in early February — not long after a commitment from Michael and Susan Dell to fund Trump Accounts with a $6.25 billion gift.

Costco drops after bottom-line miss

Elsewhere on the earnings calendar, Costco Holdings (COST) fell 3.9% after the warehouse club retailer disclosed its fiscal third-quarter results.

For the three months ended May 10, Costco said earnings rose 15% year over year to $4.93 per share, while revenue was up 12% to $70.5 billion. While COST missed on the bottom line, its top line exceeded estimates.

The company also said same-store sales rose 6.6% and membership fees were up 10.5%.

"Costco's latest earnings report is a classic reminder that even Wall Street's absolute darlings aren't immune to their own sky-high expectations," says David Wagner, head of equity and portfolio manager at Aptus Capital Advisors.

Wagner adds that the retailer "remains an absolute powerhouse" and "the fact that consumers are still flocking to its warehouses and flooding its digital channels proves that Costco's value proposition is practically bulletproof in this choppy economic climate."

Today's pullback for the consumer staples stock, which is still up 11% for the year to date, is what Wagner calls "a well-deserved breather."

Snowflake Keeps the Tech Stock Rally Alive: Stock Market Today

karee.venema@futurenet.com (Karee Venema) — Thu, 28 May 2026 20:07:07 +0000

(Image credit: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Stocks opened lower Thursday as market participants took in the latest inflation update, but quickly turned higher on reports of an extended ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran. A continued rally in tech stocks also kept the bulls in charge, with the three main indexes ending the day at new highs.

Ahead of the open, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) said the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (PCE) rose 0.4% from March to April and was 3.8% higher compared to the year prior.

Core PCE, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, was up 0.2% month over month and 3.3% year over year.

The monthly readings came in below economists' expectations, though the annual increases remain well above the Federal Reserve's inflation target of 2%.

"Inflation pressures continue," says Adam Hetts, global head of Multi-Asset and portfolio manager at Janus Henderson Investors. "As year-on-year headline and core measures continue to read well into the 3% range, above the Fed's comfort zone, a critical factor in the forward path may well be the duration of elevated oil prices as the Middle East conflict continues."

However, encouraging news on the geopolitical front briefly sent oil prices to their lowest level since mid-April today, though front-month West Texas Intermediate crude futures eventually settled slightly higher at $88.90 per barrel.

As for stocks, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ended up 0.9% at 26,917, the broader S&P 500 rose 0.6% to 7,563, and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.05% to 50,668 — new all-time closing highs.

Snowflake has its biggest one-day gain ever

Snowflake (SNOW) underscored another big day for tech stocks Thursday, with shares soaring 36.5% — their best day ever — after the cloud-based AI and data platform reported fiscal 2027 first-quarter earnings and revenue beats.

The company cited artificial intelligence as a "powerful tailwind," and said it has 779 customers spending more than $1 million on a trailing 12-month basis.

"SNOW's new AI products — Cortex Code and Snowflake Intelligence — were key upside drivers," says Mizuho Americas analyst Gregg Moskowitz. "We continue to believe that healthy consumption activity, along with secular trends driving enterprises to modernize their data estates, set up SNOW for sustained momentum."

Moskowitz believes Snowflake has "multiple emerging upside vectors — including several new products and an improving go-to-market" strategy that should accelerate growth for a company that has improving fundamentals and a reasonable valuation.

In separate announcements, Snowflake said it signed a $6 billion multi-year infrastructure commitment with Amazon Web Services and that it will acquire AI agents platform Natoma.

Dollar Tree has its best day in 4 years after earnings

Dollar Tree (DLTR) disclosed its fiscal first-quarter earnings report ahead of Thursday's open, reporting earnings of $1.74 per share (+38.1% year over year) on revenue of $5.0 billion (+7.2% YoY). Wall Street was calling for earnings of $1.56 per share on revenue of $5.0 billion.

DLTR also saw better-than-expected same-store sales growth of 3.5% and gave upbeat guidance.

The results sent the consumer staples stock up 17.9% — its best day since 2022 — but some on Wall Street are still worried.

"We believe that DLTR has been oversold recently, but remain on the sidelines over the medium to long term," says Bernstein analyst Zhihan Ma, who has a Market Perform (Hold) rating on the retail stock. "Near term, the key metrics to watch include whether DLTR manages to return to positive traffic growth and how much freight cost headwinds vs. tariff refunds/further tariff uncertainties will impact margins."

And Jefferies analyst Corey Tarlowe, who has an Underperform (Sell) rating on DLTR, says that while it was a good quarter, he remains "cautious about the traffic trend" and consumer demand due to higher gas prices.

Stocks Grind Higher on Good Fundamentals: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Wed, 27 May 2026 20:16:21 +0000

(Image credit: Getty Images)

The main stock indexes struggled for big gains on Wednesday, though a positive showing suggests investors, traders and speculators are generally in a "risk on" mood amid optimism about the long-term durability of the market's major theme. The geopolitical landscape is still rocky, but the earnings environment remains healthy.

The White House rapid response team described a draft peace plan that was reported by Iranian state TV and would open the Strait of Hormuz as a "complete fabrication" and "not true." At the same time, President Donald Trump told PBS News that Iran won't get relief from economic sanctions in exchange for its highly enriched uranium. "No, no, not at all. Not sanctions relief, no," the president answered when PBS asked about the status of a key point in negotiations to end the war.

The front-month West Texas Intermediate crude futures contract traded as low as $87.17 per barrel and closed down 4.7% for the day at $89.47. WTI traded as high as $119.48 on March 9, its intraday peak during the war in the Middle East.

The 2-year Treasury yield, a market-based gauge of short-term policy on interest rates, was down 1.7 basis points to 4.033% today vs 4.05% on Tuesday. The 10-year Treasury yield, a starting point for mortgage rates and corporate bonds, fell 1.4 basis points to 4.447% from 4.491%.

At the closing bell, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.4% at 50,644, the broad-based S&P 500 had added 0.02% to 7,520, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was up 0.07% at 26,674.

Goldman sets year-end target of 8,000 for the S&P 500

Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs strategists raised their year-end target for the S&P 500 to 8,000 from 7,600. "Continued earnings growth should drive continued equity market upside," the strategists write. "The increased return forecast reflects increased estimates for S&P 500 earnings following an exceptionally strong first-quarter reporting season."

The Russell 2000 Index of small-cap stocks closed lower but has added more than 17% year to date vs a gain of about 10% for the S&P 500 amid enduring appetite for riskier companies. Consumer discretionary stocks and consumer staples stocks were the top two sectors on Wednesday, both groups posting gains of greater than 1%.

Technology and energy stocks joined financials and utility stocks in the red. Nvidia (NVDA, -1.1%) was one of three Magnificent 7 stocks to post a loss, joining Microsoft (MSFT, -0.8%) and Alphabet (GOOGL, -0.01%).

Amazon.com (AMZN, +2.5%), Apple (AAPL, +0.8%), Meta Platforms (META, +3.7%) and Tesla (TSLA, +1.6%) were up for the day.

Honeywell's Quantinuum files for an IPO

Honeywell (HON, -0.07%) was among 10 Dow Jones stocks in negative territory after its majority-owned subsidiary Quantinuum submitted paperwork to the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering (IPO).

Quantinuum plans to sell approximately 21.1 million shares at $45 to $50 per share, for estimated proceeds of $941.7 million at the midpoint of the offering and $1.09 billion if underwriters exercise their full allotments.

Quantinuum plans to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol QNT. Its market cap, assuming the IPO proceeds as expected, would approach $13 billion, making it the biggest pure-play quantum computing offering of 2026.

Quantinuum was founded in 2021 through the merger of Honeywell Quantum Solutions and UK-based startup Cambridge Quantum. Its customers include Amgen (AMGN, +0.03%) and JPMorgan (JPM, -2.5%).

Honeywell is Quantinuum's biggest shareholder, at approximately 54%. Other strategic investors include Amgen and JPMorgan, as well as Mitsui (MITSY, -4.2%) and Nvidia.

Zscaler has execution issues

Zscaler (ZS, -31.5%) was a major drag on Nasdaq-100 ETFs and mutual funds after management reported expectations-beating fiscal 2026 third-quarter results but underwhelmed Wall Street with its forward guidance.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives says it's a matter of execution at the company level and not a sign of bigger problems for the AI boom. "We believe ZS is a premier name to own as increased enterprise AI adoption further amplifies the need for zero-trust architecture," Ives observes in a post-earnings analysis.

Ives reiterated his Overweight (Buy) rating but cut his 12-month target price for the cybersecurity stock from $300 to $220. "Overall, ZS needs to show better execution to get out of the investor penalty box," the analyst concludes.

Indeed, Zscaler says conservative estimates for the fourth quarter and the full year are about the departure of two sales executives.

"We already appointed a replacement for one of these leaders, and we are in the late stages of hiring a leader for the other role," management explained. "However, we are taking a prudent approach to our guidance during the transition."

Micron Leads Tech as Nasdaq Hits High: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Tue, 26 May 2026 20:06:40 +0000

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Two of the three main equity indexes traded in record territory Tuesday as Wall Street returned from a three-day weekend, and markets looked beyond continuing uncertainty in the Middle East. Apple (AAPL, -0.2%) hit a new high on optimism about its artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives amid broad gains for tech-related names, while energy, consumer staples and healthcare stocks struggled.

At the closing bell, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite had added 1.2% to 26,656, and the broad-based S&P 500 had risen 0.6% to 7,519 — new all-time closing highs.

But, despite celebrating the 130th anniversary of its May 26, 1896, debut, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.2% at 50,461.

"The stock market's focus on AI, oil prices, and geopolitics has recently been getting a challenge from interest rates," E*TRADE Managing Director Chris Larkin observes. "While the twists and turns of the story in the Middle East have continued to drive short-term momentum, a sustained increase in longer-term yields could prove to be a persistent headwind for stocks."

The front-month West Texas Intermediate crude futures contract settled at $93.69 per barrel, down 3% for the day.

The 2-year Treasury yield, seen by investors, traders and speculators as an indicator of short-term policy direction for the Fed, was down 8.5 basis points to 4.042% vs 4.127% on Friday. The 10-year Treasury yield, which impacts the cost of mortgage rates as well as corporate bonds, fell 8.1 basis points to 4.491% from 4.572%.

Meanwhile, The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index slipped to 93.1 in May from 93.8 in April, declining for the first time in four months. According to The Conference Board Chief Economist Dana Peterson, "Consumer confidence edged downward in May as the inflationary impacts of the war in the Middle East intensified."

UBS analyst triples MU target price

Micron Technology (MU, +19.3%) joined the trillion-dollar market cap club Tuesday after President Donald Trump mentioned the tech stock during his speech at a rally in New York on Friday.

"Micron, boy Micron's great. They're investing hundreds of billions," Trump said, citing Micron's commitment to spend $100 billion to build the biggest-ever U.S.-based chip factory in the Empire State.

Meanwhile, UBS analyst Timothy Arcuri reiterated his Buy rating and raised his 12-month target price from $535 to $1,635 for the tech stock, citing long-term agreements that lock in solid pricing and allow better visibility and a smoother earnings profile.

"In contrast to prior periods where offtake agreements were simply volume based," Arcuri explains, "these new 'enhanced' LTAs now incorporate longer durations, fixed volume commitments and — most importantly — a partially fixed pricing framework."

The analyst expects earnings per share "to remain comfortably >$100" through 2029, with Micron generating more than $400 billion in free cash flow during the same period.

"We believe the market will start to put a more 'normal' multiple on the stock," Arcuri writes, "and MU will continue to re-rate higher as more details emerge about the structural changes AI has driven to the entire memory complex."

AZO hits the brakes

AutoZone (AZO, -8.9%) was one of the worst-performing S&P 500 stocks on Tuesday after management beat Wall Street's forecast for earnings per share but came up short of expectations for revenue and international growth.

High-priced AZO, a natural fit for conversations about the next stocks to split, reported EPS of $38.07 on revenue of $4.84 billion vs a consensus estimate of $36.22 on $4.86 billion.

Same-store sales growth in the U.S. was 4.1% on a constant-currency basis. AutoZone's stores in Mexico and Brazil combined for year-over-year sales growth of 1.6%.

CEO Phil Daniele noted impressive growth for domestic DIY and commercial segments, and acknowledged that international sales "continued to be challenged," with flat sales in Mexico and Brazil.

Still, the CEO said, "We believe our market share continues to grow as we outpace our competition in both international marketplaces." AutoZone opened 82 new stores globally, in line with its plan to open approximately 355 to 365 stores for the full fiscal year as part of its strategy to add market share.

Dow Hits New High as Warsh Takes Fed Oath: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Fri, 22 May 2026 20:10:45 +0000

(Image credit: Getty Images)

All three main equity indexes gapped up on Friday morning and rallied into the weekend, even as oil prices and bond yields remain elevated. There's a new leader in charge at the most important central bank in the world. And the oldest of those main stock indexes just hit another new high.

At the closing bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.6% at 50,579, a fresh all-time closing high. The Dow was up 2.1% for the week.

The broad-based S&P 500 rose 0.4% to 7,473, ending the week with a gain of 0.9%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite added 0.2% to 26,343, rising 0.5% vs last Friday.

The front-month West Texas Intermediate crude futures contract settled at $96.93 per barrel, down 0.02% for the day and 8.1.% for the week.

The yield on the 2-year Treasury, seen by investors, traders and speculators as an indicator of short-term policy direction for the Fed, closed the week at 4.123% vs 4.087% on Thursday and 4.084% last Friday.

Kevin Warsh is officially the Fed chair

Kevin Warsh was sworn in as Fed chair during a ceremony at the White House on Friday, with President Donald Trump watching his nominee take the oath of office with major questions about inflation and the trajectory of the federal funds rate front of mind for markets.

It's the first time a president has observed the swearing in of a Fed chair since Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan in 1987.

"President Trump chose Kevin Warsh to run the Federal Reserve to secure the lower interest rates he has demanded for the past year," Nick Timiraos of The Wall Street Journal observes. "A suddenly pressing question is whether Warsh would have political cover to do the opposite and raise them."

Merck leads the Dow

Merck (MRK, +5.6%) was the top-performing Dow Jones stock on Friday after its China-based partner Kelun-Biotech announced positive Phase III trial results for a new cancer drug.

A combination of Kelun-Biotech's sacituzumab tirumotecan, or sac-TMT, and Merck's Keytruda reduced the risk of tumor progression by 65% in lung cancer patients.

CEO Robert Davis emphasized Merck's efforts to build a "patent wall" during the drugmaker's first-quarter conference call, as Keytruda nears the end of its exclusivity period in 2028. That includes new indications as well as new combinations.

The healthcare stock sagged after reaching its 52-week high of $125.14 on February 25, but stabilized after management reported a narrower-than-expected loss and raised full-year guidance on April 30.

Astera Labs leads the chips

From its most recent all-time closing high on May 11 through May 21, the iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX, +2.4%) was down 1.5%. Nvidia (NVDA, -1.9%), the biggest stock in the world by market cap, was basically flat.

But Astera Labs (ALAB, +3.0%) was up 43.6%. The tech stock was up 31.9% this week after Evercore ISI analyst Mark Lipacis reiterated his Outperform (Buy) rating and raised his 12-month target price for ALAB from $215 to $297.

The analyst cited recent channel checks showing AI data center capex budgets will emphasize inference infrastructure in the second half of 2026.

Stocks Are Choppy After Nvidia Earnings: Stock Market Today

karee.venema@futurenet.com (Karee Venema) — Thu, 21 May 2026 20:06:42 +0000

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Stocks were choppy Thursday, but the main indexes muscled into positive territory in mid-afternoon trading and stayed there through the close. Market participants kept a close eye on oil prices and Treasury yields, which stabilized after volatile price action early on, and panned earnings reports from blue-chip bellwethers Nvidia (NVDA) and Walmart (WMT).

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.6% at 50,285, the S&P 500 was 0.2% higher at 7,445, and the Nasdaq Composite had gained 0.09% to 26,293.

Helping lift stocks into the close were retreating oil prices. Front-month West Texas Intermediate crude futures hit an intraday high of $102.66 per barrel, but finished the session down nearly 2% at $96.35 after President Donald Trump said earlier that negotiations with Iran to end the war in the Middle East are in the "final stages."

Treasury yields also eased back from intraday highs. The yield on the 2-year Treasury topped out at 4.117% on Thursday before settling at 4.062%. Similar action was seen on the 10-year and 30-year Treasury yields.

Nvidia, Walmart drop after earnings

It's been a busy week for blue-chip earnings and the latest results were poorly received. Nvidia, for one, fell 1.8% today even after the artificial intelligence (AI) chipmaker reported better-than-expected fiscal first-quarter results and gave stronger-than-anticipated guidance.

Kyle Rodda, senior financial market analyst at Capital.com, says this was "a garden variety beat — a better than expected top and bottom line with guidance above the Street estimate — and one that was well telegraphed following the very strong results from AI-hyperscalers earlier in the earnings season."

The company also unveiled an $80 billion addition to its stock buyback program and hiked its quarterly dividend from 1 cent to 25 cents per share.

Walmart was another Dow Jones stock that closed lower after earnings, sinking 7.3% on Thursday.

While the world's largest retailer beat on the top and bottom lines for its fiscal 2027 first quarter, its second-quarter and full-year forecasts came in below the Street's estimates.

"I think higher tax returns muted some of the pressure related to higher fuel prices and as we're in a period of time right now where those tax refunds are largely not coming in, I think consumers are going to feel more of that pressure from higher fuel prices," Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey told CNBC. "It's something that we’re keeping a close eye on, but that expectation is built into our guidance for the second quarter."

IBM soars 12% on Trump administration's quantum computing stake

At the other end of the Dow was International Business Machines (IBM), which jumped 12.5% on reports the Trump administration will award the tech giant $1 billion as part of a broader investment in quantum-computing firms.

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna has said the company's quantum-computing segment could generate billions of dollars in revenue over the next decade — and this goal is likely to get a push from the Trump administration's investment.

Big Blue is "in the early innings of unlocking benefits at the crossroads of AI and quantum," says Wedbush, and this funding will allow for "a more stable pathway to advance quantum computing developments."

Intuit spirals 20% on layoff news

Elsewhere in the tech space, Intuit (INTU) shares plunged 20% after the financial software firm said it is laying off 17% of its workforce. CEO Sasan Goodarzi said the decision "was not about AI," but rather to streamline the company to make it more efficient and effective.

Intuit also reported its fiscal third-quarter results, which came in higher than expected. However, revenue from the company's TurboTax segment just missed estimates for the three-month period that encompassed tax season.

The "7% year-over-year TurboTax growth came in well below expectations, adding fuel to bear concerns around AI-related disruption as pressure was most pronounced among price-sensitive DIY filers," says UBS Global Research analyst Taylor McGinnis.

The analyst reiterated her Neutral (Hold) rating on the tech stock "given increased uncertainty around the growth trajectory," and lowered her price target to $360 from $440.

Nasdaq Adds 399 Points Ahead of Nvidia Earnings: Stock Market Today

karee.venema@futurenet.com (Karee Venema) — Wed, 20 May 2026 20:12:20 +0000

(Image credit: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

Stocks notched their first win of the week on Wednesday as Treasury yields and oil prices pulled back. Market participants also took an optimistic stance ahead of tonight's quarterly results from AI bellwether Nvidia (NVDA), which could help set the tone for the broader market's short-term price action.

After surging to their highest levels in roughly a year, bond yields took a breather today. The yield on the 2-year Treasury bond fell 7.8 basis points to 4.044%, with the yields on the 10-year (-9.3 basis points to 4.576%) and 30-year (-6.5 basis points to 5.116%) Treasury bonds also declining.

Meanwhile, front-month West Texas Intermediate crude futures dropped more than 5% to $98.26 per barrel.

These declines had a positive impact on the stock market, with the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average adding 1.3% to 50,009, the broader S&P 500 rising 1.1% to 7,423, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite climbing 1.5% to 26,270.

Nvidia was one of 22 Dow Jones stocks that gained ground today, adding 1.3% ahead of its after-the-close earnings release. You can follow all the latest NVDA news on our live earnings blog.

But it was Goldman Sachs (GS, +5.8%), Nike (NKE, +4.2%) and Boeing (BA, +3.3%) that ended the day at the top of the 30-stock index.

Analysts are bullish on one of Berkshire's newest stocks

Over on the S&P 500, United Airlines (UAL) and Delta Air Lines (DAL) were on the leaderboard, rising more than 9% apiece.

DAL made waves after last Friday's close when it was revealed that Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B, +0.09%) initiated a position in the air carrier in the first quarter. According to regulatory filings, the holding company bought 39.8 million shares of Delta in Q1, making the industrial stock the 14th-largest position in the Berkshire Hathaway equity portfolio.

But Berkshire's not the only one bullish on Delta. Of the 26 analysts following the stock who are tracked by S&P Global Market Intelligence, 25 say it's a Buy or Strong Buy and just one rates it at Sell. This works out to a consensus Strong Buy recommendation.

Speaking for the bulls is Susquehanna analyst Christopher Stathoulopoulos, who has a Positive (Buy) rating on DAL.

"We view DAL's '3Ds' (diversified, durable, and differentiated) as core to the carrier's ability to navigate what could be a new (mid-term) norm — a volatile macro and geopolitical backdrop," he wrote in a recent note.

TJX pops after earnings, Target drops

Elsewhere on the S&P 500, TJX (TJX) rose 5.7% — its best day since August 21, 2024 — after the off-price retailer reported earnings.

"TJX results were incredibly strong this quarter, beating and raising in every category and underscoring the durability of its off-price model," says Brian Mulberry, chief market strategist at Zacks Investment Management. "These results allow for expansion plans to continue globally as TJX looks to continue to capture more market share."

The retail stock remains a top pick on Wall Street. The consensus recommendation among the 21 analysts covering TJX who are tracked by S&P Global Market Intelligence is Strong Buy.

Target (TGT, -3.9%), on the other hand, scores a consensus Hold recommendation. Following this morning's first-quarter beat and upwardly revised guidance, CEO Michael Fiddelke warned about the near-term operating environment, "with consumers weighing multiple headwinds and tailwinds and recent dips in consumer sentiment."

"While consumers have proven to be resilient so far, sentiment has been declining recently, and we're keeping a close eye on their spending behavior," added Chief Financial Officer Jim Lee on the earnings call.

And even with the retailer's impressive Q1 numbers, David Wagner, head of equity and portfolio manager at Aptus Capital Advisors, feels "that Target will still be expected to slash prices and spend billions on store and supply chain upgrades, which compresses its profit margins and leaves it with low growth prospects compared to its rivals."

Stocks Struggle With Spiking Bond Yields: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Tue, 19 May 2026 20:09:30 +0000

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Stocks opened lower and drifted higher through the middle of the trading session on Tuesday, but all three main equity indexes faded into the closing bell as global bond yields continued to rise. Investors, traders and speculators will turn their attention to Wednesday's post-closing-bell Nvidia earnings event to gauge the health of the market's major trend.

Both the 30-year and 10-year Treasury yield hit 52-week highs, reaching 5.197% and 4.687%, respectively, while the 2-year Treasury yield ticked up to 4.112% from 4.09% on Monday.

Meanwhile, the front-month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures contract dipped 0.1% to $104.29.

By the closing bell, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was down 0.8% at 25,870, the broad-based S&P 500 was off 0.7% at 7,353, and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.7% at 49,363.

Nvidia is down a day ahead of earnings

Nvidia (NVDA, -0.8%), which will report fiscal 2027 first-quarter results after the closing bell on Wednesday, "will help set the tone for a stock market that is in need of its next catalyst after an incredible run since the March lows," Granite Bay Wealth Management Chief Investment Officer Paul Stanley writes.

You can keep up with developments and analysis on the latest Nvidia news in our live earnings blog.

As Stanley sees it, that "next catalyst" is critical now, with the market "a bit tired" after a recent strong run but also facing "renewed worries" about inflation and interest rates.

"Investors need some reassurance that the AI story is still alive and well," he explains, "and that the company is producing enough revenue growth to back up its elevated valuation."

Stanley expects Nvidia to justify expectations, "which is just what the stock market is looking for." Indeed, as the CIO concludes, "Nvidia's presence is unavoidable in this market."

Has Agilysys recovered its footing?

Agilysis (AGYS, +12.5%) was one of those tech stocks that got hammered earlier this year as markets priced in the threat artificial intelligence (AI) represented to companies that write code for a living.

AGYS was down 40.9% year-to-date through Monday's close. Then management reported expectations-beating fiscal 2026 Q4 earnings, on top of its 17th straight quarter of record revenue. Management guided to fiscal 2027 revenue of $365 million to $370 million vs a Wall Street forecast for $363.59 million.

"The business has begun a noticeable uptrend in CY26 that should continue throughout FY27," Oppenheimer analyst Brian Schwartz writes. "The strengthening business momentum is visible with top-line and EBITDA growth accelerating in F4Q26." The analyst reiterated his Outperform (Buy) rating and raised his 12-month target price from $90 to $100, citing "a strong beat-and-guide-above in F4Q26."

Schwarz notes that AGYS already carries premium multiples relative to other small-cap stocks and mid-cap stocks in the software industry. "But," he concludes, "if the company keeps beating-and-guiding above, similar to F4Q26, then the stock should keep working."

Home Depot rises on beat-and-reiterate report

Home Depot (HD, +0.9%) was among nine of 30 Dow Jones stocks to post gains on Tuesday after it reported fiscal 2026 first-quarter revenue and earnings that exceeded Wall Street estimates. Management also reaffirmed full-year guidance. HD traded up as much as 1.1% intraday before fading into the closing bell.

Rising fear of inflation is having little impact on the big box home improvement retailer's top line right now. "Our first quarter results were in line with our expectations," CEO Ted Decker said. "The underlying demand in our business was relatively similar to what we saw throughout fiscal 2025, despite greater consumer uncertainty and housing affordability pressure."

At the same time, HD hasn't exactly lit up the total return scoreboard lately, with the consumer discretionary stock down more than 12% so far in 2026 and more than 19% over the trailing 12 months.

"To us this indicates that HD continues to bounce along the bottom despite macro headwinds related to housing specifically and the consumer more broadly," D.A. Davidson analyst Michael Baker observes. "These include higher rates, higher gas prices and a return to inflationary trends in general."

Nasdaq Drops as Tech Stocks Slide: Stock Market Today

karee.venema@futurenet.com (Karee Venema) — Mon, 18 May 2026 20:10:40 +0000

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All three main indexes opened higher Monday, but only one was in positive territory at the close. Tech stocks were the biggest decliners as bond yields continued to climb, while energy stocks outperformed as oil prices jumped to their highest level since early April.

At the close, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was down 0.5% at 26,090 and the broader S&P 500 was off 0.07% at 7,403. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.3% at 49,686.

Front-month West Texas Intermediate crude futures, meanwhile, climbed roughly 3% to settle at $108.66 per barrel.

"The stock market is coming to the sudden realization that new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh may need to raise rates rather than lower them, and the market hates that," says Richard Reyle, chief investment officer at Questar Capital Partners. "Right now, the bond market is repricing this and rates are drifting higher, which comes just as the hyperscalers enter their most capital-intensive spending cycle, which raises worries about their ability to keep funding this spending."

The CIO says that if bond yields continue to climb, the tech sector's leadership could be threatened. This is because higher interest rates mean future profits are worth less, which is bad news for tech companies whose valuations are based on tomorrow's earnings.

Today, the yield on the 2-year Treasury climbed above the 4.10% level for the first time since June 2025 before ending down 2.8 basis points at 4.056%. The 10-year Treasury yield hit 4.631% — its highest mark since May 2025 — before settling at 4.597%, up 0.2 basis point on the day.

Seagate CEO issues dire warning

Rising bond yields weren't the only headwind tech stocks faced today. Market participants also reacted to a dire warning from Seagate Technology (STX) CEO Dave Mosley.

The executive was asked earlier today at a JPMorgan conference what the data storage specialist could do to meet rising demand for memory chips, which are key to the artificial intelligence (AI) data center buildout.

"If we took the teams off and started building new factories or bringing up new machines [to increase unit capacity], that would just take too long," Mosley said. "You would end up with more capacity, but then you'd slow the rate of growth on that technology."

The answer only amplified Wall Street's fear that chip production won't be sufficient — and sent STX down 6.9% today.

Nvidia drops ahead of earnings

Nvidia (NVDA) also closed lower today, falling 1.3% ahead of the AI chipmaker's Wednesday afternoon turn on the earnings calendar.

"We fully expect the leading supplier of AI silicon will again exceed estimates and guide above Street given continued positive data points through Q1 as well as 1) healthy 2026 AI infrastructure spend (that we believe likely continues through 2027), and 2) superior supply chain certainty in a period plagued by constraints," says Wedbush analyst Matt Bryson.

The real question, Bryson believes, is whether "we finally see a more positive stock reaction after a series of blasé moves following solid prints."

We're covering all the latest Nvidia news in our live earnings blog.

NextEra Energy drops on $67 billion M&A news

Utility stocks were also lower on Monday after news that NextEra Energy (NEE, -4.6%) will buy Dominion Energy (D, +9.4%) in an all-stock deal valued at roughly $67 billion.

If approved by regulators, the merger will create the country's largest electricity producer, serving 10 million customer accounts in Florida, the Carolinas and Virginia.

"If successful, the deal could result in one of the largest mergers in the power industry," says Mizuho Securities analyst Anthony Crowdell. "The acquisition would give NextEra access to the PJM [Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland] market, and potentially signals NextEra moving beyond renewables-heavy to include an all-form shop."

The transaction is expected to close in the next 12 to 18 months.

Stocks Sink as Treasury Yields Spike: Stock Market Today

karee.venema@futurenet.com (Karee Venema) — Fri, 15 May 2026 20:07:52 +0000

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Stocks closed lower Friday as market participants took profits on red-hot tech stocks. Still, all three main indexes were higher on the week, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite notching their seventh straight weekly wins and the Dow Jones Industrial Average bringing its weekly win streak to three.

Treasury yields spiked heading into the weekend, which didn't help the equity market either. The yield on the 2-year Treasury jumped 8.7 basis points to 4.079% and the 10-year Treasury yield climbed 14.2 basis points to 4.601%. It's the highest level for both in nearly a year.

"A bear-steepening yield surge is igniting turbulence on Wall Street as investors lift inflation expectations amid price pressure readings from around the world that are way too hot," says José Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers. "The continued blockage of the Strait of Hormuz, amid oil prices remaining well above $100, is straining the fixed-income complex, as there's no light at the end of the geopolitical tunnel."

Torres adds that many folks were hoping for a breakthrough from this week's meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, "but a lack of progress on the conflict has folks throwing in their towels as it relates to the possibility for lighter interest rates."

Indeed, CME Group FedWatch now shows futures traders have given up on rate cuts in 2026 and are now pricing in a possible quarter-point rate hike by the end of this year.

As for the stock market, the S&P 500 shed 1.2% to end at 7,408, the Nasdaq slumped 1.5% to 26,225 and the Dow gave back 1.1% to 49,526.

Tech stocks get hit by profit-taking

Several of this week's highfliers finished in the red Friday, including Intel (INTC, -6.2%), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD, -5.7%) and Micron Technology (MU, -6.6%). And artificial intelligence (AI) chipmaker Cerebras (CBRS), which soared Thursday following its blockbuster IPO, slumped 10.1%.

Nvidia (NVDA) ended lower, too, falling 4.4% ahead of its turn on the earnings calendar, slated for after Wednesday's close.

The company "heads into next week's results with expectations already running hot," says Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. Consensus estimates are near the top end of guidance, "but as is often the case with Nvidia, the market will likely be looking for more than just a clean beat. The scale of any upside surprise will matter."

Britzman adds that Wall Street will be watching for commentary on the Vera Rubin roadmap, given recent rumors of a potential one-month delay to deliveries. "In isolation, that would be relatively small, but investors will not want to see anything that suggests a more material pushback for Nvidia's next major product cycle."

Bill Ackman's big Microsoft bet

Microsoft (MSFT) bucked the bearish trend, rising 3.1% after Bill Ackman said in an X post on Friday that Pershing Square has initiated a stake in the tech giant.

Pershing began building its position in February, according to Ackman, and the details on the size of the position will be released later today in regulatory filings.

Microsoft is "a company we have followed for many years now offered at a highly compelling valuation," the hedge fund manager explained, and the blue chip stock is now a "core holding."

MSFT has been one of the worst Dow Jones stocks of the year, down X% so far, but Ackman believes Wall Street is underestimating "the resilience" of the company's Microsoft 365 subscription suite and OpenAI investment.

Cisco Sends Nasdaq, S&P 500 to New Highs: Stock Market Today

karee.venema@futurenet.com (Karee Venema) — Thu, 14 May 2026 20:10:17 +0000

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Stocks jumped out of the gate Thursday, boosted by another big day of gains for mega-cap tech stocks and a red-hot initial public offering (IPO). Market participants also cheered encouraging headlines from China, where President Donald Trump and his entourage of CEOs traveled for a two-day summit with President Xi Jinping to discuss trade, tariffs and the war in Iran.

At the close, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.8% at 50,063. The broader S&P 500 added 0.8% to 7,501 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 0.9% to 26,635 — new all-time highs.

A well-received earnings report from Cisco Systems (CSCO) created tailwinds for all three indexes, with the Dow Jones stock soaring 13.4% after its results, its best day since 2020.

For the three months ending April 25, Cisco reported earnings of $1.06 per share, up 10% year over year, on revenue of $15.8 billion (+12% YoY). Analysts expected Cisco to report earnings of $1.04 per share on revenue of $15.6 billion.

The company also said that artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and hyperscaler orders have totaled $5.3 billion so far this year and it now expects orders for its fiscal year to reach $9 billion. It previously forecast $5 billion in orders for the full fiscal year.

"We view the AI cycle as durable for the foreseeable future and expect sustained strong orders and accelerating revenue to drive further stock appreciation," says BofA Securities analyst Tal Liani, who reiterated a Buy rating on the blue chip stock and raised his price target to $114 from $95.

Separately, CEO Chuck Robbins wrote in a blog post that Cisco will reduce its workforce by roughly 4,000 positions in fiscal Q4.

Cerebras stock soars in market debut

The IPO market has gotten off to a slow start in 2026 amid private-equity concerns, worries over an AI bubble, and geopolitical uncertainty.

But if today's market debut from AI infrastructure firm Cerebras (CBRS) is any clue, things are looking up.

Cerebras priced its offering at $185 per share last night, above the high end of its upwardly revised range. Based on the 30 million shares of common CBRS stock it offered, the AI company raised $5.55 billion in its offering, making it not only one of the biggest IPOs of the year but one of the largest U.S. IPOs ever.

CBRS stock opened today at $350, reached an intraday high of $385 and closed at $311.07.

Nvidia emerges as a big winner in the Trump-Xi talks

Nvidia (NVDA) was another big gainer on Thursday, rising 4.4% as CEO Jensen Huang participated in President Trump's summit with President Xi.

According to Reuters, the U.S. will allow roughly 10 Chinese firms — including Alibaba (BABA, -3.2%) and JD.com (JD, -2.7%) — to buy Nvidia's H200, its second-most powerful AI chip, though no deliveries have been made so far.

Nvidia once made up roughly 95% of China's advanced chip market share, but this has since dropped to near zero due to the U.S. implementing export controls and China's decision to reduce its reliance on foreign chips.

Wall Street will look to the AI bellwether's big earnings event after next Wednesday's close for any color on potential China sales.

Tech Leads Again as Nvidia Goes to China: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Wed, 13 May 2026 20:15:14 +0000

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More hot inflation data meant a cold open for stocks, but optimism about the long-term potential of the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution and the near-term promise of a U.S.-China summit lifted two of the three main equity indexes into the green on Wednesday.

A day after the April CPI report showed consumer prices rose at their fastest rate since 2023, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported the quickest pace of increase for producer prices since 2022. According to the BLS, the Producer Price Index (PPI) was up 1.4% in April, accelerating from 0.7% in March and above a consensus forecast of 0.5%. PPI was up 6.0% on an annualized basis. Core PPI was up 1.0% month over month, topping an estimate of 0.4%.

"Today's report suggests that while the move higher in prices received by producers is primarily being driven by energy," William Blair economist Richard de Chazal observes, "we are also seeing a broader increase across other core components of the inflation basket." As de Chazal notes, energy prices rose 7.8% because of the war in Iran.

Semiconductor prices are also moving higher due to elevated demand, as well as capacity constraints unrelated to the Strait of Hormuz. "If semiconductors are now the 'new oil' — in the sense that they are a critical input into a wide range of goods — this is a concerning development for central bankers and limits their ability to look through the energy spike as a one-off shock," the economist concludes.

Meanwhile, the Senate voted to confirm Kevin Warsh as the next Fed chair, with Jerome Powell's term set to expire. The Senate approved Warsh for a seat on the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors on Tuesday.

Warsh will be challenged to fulfill Trump's wish for lower interest rates following a better-than-expected April jobs report and this week's hot inflation data. But there are three things Warsh can do to change the Fed.

Nvidia goes to China

Nvidia (NVDA, +2.3%) CEO Jensen Huang is among the C-suite executives who traveled with President Donald Trump to China for a summit with President Xi Jinping this week for discussions that will include major issues such as the ongoing war in the Middle East and the global semiconductor market.

Tesla (TSLA, +2.7%) CEO Elon Musk is also in China with the president, as the market prepares for a SpaceX initial public offering (IPO) that looks like it'll rocket past all previous similar capital-raising ventures.

Alphabet (GOOGL, +3.9%) CEO Sundar Pichai isn't in China with Trump, but the search giant's share price is seeing some upside based on its approximately 6% stake in SpaceX.

Indeed, Alphabet has surpassed Apple (AAPL, +1.4%) for the No. 2 spot in the global market cap rankings, though outgoing CEO Tim Cook is aboard for what looks like his last foreign junket.

Boeing (BA, +1.6%) is getting a boost on hope CEO Kelly Ortberg can close a deal to sell as many as 500 737 Max aircraft to the Middle Kingdom, with a little help from the White House.

By the closing bell, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was up 1.2% at 26,402, and the broad-based S&P 500 had added 0.6% to 7,444, but the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.1% at 49,693.

MMM stock has good optics

In addition to declaring its quarterly payout and underscoring its standing as a blue-chip dividend-paying stock, 3M (MMM, +2.7%) has joined a group of tech companies to collaborate on "open, interoperable specifications for expanded beam optical (EBO) connectivity in AI infrastructure."

According to 3M, "Expanded beam optical technology is increasingly seen as a critical enabler for AI infrastructure, offering advantages in reliability, ease of maintenance, and performance in high-density environments."

AI hyperscalers Meta Platforms (META, +2.3%) and Oracle (ORCL, +4.7%), as well as Advanced Micro Devices (AMD, -0.6%) and Cisco Systems (CSCO, +2.6%), are among the parties signed on to the multi-source agreement (MSA).

3M will pay a quarterly dividend of 78 cents per share on June 12. That payout is up 6.8% from 73 cents a year ago. The company has paid dividends to its shareholders without interruption for more than 100 years.

NXT is making data from the Sun

Nextpower (NXT, +8.8%) surged to a new all-time high after management of the industrial stock reported expectations-beating fiscal 2026 fourth-quarter earnings and raised its fiscal 2027 revenue guidance.

Nextpower makes software that helps utility-scale solar projects track the Sun during its daily transit and optimize electricity generation. And its backlog has grown to more than $5 billion due to rising demand for power from data centers.

"We view this quarter as another solid proof point of NXT's diversification strategy," Susquehanna analysts Charles Minervino and Eric Clay write, "as it continues to get more traction on its bundled offerings and expands its product portfolio through its 'everything but the panel' approach."

The analysts reiterated their Positive (Buy) rating and raised their 12-month target price for NXT from $136 to $161 on more backlog growth in 2026, "particularly as the company rolls out more verti

Investors Pull in on Chip Stocks After Hot Inflation: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Tue, 12 May 2026 20:12:03 +0000

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All three main equity indexes opened lower after the hottest consumer inflation report since May 2023 seemed to burn all hope for lower interest rates anytime soon. But blue chip stocks lifted the oldest of the benchmarks into the green late in a generally "risk-off" trading session.

The April CPI report showed the Consumer Price Index rose 0.6% month over month and 3.8% year over year. Core CPI, which excludes energy and food prices, was up 0.4% on a monthly basis and 2.8% annually. The energy index was up 3.8% in April, accounting for more than 40% of the headline CPI acceleration, and increased by 17.9% compared to April 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

At the same time, the front-month West Texas Intermediate crude futures contract was up 4.3% to $102.27 per barrel. WTI is up 60.6% from where it was a year ago and 52.6% since the war between the U.S., Israel and Iran began on February 28.

Meanwhile, the Senate confirmed Kevin Warsh for a seat on the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors, further clearing the way for President Donald Trump's nominee to replace outgoing Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Friday. Following a better-than-expected April jobs report, accelerating inflation rather than stagnating employment is shaping up to be the Fed's initial priority in a Warsh regime.

Energy stocks were among six of 11 sectors in positive territory on Tuesday, with healthcare and consumer staples stocks up 1.9% and 1.6%, respectively, and financial stocks also posting solid gains.

Semiconductor stocks sold off, with Intel (INTC, -6.8%) and Micron Technology (MU, -3.6%) falling hard amid triple-digit runs so far this year. Walmart (WMT, +2.2%) and blue-chip dividend stocks UnitedHealth Group (UNH, +3.1%), and Coca-Cola (KO, +1.8%) caught significant bids.

By the closing bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had added 0.1% at 49,760, but the broad-based S&P 500 was down 0.2% at 7,400, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite had declined 0.7% to 26,088.

CAT dragged on the Dow

Caterpillar (CAT, -1.5%) was one of the worst-performing Dow Jones stocks on Tuesday after it featured prominently in a Bloomberg story about stretched valuations for names tied to artificial intelligence.

The heavy equipment maker had behaved more like a hot tech stock than even the leader of the AI revolution so far in 2026, with a year-to-date gain of 62.5% through Monday compared to 60% for the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH, -2.6%) and 17.7% for Nvidia (NVDA, +0.6%).

According to Renaissance Macro Research, CAT and other industrial stocks such as Vertiv Holdings (VRT, -0.2%), Eaton (ETN, -4.2%) and Cummins (CMI, +0.3%) are more than 60% correlated to SMH.

"These are not tech stocks," Renaissance Macro Head of Research Neil Dutta told Bloomberg. "They trade like tech stocks because their order books have become AI capex order books."

As Jefferies analyst Stephen Volkmann observes, Caterpillar reported a 32% increase in sales of large generators and turbines and sequential order backlog expansion of $12 billion for the first quarter.

Management also boosted its full-year revenue guidance to low double-digit growth because of strong nonresidential construction driven by the data center and AI infrastructure buildout.

Quantum computing stocks are all over the place

Quantum Computing (QUBT) was up 15.7%, but D-Wave Quantum (QBTS) was down 7% — a share-price "superpositioning" that oversimplifies yet illustrates one of the key ideas you'll want to understand if you're researching ways to invest in quantum computing.

According to Microsoft (MSFT, -1.2%), "Superposition is a fundamental concept in quantum mechanics, describing the condition in which a quantum system can exist in multiple states or configurations simultaneously."

Quantum Computing, better known as QCi, rallied after management reported first-quarter revenue of $3.69 million, up from $39,000 a year ago and ahead of a Wall Street estimate of $3.13 million.

D-Wave, on the other hand, sold off after management reported a first-quarter revenue decline of 80.9% to $2.9 million. D-Wave recorded a single large sale that boosted last year's top line, but Wall Street expected to see $4.2 million.

"The potential of quantum computing is enormous," Kiplinger contributor Tom Taulli writes, with the potential to create hundreds of billions of dollars in economic value over the next decade-plus.

In the meantime, however, quantum stocks are likely to be all over the place.

Energy Leads S&P 500 to Another New High: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Mon, 11 May 2026 20:08:58 +0000

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Oil briefly spiked back above $100 Monday after President Donald Trump rejected a peace proposal from Iran as "totally unacceptable" on Sunday, but all three main U.S. equity indexes held on for modest gains amid a solid earnings season and more signs of strength for the market's major trend.

"I would say the ceasefire is on massive life support… when the doctor walks in and says, 'Sir, your loved one has approximately a 1% chance of living'," Trump said to White House reporters today about the state of play in the Middle East.

The front-month West Texas Intermediate crude futures contract was up as much as 5.2% to $100.37 per barrel and settled with a gain of nearly 3% above $98. WTI is up 47% since the war between the U.S., Israel and Iran began on February 28.

"The S&P 500 continues to report impressive results," John Butters of FactSet writes. "Both the percentage of S&P 500 companies reporting positive earnings surprises and the magnitude of earnings surprises are above recent averages." The index is on track for its highest earnings growth rate since the fourth quarter of 2021.

Energy stocks led the 11 sectors on Monday. Oil and gas supermajor Chevron (CVX, +1.7%) was among the top-performing Dow Jones stocks, as was artificial intelligence (AI) revolutionary Nvidia (NVDA, +2.0%).

"The S&P 500 continues to distance itself above the 7,000-point milestone, maintaining strong upside momentum off the March 30 low," LPL Financial Chief Technical Strategist Adam Turnquist observes. "Mega-cap stocks remain the primary drivers of the rally, consistent with the broader bull market trend." Meanwhile, as Turnquist explains, strength for small-cap stocks and mid-cap stocks as well micro caps "provides a meaningful offset to concerns about narrow participation."

At the closing bell, the broad-based S&P 500 was up 0.2% at 7,412, yet another new all-time high, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite had added 0.1% at 26,274, also another new high. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.2% at 49,704.

It's time for a new Fed chair

"The top priority for Senate Republicans this week," Roll Call notes, "will be to confirm Kevin Warsh to be chairman of the Federal Reserve." The urgency here is that Jerome Powell's term as Fed chair will expire on Friday.

According to Roll Call, the Senate will conduct an initial procedural vote on Monday evening to limit debate on President Donald Trump's nomination of Warsh to join the Fed board, followed by another procedural vote for his nomination to succeed Powell as Fed chair as soon as Wednesday.

A better-than-expected April jobs report underscores the view that inflation rather than employment is the central bank's priority right now as it considers the appropriate level for interest rates amid an energy shock.

And though the chair can't cut the federal funds rate all by himself, there are things Warsh can do to change the Fed soon after his confirmation.

LITE it up again

Lumentum Holdings (LITE) surged 15% on the March 9 announcement the stock would be added to the S&P 500, and LITE rallied another 16.6% today on word it will replace CoStar Group (CSGP, +0.5%) in the Nasdaq-100 Index before the opening bell on May 18.

Lumentum makes optical and photonics equipment for data centers and cloud computing. LITE was up more than 145% year to date through Friday and was one of the top-performing S&P 500 stocks because of its connection to the AI revolution.

Management reported fiscal third-quarter earnings of $2.37 per share (+315.8% year over year) on revenue of $808.4 million (+90.1% YoY), while operating margin improved to 32.2% from 10.8%.

Following what he described as "another strong quarter of strong execution," Susquehanna analyst Christopher Rolland reiterated his Positive (Buy) rating and his $1,100 12-month target price for LITE, citing "a long runway of growth and margin expansion ahead."

Cerabras IPO gets even bigger

A Monday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) confirms the Cerebras IPO will seek $150 to $160 per share for 30 million shares vs $115 to $125 for 28 million it projected last week.

Two people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Sunday that Cerebras Systems, which makes semiconductors for the AI industry, planned to boost both the price range and the number of shares for its initial public offering.

"Cerebras' IPO has drawn orders for more than 20 times the number of shares available," Reuters reported, "as the chipmaker looks to manage surging interest ahead of its May 13 pricing."

Cerebras is on track to start trading on the Nasdaq on May 14. Semiconductor stocks, as represented by the iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX, +2.4%), are up nearly 73% since March 30 and about 170% over the trailing 12 months.

S&P 500, Nasdaq Close Week at New Highs: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Fri, 08 May 2026 20:14:23 +0000

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All three main U.S. equity indexes were higher heading into the weekend after a better-than-expected jobs report suggested the U.S. economy is, so far, absorbing an energy shock from the war in the Middle East just fine. The S&P 500 wrapped up a sixth consecutive week of gains at another new closing high, and the Nasdaq Composite finished in record territory, too, as Apple (AAPL) and Intel (INTC) reached an agreement on chips for the iPhone maker's devices.

INTC (+13.9%) had extended its 2026 rally on rumors of a new manufacturing pact with Apple, and the semiconductor stock bounced big after The Wall Street Journal confirmed an agreement for the chipmaker to provide silicon for the iPhone maker's (+2.0%) products.

Meanwhile, the front-month West Texas Intermediate crude futures contract backed off its morning highs but was still up 0.1% for the day at $94.92 per barrel, as talks between the U.S. and Iran continue. WTI was down almost 7% this week but has risen almost 42% since the beginning of the war in the Middle East.

According to the April jobs report, employment is stable enough that the Fed can focus on inflation as it evaluates interest rates in the context of its dual mandate. At the same time, preliminary University of Michigan data indicate consumer sentiment "was essentially unchanged this month, coming in a scant 1.6 index points below April's reading and comparable to the trough reached in June 2022."

By the closing bell, the S&P 500 was up 0.8% and 2.3% for the five days to finish its sixth consecutive positive week at 7,398, another new all-time high.

The Nasdaq Composite added 1.7% for the day and 4.5% for the week at 26,247, also another new all-time high for the tech-heavy index.

The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was higher by 0.02% at 49,609. Papa Dow, 1% short of its February 6 all-time closing high of 50,115, was up 0.2% for the week.

CSCO pops ahead of earnings

Cisco Systems (CSCO, +4.8%), which generated a total return of more than 20% year to date through the close on Thursday, was the best-performing Dow Jones stock on Friday.

Cisco, scheduled to post fiscal 2026 third-quarter results before the opening bell on Wednesday, is the only Dow stock on next week's earnings calendar. Wall Street expects management of the AI hardware and infrastructure provider to report earnings growth of more than 8% on double-digit revenue growth.

CSCO closed at $96.57 on Friday, 7.9% above the $89.54 average 12-month target price among the 22 analysts who cover it tracked by S&P Global Market Intelligence, 17 of whom rate it a Buy vs nine who say it's a Hold.

Is CRWV on sale at these levels?

The market generally wasn't impressed with what CoreWeave (CRWV, -11.4%) had to report about its first quarter. The CoreWeave IPO was one of the hottest of 2025, and CRWV was up more than 220% from its initial public offering last March through May 7.

So the bar was high for the AI cloud stock, and revenue of $2.08 billion was up 112% year over year and was well ahead of the $1.97 billion Wall Street expected. But operating income of $21 million was down from $163 million from a year ago and short of Wall Street's $24 million estimate.

Deutsche Bank analyst Brad Zelnick has a different view. "In our eyes," Zelnick writes, "CoreWeave delivered on what it promised in the quarter and continues to capitalize on overwhelming demand for its product."

Zelnick reiterated his Buy rating and raised his 12-month target price from $125 to $135 on what the analyst described as "a very solid quarter," noting that the company checked "the key (and demanding) boxes we were looking for." At the same time, Zelnick conceded CoreWeave's report won't end "investor debate around profitability as it rapidly builds out AI capacity."

CoreWeave "is clearly optimizing for scale and speed of deployment in the current environment which is leading to higher near-term costs," as are many AI infrastructure providers. "With capacity for CY26 near fully sold out," Zelnick concludes, "sustained execution like we saw in 1Q remains the paramount focus in the months ahead."

Nasdaq Fades Late as Hormuz Tension Flares: Stock Market Today

David Dittman — Thu, 07 May 2026 20:05:49 +0000

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Stocks were mixed to higher for much of a trading session defined by optimism about peace in the Middle East. All three main equity indexes finished in the red, though, after The Wall Street Journal reported the Trump administration is considering resuming an effort to force open the Strait of Hormuz.

The front-month West Texas Intermediate crude futures contract was down as much as 5.5% to below $90 per barrel early on Wednesday but settled up more than 2% and above $97.

"Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have lifted restrictions on the U.S. military's use of their bases and airspace imposed after the start of the American operation to reopen the Strait of Hormuz," the WSJ reported, citing officials from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, "removing a hurdle that had tripped up President Trump's effort to move ships through the vital waterway."

The Trump administration had paused the operation on Tuesday, but is now looking to restart what it calls "Project Freedom" as early as this week.

At the closing bell, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was down 0.1% at 25,806, the broad-based S&P 500 had lost 0.4% to 7,337, and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was lower by 0.6% at 49,596.

Paul Tudor Jones: "no chance" of a rate cut

"Do I think he'll cut rates? No chance." That's how legendary hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones assesses the probability that Kevin Warsh will do as President Donald Trump wishes and lower the target range for the federal funds rate as soon as he takes over at the most important central bank in the world.

The Senate is expected to approve Warsh's nomination to be the next Fed chair before May 15, when Jerome Powell is scheduled to leave the post. That doesn't mean lower interest rates are coming, though. "Well, I'd be thinking about raising them," Jones said on CNBC. "I'd want to see the data. But I mean, for sure you'd be thinking about it. And I think he's going to be constrained before the election."

The April jobs report, due out ahead of Friday's open, will provide more color about the employment situation, while the trajectory of inflation remains uncertain due to the war in the Middle East and the lingering impact of President Trump's tariffs.

Meanwhile, although the chair can't cut (or raise!) interest rates all by himself, there are things Warsh can do to change the Fed.

Howmet soars with defense spending

Howmet Aerospace (HWM, +6.3%) extended its year-to-date gains as management of the industrial stock reported first-quarter earnings of $1.22 per share on revenue of $2.3 billion vs a Wall Street forecast for EPS of $1.11 on revenue of $2.2 billion.

Revenue, adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization), adjusted EBITDA margin and EPS all exceeded the high end of guidance, and free cash flow supported $300 million in stock buybacks amid strong growth across Howmet's key end markets.

CEO John Plant cited a "robust growth outlook," noting that "commercial aerospace OEM customers continue to target production rate increases supported by record backlogs." Plant also said that "defense markets remain healthy" and that the gas turbines market is also "very active."

Howmet expects to report second-quarter EPS of $1.23 on revenue of $2.4 billion and full-year EPS of $4.94 on revenue of $9.65 billion, with the top line boosted by recent acquisitions, including Brunner Manufacturing in February and Consolidated Aerospace Manufacturing in April.

Whirlpool spins 13% lower on dividend suspension

Whirlpool (WHR) was down 12% on Thursday after management of the home appliance maker cut full-year guidance and suspended the consumer discretionary stock's dividend. "War in Iran resulted in recession-level industry decline in the U.S." Whirlpool said (pdf), "as consumer confidence collapsed in late February and March."

Whirlpool reported a first-quarter loss of 56 cents per share vs earnings of $1.70 per share a year ago. Revenue declined 9.6% to $3.3 billion. Wall Street was expecting EPS of 38 cents on revenue of $3.4 billion. Management has announced double-digit price increases and accelerated cost-reduction efforts "to restore profitability." Whirlpool will prioritize debt repayment over paying a dividend for the time being.

"We acted decisively to address pricing and costs in the face of rapid deterioration in macroeconomic conditions," CEO Marc Bitzer said, adding that new tariffs announced in April "in favor of domestic manufacturers" positions Whirlpool "to win with [its] American-made products."

Whirlpool now expects to report full-year EPS of $3 to $3.50 on revenue of approximately $15 billion vs prior guidance for EPS of approximately $6 on revenue of $15.3 billion to $15.6 billion.

Nasdaq Jumps to New High on AMD Earnings: Stock Market Today

karee.venema@futurenet.com (Karee Venema) — Wed, 06 May 2026 20:09:24 +0000

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Stocks jumped out of the gate Wednesday and rallied into the close on reports that the U.S. and Iran are close to agreeing on terms to end the conflict that started in late February.

Encouraging jobs data and big post-earnings gains for several large-cap stocks also kept the wind at the market's back, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite notching record closes for the second straight day.

At the close, the broader S&P 500 was up 1.5% at 7,365 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 2.0% to 25,838. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.2% to 49,910, but remains 0.6% below its all-time closing high of 50,188 from February.

"Assuming Iran agrees to give what has been agreed to, which is, perhaps, a big assumption, the already legendary Epic Fury will be at an end, and the highly effective Blockade will allow the Hormuz Strait to be OPEN TO ALL, including Iran," wrote President Donald Trump in a Truth Social post.

However, Trump warned that if Iran does not agree to the deal, "the bombing starts, and it will be, sadly, at a much higher level and intensity than it was before."

While stocks climbed on the news, oil prices cratered. Front-month West Texas Intermediate crude futures plunged roughly 7% to $95.08 per barrel — their lowest close since April 24.

ADP jobs report comes in higher than expected

Ahead of the next jobs report, which will be released Friday morning, ADP's National Employment Report showed private payrolls rose by 109,000 in April — the strongest pace since early 2025. This was more than the 84,000 new jobs economists expected and the 61,000 private payrolls added in March.

Small and large-sized companies experienced the biggest increases in payrolls last month, but "we're seeing some softness in the middle," says Dr. Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP. "Large companies have resources to deploy, and small ones are the most nimble, both important advantages in a complex labor environment."

Education and healthcare led the gains, adding 61,000 new jobs, while business and professional services saw the biggest decline, losing 8,000 positions.

But just because ADP payrolls came in strong, don't assume that the April jobs report will too. "While this data would typically signal a positive outlook for Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report, recent trends suggest caution, as the two measures have shown notable divergence in prior releases," say Raymond James economists.

AMD stock soars after beat-and-raise quarter

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) was one of the best S&P 500 stocks today, soaring 18.6% after the Nvidia (NVDA, +5.8%) rival posted blowout first-quarter results.

For the three months ended March 28, the artificial intelligence (AI) chipmaker said earnings nearly doubled year over year to 84 cents per share, while revenue jumped 38% to $10.3 billion. The results easily beat Wall Street's estimates, as did AMD's upwardly revised full-year forecast.

Sentiment also got a lift after Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su said she now expects the server CPU market to grow by at least 35% annually over the next three to five years — up from her 18% projection last fall — to reach more than $120 billion by 2030. This is "based on the demand signals we are seeing today and the structural increase in CPU compute requirements driven by Agentic AI," Su explained.

Argus Research analyst Jim Kelleher raised his price target on the top AI stock to $450 from $275, representing implied upside of nearly 7% to current levels.

"Despite the still-dynamic macro and regulatory environment, AMD's differentiated portfolio and consistent execution position the company for strong growth in 2026 and beyond," Kelleher says.

And even after AMD's red-hot run — it's doubled year to date — its share price "does not fully reflect the company's long-term revenue and margin growth potential, and its ongoing market-share gains at Intel's (and potentially at Nvidia's) expense," he adds.

Klaviyo has its worst day ever after earnings

AMD was just one of several stocks getting a lift after earnings, but there were a handful of poorly received reports too. Klaviyo (KVYO), for one, slumped 32.3% — its biggest one-day drop since going public in September 2023 — after releasing its first-quarter results.

The marketing software firm beat on both its top and bottom lines and raised its full-year guidance. But Stifel analyst J. Parker Lane wasn't surprised to see KVYO "take a breather" given "moving parts" that include new carrier fees, higher AI investments and the departure of the company's chief financial officer.

Still, Lane reiterated a Buy rating on the tech stock, saying "product innovation is accelerating, driven by AI efficiency gains, which is arming Klaviyo with an intriguing basket of products that have, and should continue to benefit expansion."

Nasdaq, S&P 500 at New Highs on Intel Rally: Stock Market Today

karee.venema@futurenet.com (Karee Venema) — Tue, 05 May 2026 20:12:44 +0000

(Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Stocks bounced back Tuesday as market participants brushed off geopolitical worries and cheered falling oil prices. A round of well-received earnings reports and a rally in tech stocks also lifted sentiment, with two of the three main equity indexes ending the day with new record highs.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 1% to 25,326 and the broader S&P 500 gained 0.8% to 7,259 — their highest closes on record — while the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.7% to 49,298.

Oil prices, on the other hand, retreated after the U.S. said the ceasefire with Iran remains in place despite Tehran's attacks against the United Arab Emirates on Monday. Front-month West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell nearly 4% to settle at $102.27 per barrel.

DuPont jumps on beat-and-raise quarter

Market participants have a jam-packed earnings calendar to sift through this week. DuPont (DD, +8.4%) was one of several firms that reported this morning, with the chemicals company unveiling higher-than-expected first-quarter earnings of 55 cents per share on in-line revenue of $1.7 billion.

DD also raised its full-year outlook and announced a new $275 million stock buyback program.

In mid-April, Argus Research analyst Alexandra Yates reiterated her Buy rating on the blue chip stock. "DuPont is a leading Materials company that is continually refining its lineup of businesses," she writes.

Following the recent spin-off of its electronics business, Qnity, Yates says the company "will have a strong presence in fast-growing healthcare end markets," and be a leading provider "in key technologies enabling advanced mobility" and "of advanced solutions serving safety, construction, aerospace, and other industrial-based end markets."

Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD, +8.7%), Pinterest (PINS, +6.8%) and Rockwell Automation (ROK, +8.9%) were also post-earnings winners.

Palantir slumps after earnings

Palantir Technologies (PLTR) found itself in negative territory after the Big Data provider reported its first-quarter results.

PLTR beat on both its top and bottom lines, with first-quarter revenue up 85% year over year — the fastest pace of growth since the company went public in 2020. Palantir also raised its full-year guidance.

But the tech stock slumped 6.9% after earnings. This could be due to a slight quarter-to-quarter deceleration in U.S. commercial revenue growth (+133% YoY in Q1 vs +137% YoY in Q4). It could also be more profit-taking on an overvalued stock.

After its share price surged fourfold in 2024 and more than doubled in 2025, PLTR is down nearly 24% so far in 2026.

And despite the company's "exceptional" fundamentals, Jefferies analyst Brent Thill has an Underperform (Sell) on PLTR as a result of its "unfavorable" risk/reward ratio, saying it "requires a heroic durability assumption to justify the current multiple."

Intel soars on rumors of a potential Apple partnership

Intel (INTC) jumped 12.9% — making it the best-performing S&P 500 stock and lifting the broader technology sector. Boosting the shares was a Bloomberg report that said Apple (AAPL, +2.6%) is in talks with Intel and Samsung to produce the main chips for its devices.

The companies have not commented on the report, but this move would create an alternate option to long-term Apple supplier Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM, -1.8%).

Tuesday's pop is more of the same for INTC, which has tripled since the start of the year and just wrapped up its best monthly performance ever. Still, the consensus recommendation among the 48 analysts following the chip stock who are tracked by S&P Global Market Intelligence is Hold.

Speaking for the pros is Needham analyst Quinn Bolton, who has a Hold rating on INTC: "While the company's turnaround is clearly underway and server CPU demand is robust, we believe the shares fully reflect the company's prospects."

Dow Drops 557 Points as Iran Tensions Ramp Up: Stock Market Today

karee.venema@futurenet.com (Karee Venema) — Mon, 04 May 2026 20:13:37 +0000

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Stocks closed lower Monday and oil prices climbed on escalating tensions in the Middle East. Market participants also took a cautious stance ahead of another busy week of corporate earnings and Friday's key jobs report.

Over the weekend, President Donald Trump said via Truth Social that the U.S. will begin guiding ships out of the Strait of Hormuz that have been stranded there during the conflict between the U.S., Israel and Iran.

"This is a Humanitarian gesture on behalf of the United States, Middle Eastern Countries but, in particular, the Country of Iran," Trump wrote in his post. "Many of these Ships are running low on food, and everything else necessary for largescale crews to stay on board in a healthy and sanitary manner."

Stocks were mostly higher at Monday's open, but the price action quickly shifted after the United Arab Emirates said it intercepted three missiles coming from Iran.

At the close, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.1% at 48,941, the broader S&P 500 was 0.4% lower at 7,200, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was off 0.2% at 25,067.

As for oil prices, front-month West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose more than 4% to settle at $106.42 per barrel.

Norwegian Cruise Line gets hit by higher fuel costs

The ongoing conflict in the Middle East is creating headwinds for Norwegian Cruise Line (NCLH). Shares plunged 8.6% after the cruise operator reported a top-line miss for its first quarter. The company also lowered its full-year outlook, citing higher fuel costs as one of several difficulties it is facing.

"Our outlook reflects an extremely challenging backdrop for the balance of the year," said Chief Financial Officer Mark Kempa on the earnings call. "Keep in mind, our prior guidance did not include any impacts from the disruptions in the Middle East, which is creating incremental headwinds, including pressure on the top line and higher fuel expense."

Kempa added that managing these costs is occurring at the same time as the company adjusts its revenue management systems, improves marketing and addresses a slow start to the year for bookings.

The earnings calendar picks up in earnest after the close, with tech giant Palantir Technologies (PLTR, +1.4%) set to report.

UPS posts its worst day in nine months on Amazon blow

United Parcel Services (UPS) was the worst S&P 500 stock today, sinking 10.5%. This marks the blue chip stock's biggest one-day decline since July 29, 2025, and comes after Amazon.com (AMZN, +1.4%) said it is launching Amazon Supply Chain Services.

This will open up the e-commerce giant's logistics services to all businesses, allowing them to "move, store, and deliver everything from raw materials to finished products quickly and reliably, using the same supply chain that supports Amazon.com."

Fellow industrial stock FedEx (FDX, -9.1%) also declined on the news.

GameStop sinks on $56 billion eBay offer

GameStop (GME) was another notable decliner on Monday, with the original meme stock sinking 10.1% after a report in The Wall Street Journal said the video-game retailer is making an unsolicited bid to buy eBay (EBAY, +5.1%) for $56 billion in cash and stock.

According to the report, GME has built a 5% stake in EBAY since early February, and its buyout bid represents $125 per EBAY share — a 20% premium to the online retailer's May 1 close.

"EBay should be worth — and will be worth — a lot more money," GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen told The Wall Street Journal. "I'm thinking about turning eBay into something worth hundreds of billions of dollars."

Bernstein analyst Nikhil Devnani sees "real challenges" to the deal. "With $9 billion of cash and securities on hand, GME would need a significant amount of leverage and/or equity issuance to buy out EBAY," Devnani says.

He adds that eBay "itself is in the midst of a turnaround — one that is going well, but to the extent there are any challenges/volatility from categories like Collectibles this could put further strain on the math."

S&P 500 Hits New High on Apple Earnings: Stock Market Today

karee.venema@futurenet.com (Karee Venema) — Fri, 01 May 2026 20:06:28 +0000

(Image credit: CFOTO / Contributor)

Stocks were mostly positive to start the new month, with the latest round of corporate earnings lifting the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite to new record highs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, on the other hand, wasn't so resilient, finishing Friday in the red as several high-priced components sold off.

At the close, the S&P 500 was up 0.3% at 7,230 and the Nasdaq had added 0.9% to 25,114 — fresh all-time closing highs. The Dow was down 0.3% at 49,499.

Earnings from Apple (AAPL) generated the most buzz, with the blue chip stock jumping 3.2% after its higher-than-expected fiscal second-quarter print.

Apple saw year-over-year revenue growth across all its categories, including a nearly 22% jump in iPhone sales. It also saw increased revenue across all regions, with sales in China — where the company has struggled in recent quarters — up 28% from the year-ago period.

"We believe the strong iPhone 17 replacement cycle is supported by both higher average selling prices and units, with solid performance across all geographic segments," says CFRA Research analyst Angelo Zino.

The company also hiked its quarterly dividend by 4% and said its board of directors approved a $100 billion stock buyback program.

"Although we are impressed by overall results, we think bigger catalysts will come at WWDC in June with AI Siri integration and September's hardware event unveiling the first foldable phone," Zino says.

Atlassian soars 30% after strong earnings

Atlassian (TEAM) was another post-earnings winner, with the tech stock soaring 29.6% after the software company reported a fiscal third-quarter beat.

Earnings were up 80.4% year over year to $1.75 per share, while revenue rose 32% to $1.79 billion. Cloud revenue was 29% higher, while data center revenue surged 44%.

The Jira parent also raised its full-year guidance for cloud and data center revenue, now expecting year-over-year growth of 26.5% and 21.5%, respectively.

"Overall, the results are encouraging and reinforce our confidence in the company's strategic vision, ability to monetize customer AI usage, and address AI displacement concerns," says Oppenheimer analyst Ittai Kidron.

With the beaten-down stock still off 46% for the year to date, Kidron says that its "valuation looks compelling." And while longer-term AI displacement concerns are likely to persist, "the bear case could be difficult to maintain near term."

Amgen dives 5%, but Wall Street isn't worried

At the other end of the spectrum was Amgen (AMGN), with the blue-chip biotech diving 4.8% after earnings, making it the worst Dow Jones stock of the day. At nearly $330 per share, AMGN has an outsized influence on the price-weighted Dow.

Amgen reported higher-than-anticipated earnings and revenue for its first quarter and raised its full-year guidance.

Still, investors appear to be concerned over the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) proposal to withdraw approval for Amgen's blood vessel inflammation drug Tavneos after it was linked to several cases of serious liver injuries.

But Oppenheimer analyst Jay Olson does not believe this will have a material impact on the company's top line. Rather, he believes Amgen's obesity and Type 2 diabetes drug MariTide creates a compelling opportunity for the company to capitalize on the "largely unaddressed" maintenance angle.

Olson has an Outperform (Buy) rating on the healthcare stock and a $400 price target, representing implied upside of more than 21% to current levels.

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