When IPO activity picks up, client calls tend to follow. A high-profile company goes public, the financial press lights up, and suddenly, clients who have never considered investing in an IPO are asking whether they should get in.

These conversations can be genuinely useful, but they can also go sideways quickly if advisers aren't prepared to manage expectations alongside the enthusiasm.

Having a clear framework for these conversations helps. Here's how I think about it.

1. Start with the fundamentals

Before getting into access or mechanics, it helps to anchor clients in why companies go public in the first place. While an IPO creates an investment opportunity for outside investors, it's primarily a capital-raising strategy.

The company needs funding to grow, pay down debt or give early investors and employees a path to liquidity. Going public is how they get it.

In exchange, the company accepts significant new obligations: Regular SEC reporting, public scrutiny from analysts and shareholders, plus ongoing regulatory oversight. These responsibilities shape how the offering is priced and who gets access first.

2. Walk clients through the process

Many investors have a vague sense of what an IPO is, but not a clear picture of how one comes together. Walking them through the basic mechanics sets up the risk conversation more naturally.

The company selects investment banks (underwriters) to manage the offering and determine pricing, share volume and allocation. Then, the company files a registration statement with the SEC, which includes a prospectus with financials, the business model and a detailed risk factors section.

Institutional investors get a first look during the "roadshow," where company leadership presents details about the IPO to build demand.

The offering price is finalized the night before trading begins and shares hit the market.

Educating investors on the process is important because your clients may assume IPO investing is as simple as clicking "buy" on their brokerage app. But most offerings aren't straightforward, and explaining why to your clients helps set the right expectations.

3. Clarify the three access points

When a client asks, "How do I get in on an IPO?" the honest answer is that it depends on when you want in and what you have access to. (I typically hate "it depends" answers, but it truly applies in this situation.)

There are three entry points, each with a meaningfully different profile:

Pre-IPO secondary markets. Before a company goes public, some shares may be available through secondary platforms, purchased from early employees or existing investors seeking liquidity.

This path is generally limited to accredited investors, involves limited disclosure and comes with transfer restrictions and higher operational complexity. Pricing can vary significantly from the IPO price, and fraud risk is elevated.

If a client is interested in this option, the channel matters enormously. Only established, regulated platforms with clear documentation of ownership and custodial arrangements should be considered.

IPO allocation. Participation in the actual offering, at the offer price, typically flows through broker-dealers that are part of the underwriting group. Institutional investors receive priority, and retail access can be limited.

In high-profile deals, demand often far exceeds available shares. Clients should understand that submitting interest isn't a commitment, and allocation isn't guaranteed.

Anyone promising guaranteed access to a hot IPO is waving a bright red flag.

Post-IPO trading. Once shares list on a public exchange, any investor can buy them through a standard brokerage account. This is the most accessible option and the one with the least operational complexity. It's also where most individual investors will land.

The trade-off is that newly public companies often see elevated volatility in the early weeks of trading as the market finds its footing.

We saw this in action with the SpaceX IPO earlier this year. The company's stock (SPCX) increased by more than 50% in the four days following its debut, then dropped back down around initial pricing in the subsequent two weeks.

4. Reframe the 'first-day pop' conversation

IPOs attract a lot of attention around first-day performance. A company opens 30% above its offer price, and it looks like a missed opportunity. If it drops 20% on day one, suddenly the whole asset class gets a side-eye.

Neither reaction is especially useful for long-term investors.

First-day price movements reflect a combination of limited float, pent-up retail demand and short-term sentiment, none of which are a reliable signal of where the company will be in three to five years.

Early enthusiasm has a way of fading once the lockup period expires and insiders can sell. Clients who buy in based on first-day momentum often find themselves holding a position they don't fully understand at a price that was set by very different market forces.

This is a good moment to bring the conversation back to fundamentals. Some good questions to ask:

• Does the client understand the company's business model?
• Have they looked at the prospectus, particularly the risk factors section?
• Does the offering fit within their time horizon, risk tolerance and overall portfolio composition?
• What percentage of their holdings would this represent, and are they comfortable with that level of concentration?

5. Tie it back to the plan

One of the most effective ways to manage IPO conversations is to redirect them toward your client's financial plan. An investment that generates a lot of headlines isn't automatically a good fit.

An IPO that most investors can't access at the offer price, carries meaningful volatility risk and represents a company with an unproven public track record deserves the same disciplined evaluation as anything else in the portfolio.

Access and hype are not the same thing as opportunity. Helping clients see the difference, and then evaluating each situation through the lens of their individual goals and risk profile, is exactly the kind of value a good adviser provides.

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This article was written by and presents the views of our contributing adviser, not the Kiplinger editorial staff. You can check adviser records with the SEC or with FINRA.

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.

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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."

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In October 2024, the Harris Poll asked Americans about pets and kids: "If you had to choose, which would you prefer in the future?" Of the 2,125 respondents, 18% said children, 43% said pets, and the rest said both. Harris also found that a majority of Gen Z pet owners would give up a year of their own lives if it would add a year to their pet's life.

In case you hadn't noticed, Americans have gone ga-ga over their pets. Some two-thirds of households own at least one, and, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, total spending on "pets, pet products and related services" reached $188 billion in 2024 (the latest data), up from just $40 billion in 2000. Pet ownership has been building since about 1990, but it rose sharply during the COVID era, with pets providing stay-at-home singles and families with companionship; 78% of Americans bought a pet during the pandemic.

Savvy investors profited from the pet boom. In 2020, the worst COVID year, ProShares Pet Care (PAWZ), an exchange-traded fund, returned 61.4%, more than triple the rate of the S&P 500 index. Anything related to pets soared. A company that sells fashionable leashes and collars called Dogness (International) — yes, in parentheses — jumped from $21 on October 1, 2020, to $175 just 15 months later. Freshpet, which makes meals and treats that are "thoughtfully crafted for your best friend," roughly tripled from the beginning of April 2020 through the end of April 2021.

Then, as these things often do, the pet boom imploded. Within six months of its peak, Dogness had fallen 80%. It now trades slightly over one dollar per share with a market capitalization (shares outstanding times price) of just $15 million. Freshpet today is down more than two-thirds. (Stocks and funds I like are in bold; prices and other data are through May 31 unless otherwise noted.)

Straight from the source

Americans still love their pets, and ownership keeps rising — as my brother and my nephew, both veterinarians, can confirm. So what happened? First, competition has taken a bite out of profit margins. Amazon.com has become a pet-care giant, crowding out smaller purveyors, or at least squeezing their revenues.

Second, middle-class Americans have become strapped for disposable cash. Households are currently spending an average of $6,000 a year on their pets, and those are incremental dollars on top of what's needed to buy such items as their own food.

It seems to me, however, that pet stocks have fallen so much that they are offering opportunities for wise investors. Many have become classic value stocks: Good businesses with decent growth that are unappreciated.

Start with Chewy (CHWY), the e-commerce pet supplier that was spun off from the PetSmart chain (now private) in 2019. Since then, despite competition from Amazon, sales have tripled, and earnings have risen consistently. But the stock is down 70% over the past five years and now has a price-earnings ratio, based on estimated earnings for the year ahead, of just 14, compared with 22 for the average S&P 500 stock.

More Chihuahuas than Great Danes

Publicly traded pet stocks tend to be small (even Chewy has a market cap of just $9 billion), but there are exceptions. Zoetis (ZTS), which was spun off from Pfizer in 2013 and makes medicines, vaccines and diagnostics for pets and livestock, has a market cap of $33 billion.

Shares dropped more than 20% in early May when Wall Street was disappointed with Zoetis's first-quarter earnings, which rose only 6% compared with the same quarter a year ago. The company stated: "Pet owners demonstrated increased price sensitivity, resulting in a decline in veterinary visits and softer demand for premium innovative products, where Zoetis leads. At the same time, competition intensified across key pet care categories." That's a good description of the challenges that practically all pet-care stocks face.

With the tumble, Zoetis carries a P/E of just 11. And it's hard to argue with any stock whose profits have risen every year for the past decade — what I call a beautiful line. Zoetis also has a strong balance sheet, an impressive profit margin and a dividend yield of 2.7%. It's down by two-thirds since its 2021 high.

One of my favorites in the same sector is IDEXX Laboratories (IDXX), with a $44 billion market cap. IDEXX provides diagnostic instruments, software and lab testing for vets. Earnings were up year-over-year by 17% in the most recent quarter, but, unlike most pet-care stocks, IDEXX is not cheap, with a forward P/E of 38. Shares have been flat over the past five years after dropping — for no good reason in my opinion — by about one-fourth since November.

Another worthy pet pharma company is Elanco Animal Health (ELAN), with popular products to fight fleas and ticks. The stock, with a market cap of $12 billion, is up by 76% in the past year, but it's still far from its 2021 high. I also like Philbro Animal Health (PAHC), which reported earnings in the quarter ended March 31 that were up 15% over the same period last year. Philbro sells products that prevent and treat diseases in companion animals and livestock in 95 countries. Shares are up 30% in the past 12 months, but the P/E is just 10.

Veterinary expenses have risen sharply. A dog's broken leg can cost from $2,000 to $5,000 or more to set. So more and more owners have turned to pet insurance. The number of insured dogs and cats has doubled in four years, but market penetration is still low — just 4%, compared with 20% in Germany and 25% in the U.K. It appears there is room to grow.

Most of the top U.S. pet insurers are large multiline companies like Nationwide and Chubb, but the best pure play, Trupanion (TRUP), is number one in market share. The company is popular with vets because of its software platform, which makes reimbursement fast and easy. But it's another victim of the petpocalypse. Despite revenues nearly tripling between 2020 and 2025, the stock has dropped 75% in five years.

A big obstacle for investors is that many of the largest pet companies are either private or part of a more diversified business. For example, numbers one and two in dog food are the consumer-products giant Nestlé (Friskies, among many other brands) and the family-owned candy company Mars (Pedigree, the number-one dog food brand). Specialized dog food sellers such as The Farmer's Dog haven't gone public. Merck is a major provider of veterinary pharmaceuticals, but they represent no more than 10% of Merck's total sales. Covetrus, a much-admired animal health services company, is owned by a private-equity firm, as are thousands of veterinary practices.

The ProShares ETF mentioned above, with an expense ratio of 0.5%, is the best bet among pet funds. Its top four holdings are IDEXX, Zoetis, Freshpet and Chewy, accounting for almost 40% of assets. But the portfolio also includes Merck, Nestlé and even CVS Group, all of whose pet-related revenues are minor. Its five-year return is a negative 8.7%.

Facts like these, however, are a contrarian investor's dream. Pets are loved, but pet stocks are so hated that they are crying out for you to buy them — kind of like your dog mewling for his kibble.

James K. Glassman chairs Glassman Advisory, a public-affairs consulting firm. He does not write about his clients. His most recent book is Safety Net: The Strategy for De-Risking Your Investments in a Time of Turbulence. He owns none of the securities listed here. You can reach him at JKGlassman@gmail.com.

Note: This item first appeared in Kiplinger Personal Finance Magazine, a monthly, trustworthy source of advice and guidance. Subscribe to help you make more money and keep more of the money you make here.

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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.

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"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%.

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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.

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"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.

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You know the story. A boy keeps shouting that there's a wolf, nobody comes, and the one time a wolf actually shows up, he's on his own.

For the past several years, financial commentators have been pointing at market valuations and warning that stocks are expensive. And for the past several years, the market has largely ignored them and kept climbing.

Past performance may not indicate future returns, but it does skew our expectations. This is especially true right now, because the past 15 years have been incredible, favoring those who took on more risk than they may have realized.

After a while, you stop listening to the warnings. That's the dangerous part of the fable. The boy was wrong several times. But in the end, there was a wolf.

The data tells a story worth hearing

The Shiller P/E ratio (CAPE) divides the S&P 500's price by its average inflation-adjusted earnings over the prior 10 years. As of mid-2026, it sits at roughly 41, which is a level exceeded only by the dot-com peak.

Each dot in the chart above represents the S&P 500 on the first trading day of a given year, plotted against the real total return investors earned over the following decade. The pattern is clear: Every time valuations have reached these levels — 1929, 1966, 2000 — the subsequent decade delivered flat or negative real returns.

Not every time was a crash. But every time was a long, frustrating stretch of going nowhere.

I wrote about this pattern in my article Four Historical Patterns in the Markets for Investors to Know. Historically, the market has gone flat for 10 or more years roughly every 20 years or so. We're now 16 years from the last one.

Innovation is real: Bubbles are, too

To be clear, this isn't a call to sell everything and hide in cash. New technologies, such as the railroad, the automobile and the internet, created genuine, lasting economic value. AI will likely do the same.

The problem isn't the innovation. The problem is what happens when everyone wants in at the same time.

Railroads were revolutionary. The railroad bubble of the 1840s still wiped out investors. The internet changed the world. The Nasdaq still fell about 78% from 2000 to 2002. Good technology and bad timing can coexist.

The flip side is just as important

This chart tells the mirror story. At the end of every flat-market cycle — 1921, 1932, 1982, 2009 — valuations were depressed, and the subsequent decade rewarded patient investors handsomely.

This is one of the reasons I wrote my book, How to Retire on Time. I fear that too many people believe they can retire and use the same systems they have used for the past 15 years.

It's easy to retire when the markets only go up. It's a completely different story when the markets go flat.

If you consider that retirement may be 20 to 30 years, there's a good chance a part of your retirement could be during a flat-market cycle.

What that means in practice

It's not about trying to time each crash with active trading. It's not about riding the market up and down with your fingers crossed. It's about understanding price, recognizing when the market is offering a good deal and when it isn't and having a strategy that responds accordingly.

Patience is the foundation.

Beyond that, it means looking at tools that many investors overlook. Guaranteed income from an annuity can help stabilize your plan and portfolio, even if your stock portfolio doesn't perform (see the DIY Annuity Guide).

Bond funds may be making a comeback as an uncorrelated market to help stabilize your portfolio.

Real estate (not a stock of real estate companies, but something tied to actual real estate) can provide income and diversification that equities simply can't replicate.

It is important to take a step back as you approach retirement, or any new phase of life, and consider updating your plan. Perhaps it's time to diversify not just by asset class, but by markets and by strategies.

Here's the challenge: Many of these alternative strategies aren't readily available to retail investors through a standard brokerage account. That's one reason it may be worth sitting down with a fiduciary financial planner who can provide access to a broader set of tools, even if it's just a one-time engagement to build a plan you can execute yourself.

The wolf may or may not be at the door. But the shepherd who has a plan doesn't need to panic either way.

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This article was written by and presents the views of our contributing adviser, not the Kiplinger editorial staff. You can check adviser records with the SEC or with FINRA.

Let's think back to March 2020. Where were you, what were you doing, and what financial choices did you make?

Markets were hitting circuit breakers almost every other day for two weeks, and investment strategists, like me, were calling clients to ensure they weren't making irrational decisions while accounts were down substantially. It was a blur.

Yet, only about 60 days later, markets had recovered and were advancing. This monumental period served as a stark reminder that market volatility is an inherent and recurring feature of investing, not a one-time event.

In fact, market volatility has already defined the first half of 2026, stemming from global conflicts, persistent inflation and the Federal Reserve's shifting stance.

Given these challenging conditions, the question for every investor remains: How can we define and maintain a "healthy" portfolio designed to weather these turbulent times?

What makes a portfolio healthy?

First, a healthy portfolio is one built to deliver the returns necessary for your financial plan, while balancing liquidity with total return and combining income and market growth to keep your goals within reach.

Most importantly, a healthy portfolio is one that is fundamentally built around a long-term plan that short-term volatility cannot easily derail.

When coaching clients through market swings, I remind them that long-term portfolios are designed around their financial plans, and short-term dips of 5% to 10% don't change the likelihood of a plan's success.

Over the long run, market returns drive positive financial outcomes; it's critical not to react to short-term swings or social media noise.

We all need portfolio hygiene

This leads to the key to navigating volatile markets: Consistent, non-emotional maintenance. Or what I call "portfolio hygiene."

This is the essential practice of regularly checking in on your portfolio to ensure it continues to reflect the current reality of your financial life.

While it's tempting to obsess over current events during market turmoil, I recommend scheduling this check-up quarterly, regardless of the news.

For your own well-being and investment success, it is important not to overdo it; excessive monitoring during a downturn can become psychologically taxing and lead to impulsive decisions that actually could harm your portfolio.

In fact, one of the most common mistakes I see clients make during periods of volatility is trying to adjust their portfolio based on short-term, market-moving events that are, for better or worse, essentially coin-flip choices.

Take the conflict in Iran, for example: Oil is a hot topic. Some argue that oil has topped, and you should sell, while others contend that continued geopolitical risk could keep prices elevated, making energy assets a buy for the long haul.

Investors who act based on outcomes beyond their control can make knee-jerk decisions, especially in a fast-moving environment.

When is it time to apply some tweaks?

With this in mind, you may be thinking, "Surely I can't always sit tight." So, what are the key indicators that it is time to tweak a portfolio?

Simply put, if your life has changed, it is often time for your financial plans, and, therefore, your portfolio, to change as well. This includes major life-altering events like a marriage, the death of a family member or a new child joining your family. This is where portfolio management truly marries personal finance.

In addition to typical maintenance or life events, change may also be warranted for people with diversified portfolios who are comfortable being aggressive when others are afraid.

In times of market-dislocating risk, these investors can strategically reallocate their financial plan, bearing in mind the market's tendency to "stair-step up and elevator down."

These are the people who have been through volatility before, possess "calluses" when it comes to risk and know that a market dip can be a moment to capitalize.

No matter what, before making any change, especially when feeling pressure from market movements, every investor should ask themselves three simple questions:

• What is the desired outcome?
• Is there a follow-up or another decision to be made after making this change?
• Am I OK with the change not working?

These questions can be a start, but I sometimes advise my clients that the first thing to do when it comes to changing their portfolios during a volatile period is to not do anything. If you have an idea for an adjustment, stop, write it down and revisit it the next day.

Take the time to think about it and consult a trusted adviser or professional. Because if you remember one thing right now, it should be the importance of understanding your own behavioral and psychological biases, as they can cloud your judgment and worldview.

Separating those biases from portfolio decisions, along with having an asset allocation built to be nimble in times of opportunity, is a recipe for success in a turbulent market.

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This article was written by and presents the views of our contributing adviser, not the Kiplinger editorial staff. You can check adviser records with the SEC or with FINRA.

Retirement can turn the search for investment income into a delicate balancing act. A portfolio needs to generate enough cash to support withdrawals, but reaching too aggressively for yield can expose retirees to credit risk, price swings, dividend cuts or investments that fail to keep pace with inflation.

"It's essentially a trade-off between the income vs risk," says Roland Chow, financial planner and portfolio manager at Optura Advisors in Burlingame, California. A 10% distribution might look attractive on paper, but income is only useful if it's sustainable, tax-efficient and paired with a level of risk you can live with.

"The key is not to treat yield as the only objective," says Jason Bloom, head of Fixed Income ETF strategy for Invesco. "Higher income often comes with higher credit risk, greater price volatility or both, so retirees should focus on the durability of income and cash-flow planning rather than simply reaching for the highest yield available."

For retirees looking to increase portfolio income, the goal is to build a mix of investments that can support spending needs without taking unnecessary risks. Here are five ways to increase your income in retirement without throwing caution to the wind.

1. Dividend stocks

Dividend stocks can provide a one-two combo of current income and long-term growth potential. But finding the best dividend payers requires looking beyond the headline yield.

"Retirees evaluating dividend growth stocks should look to companies with moderate but consistently growing dividends," says Jason Fannon, a certified financial planner and senior partner of Cornerstone Financial Services in Southfield, Michigan. This can "signal financial health and a commitment to returning capital to shareholders."

He says to look for a dividend payout ratio below 60%, which suggests the dividend has room to grow.

Investors should also look beyond earnings. Free cash flow is a better metric to use because net income can be affected by non-cash accounting, according to Chow. As a general rule, he says "a stable or increasing free cash flow trend even while dividends are being raised is an excellent sign."

2. Real estate investment trusts (REITs)

REITs let you earn income from real estate without managing physical property. These companies own or finance income-producing real estate such as apartment buildings, shopping centers, healthcare facilities or data centers and trade like a normal stock.

Since REITs are required to distribute at least 90% of taxable income to shareholders, they generally provide higher yields than other stocks.

The trade-off is that REIT income is not risk-free. Fannon cautions that REITs can be cyclical and closely tied to broader real estate conditions. Interest rates can also impact returns: "Rising rates can increase borrowing costs and make them less attractive compared with other fixed-income securities."

REITs can also use leverage, which might amplify returns but also exacerbate losses, Chow adds. REIT income is typically taxed as ordinary income, so it doesn't receive the more favorable qualified dividends tax rate.

3. Municipal bonds

Municipal bonds, or munis, can be especially useful if you want to increase the amount of income you keep after taxes. The interest on these government-issued bonds is generally exempt from federal income tax. In some cases, bonds issued in an investor's home state might also be exempt from state income tax.

This tax treatment can make munis more valuable for retirees in higher tax brackets, but they're not automatically the best income choice. The trick is to compare a muni's tax-free yield with the after-tax yield available from taxable alternatives such as certificates of deposit (CDs), Treasuries or money market funds.

To do this, take the municipal bond's yield and divide it by one minus your marginal federal tax rate. For example, if the muni yields 3.5% and you're in the 32% federal tax bracket, your taxable-equivalent yield is 5.15%, or 0.035 / (1-0.32). If this is higher than the yields offered elsewhere, the municipal bond could be a tax-savvy choice.

4. Bond ladders and target maturity ETFs

Retirees need income on which they can rely, which can be hard to build with equity-linked investments that can be vulnerable to drawdowns. That's where fixed-income strategies such as bond ladders and target maturity ETFs can help.

With a bond ladder, you spread money across bonds or bond funds that mature in different years. As each rung of the ladder matures, you can spend the proceeds or roll it into a new rung to create a steady stream of portfolio cash flow.

Defined maturity ETFs offer one way to build that type of structure without buying individual bonds. "They combine income potential with a known maturity year, which can help investors align fixed income exposure with future spending needs," Bloom says.

For example, the Invesco BulletShares 2030 Corporate Bond ETF (BSCU) will terminate and distribute cash to shareholders around December 15, 2030.

"Instead of holding a perpetual bond fund with no stated end date, investors can build a ladder across maturity years and decide when and how to redeploy proceeds as each rung matures," Bloom says.

That structure can be especially useful when cash yields are at risk of falling. Bloom notes that cash and money market funds can cover near-term spending needs, but their yields reset quickly when short-term rates decline. Target maturity bond ETFs, by contrast, could allow retirees to lock in yields for specific future years. Weigh credit risk carefully, especially if you use high-yield funds.

5. Covered-call ETFs

Covered-call ETFs hold a portfolio of stocks or an index and sell call options against those holdings. The fund can then pass the option premiums along to investors as income.

That extra cash flow might be useful, but it comes with trade-offs. "Covered-call ETFs can provide higher monthly income and smoother returns in sideways markets; however, they have capped upsides during a strong bull market," Fannon says.

If the market price of that security rises above the option's strike price, the option holder will likely exercise the right to buy the shares at the lower strike price.

This makes it important to consider if the higher monthly income is worth giving up some long-term growth potential for future spending, Fannon says. In either case, covered-call ETFs "are typically better suited as a supplement, rather than a core holding," he says.

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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.

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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.

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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."

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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."

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Warren Buffett famously quipped that diversification is for people who don't know what they're doing. Judging by the explosive growth of S&P 500 ETFs over the past few decades, millions of investors are perfectly fine playing dumb — and their retirement accounts are thanking them for it.

After all, beating the market year after year is incredibly hard. Even Warren Buffett couldn't do it consistently. He's considered the GOAT of long-term investing for good reason. Between 1964 and 2024, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) delivered an overall gain of more than 5,500,000%, or a compound annual gain of nearly 20%. By comparison, the S&P 500, the main benchmark for U.S. stocks, gained 39,000% and 10%, respectively.

Doubling the performance of the broader market over a six-decade span is an investing feat that may never be repeated. And yet, Berkshire stock still trailed the S&P 500 in 20 of those years, once by as much as 40 percentage points.

Needless to say, most professionals come nowhere close to Buffett's run. Actively managed mutual funds have a poor track record when it comes to beating their benchmarks. Over the past 20 years, 93% of U.S. large-cap stock funds lagged the performance of the S&P 500, according to S&P Global.

There are a lot of reasons that most portfolio managers can't beat the market, but perhaps the most important is that most stocks can't beat the market.

Between 1990 and 2020, more than 55% of all U.S. stocks underperformed risk-free, one-month U.S. Treasury bills, according to Hendrik Bessembinder, professor of finance at Arizona State University's W.P. Carey School of Business. These stocks didn't just lag the S&P 500; they failed to beat cash.

Even more distressing, the entirety of the $76 trillion in net global stock market wealth created over that three-decade period was generated solely by the top-performing 2.4% of stocks.

As Vanguard founder Jack Bogle liked to say: "Don't look for the needle in the haystack. Just buy the haystack!"

It took a while for the investing masses to embrace Bogle's advice, but passive investing finally came into its own. In 2006, S&P 500 ETFs collectively held about $80 billion in assets under management. Today, that figure stands at about $2.7 trillion.

Thanks to their low fees — and a remarkably resilient secular bull market — investors who've settled for "merely" market-matching returns have had a strong run these past 20 years.

The bottom line on S&P 500 ETFs?

Although the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) is the largest S&P 500 ETF by assets under management, it didn't begin trading until 2010. Therefore, we're going to go with the granddaddy of them all — the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) — to see what broad exposure to U.S. equities has done for buy-and-hold types these past two decades.

Have a look at the above chart and you'll see that if you'd put $1,000 into the SPY 20 years ago, it would today be worth more than $8,500. That's good for an annualized return of 11.2%. (The S&P 500's total return — price change plus reinvested dividends — came to 11.3% over the same span. S&P 500 ETFs trail their benchmark because of fees and cash drag from unpaid dividends.)

Since 1928, the market's rolling 20-year compounded annual returns have been as high as 17.7% (1980-1999) and as low as 2.6% (1929-1948), according to Nicholas Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research.

"The fate of the next 20 years for the S&P 500 is largely reliant on the development of artificial intelligence and whatever innovations come after it, and the ability for U.S. companies to generate substantial profit from these technologies," he notes. "We remain optimistic and are long-term bulls on U.S. large-cap stocks."

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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.

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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.

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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.

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"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."

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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.

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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.

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Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL) will replace Verizon Communications (VZ) in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) at the opening of trading on Monday, June 29, making the 30-stock bastion of blue chip companies increasingly exposed to all things digital.

Alphabet is best known to consumers as the operator of Google and YouTube, but as S&P Global notes, GOOGL's diversified portfolio spans advertising, cloud infrastructure, artificial intelligence, hardware, self-driving cars and healthcare technology.

"Adding Alphabet will broaden and strengthen the DJIA's exposure to these dynamic areas of the U.S. economy," S&P Global said in a press release. "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 move refers to Alphabet's Class A shares. The Class C shares (GOOG) will not be in the Dow.

Telecom giant Verizon, which has been in the Dow since 1984, sounds like a pretty poky business by comparison. Apple (AAPL) replaced AT&T (T) in the Dow in 2015. You might notice a pattern here.

S&P Global notes that Verizon represents only one-half of one percentage point of the DJIA due to its low share price. The Dow is a price-weighted index, and "persistently lower-priced stocks have an immaterial impact on the index," S&P Global said.

As much interest as such events generate, being tapped for the Dow is more symbolic than material. The S&P 500 is the main benchmark for U.S. equity performance. That's why the total amount of money passively tracking the index comes to around $12 trillion.

For example, the largest exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the world, the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO), has more than $1.7 trillion in assets under management alone. A comparable product for the DJIA, the State Street SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (DIA), holds just $43 billion in assets under management.

Lastly, the Dow is weighted by price rather than by market cap. Although GOOGL has an outsize influence on the movements of cap-weighted benchmarks, such as the S&P 500, Nasdaq Composite and Nasdaq-100, at current prices, GOOGL will be as material to the DJIA as, roughly, Sherwin-Williams (SHW).

Nevertheless, the blue-chip average will now include many of the biggest names among tech and communication services stocks: Apple, Amazon.com (AMZN), Nvidia (NVDA) and Microsoft (MSFT), as well as Salesforce (CRM), Cisco Systems (CSCO) and International Business Machines (IBM).

Is GOOGL stock a Buy?

GOOGL joining the Dow is not in and of itself a reason to buy the Magnificent 7 stock. Nothing about its fundamentals has changed. While shares are currently in a 15% drawdown from their May peak, Wall Street remains bullish.

Of the 63 analysts covering GOOGL surveyed by S&P Global Market Intelligence, 42 rate it at Strong Buy, 14 say Buy and seven call it a Hold. That works out to a consensus recommendation of Strong Buy.

The Street's investment case for GOOGL comes down to AI. (Duh.)

"Alphabet remains, at a minimum, competitive, if not a leader, in the development of generative AI, the rapidly developing and perhaps disruptive new computing paradigm," writes Argus Research analyst Joseph Bonner, who rates shares at Buy. "We continue to like Alphabet's underlying businesses and believe that GOOGL shares are attractively valued given the company's growth runway."

The bottom line: If you liked GOOGL before its accession to the bluest of blue-chip clubs, there's no reason to change your mind. But don't buy it just because it's a better fit for the Dow Industrials than Verizon.

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Employees at companies that offer equity compensation have the opportunity to grow significant wealth, but it also comes with considerable risk.

Having too much of your net worth tied up in a single company makes you vulnerable to volatility and both short- and long-term losses, depending on the firm's success.

I've seen many employees with concentrated stock positions at tech companies and in other industries who feel conflicted about selling their shares. They may have an emotional attachment to the company or even feel disloyal selling off their shares.

Not to mention that selling all your shares at once can leave you with a large tax bill.

With a thoughtful approach, investors may be able to address the risks associated with a concentrated stock position over time, seek tax efficiency, and remain invested in their company and industry while managing potential downside exposure.

Stock concentration isn't always bad, but it needs a plan

Having a concentrated stock position isn't inherently bad. For many clients, that stock concentration is exactly how they built their wealth in the first place. The goal is simply to make sure your exposure is intentional and appropriate for your situation.

There's no set rule of thumb for how much of your portfolio your company stock should make up. I generally prefer people to keep their single stock concentration to less than 40% of their portfolio, but many advisers take an even more conservative approach, recommending closer to 10% or 20%. The younger you are, the higher percentage of your portfolio it can make up.

It also depends on your other assets. If you have substantial liquid assets, that 40% may be appropriate. But if you have real estate and other illiquid assets, a lower percentage is likely better.

Here are five strategies to manage your concentrated stock position:

1. Understand what you're working with

Stock compensation comes in several forms, including incentive stock options (ISOs), non-qualified stock options (NQSOs) and restricted stock units (RSUs). Each type comes with a different tax treatment, which affects your strategy.

Before you plan your next steps, you need a clear understanding of what you own, when it vests and how you'll be taxed on it.

2. If your company is still private, build your tax-loss bucket now

If your company is heading toward an IPO, you could have several years to start preparing for the large tax bill. Start creating a tax loss bucket in advance.

You can start harvesting your tax losses by selling losing positions in your investment account, capturing those losses, and reinvesting in a comparable security.

You'll slowly build up a reserve of losses you can use to offset the gains you'll earn when you eventually sell your IPO shares.

High earners with sufficient investable assets can also explore specialized investment strategies, such as direct indexing vehicles, to give you more control and help you create tax losses to offset your future gains.

3. You don't have to unwind everything at once

Many employees take one of two extremes when their company IPOs: They either sell everything right away, or they don't sell anything at all. Neither is necessarily the right option.

First, you'll typically be subject to some sort of lockup period, usually 180 days, during which you won't be allowed to sell any of your shares. But you can still use this time to prepare.

Once the lockup period ends, consider a staged selling strategy rather than selling everything all at once. You can spread your sales across multiple tax years to lower your tax bill, reduce the impact of net investment income taxes and, ideally, avoid bumping yourself into the next tax bracket.

By staging your selling over several years, you can significantly lower your tax burden and remove some of the emotional pressure that comes with trying to perfectly time your sale.

4. Consider an exchange fund for long-held stock positions

If you have a highly appreciated stock position worth at least $500,000 to $1 million, an exchange fund can help you diversify it without a large tax consequence. You exchange your concentrated stock position for a private diversified portfolio of securities contributed by other investors.

This strategy isn't appropriate for everyone, as it requires a large investment and a seven-year holding period before you can exit the fund with your holdings — an earlier exit puts you at risk of financial penalties and taxes.

However, if you're a candidate for this strategy, it can be a powerful tool to save a significant amount in taxes.

5. You can diversify without abandoning your industry

A common sentiment among employees with highly concentrated stock positions, especially in the tech industry, is a desire to remain heavily invested in the sector.

Depending on your risk tolerance, you don't have to abandon your tech holdings, but instead spread them out across more companies. You can preserve the potential upside without a single bad earnings report causing a major hit to your net worth.

The bottom line: There's no one-size-fits-all plan, but early planning is key

Stock concentration is common among employees at post-IPO firms or companies that offer equity compensation packages.

There's no one right strategy to address this situation, as it depends on your age, liquidity, risk tolerance and other key factors.

If your company is still pre-IPO, time is on your side, as you have plenty of time to plan your strategy. And if you work for a public company, you have options to exit your concentrated position with less of a tax impact.

Concentrated stock can create life-changing wealth; it's just important to have the right strategy in place to manage it.

Content in this material is for general information only and not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. #2026-12426

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This article was written by and presents the views of our contributing adviser, not the Kiplinger editorial staff. You can check adviser records with the SEC or with FINRA.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Here at Kiplinger, we want to ensure that you have the best financial advice at your fingertips — and that you can understand the specialized terminology often used for complex topics such as investing.

That's why we put together this short quiz to test your knowledge on a handful of key investing terms. Knowing what these words and phrases mean will help you stay a step ahead in those big decisions you have to make about what's in your portfolio and why.

And don't worry if you miss an answer or two. You can follow the links below the quiz to review these investing terms and more.

More on investing from the Kiplinger team:

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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."

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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."

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If you have a modest nest egg, you might want to chase cheap listings so you can buy shares in larger lots. Buying stocks priced below $20 can be tempting.

But "dirt cheap" doesn’t always mean "good value." In fact, many low-priced stocks trade where they trade for legitimate reasons, among them weak earnings, heavy debt and/or broken business models that may never recover.

Still, if price alone isn't a sign of a good stock, then neither should price alone signal a bad stock. The important thing is to focus on fundamentals.

Solid companies with stocks that trade around $20 per share can generate reliable cash flows based on proven business models. Indeed, these are real reasons to invest, beyond price.

Our top picks for stocks priced under $20 per share are established are established companies with respected brands. They have market values greater than $1 billion. And their business models support stable dividends.

Ford Motor

• Sector: Consumer discretionary
• Market value: $59.6 billion
• Dividend yield: 4.3%

Ford Motor (F) is one of the oldest and most recognizable automakers in America, with a history stretching back more than a century.

Ford has invested heavily in electric vehicles and is selling almost 100,000 units annually. But business is still driven by traditional gasoline-powered models such as Ford's F-Series pickup truck, the best-selling vehicle in the U.S. regardless of powertrain.

While not immune to volatility, the consumer discretionary stock offers long-term exposure to onshore manufacturing and transportation trends that have wide support by consumers and policymakers alike.

With a generous dividend of more than 4%, there are multiple reasons to stay patient and buy and hold this low-priced stock for its long-term potential.

Huntington Bancshares

• Sector: Financials
• Market value: $34.6 billion
• Dividend yield: 3.7%

Huntington Bancshares (HBAN) is an Ohio-based regional bank that serves consumers, small businesses and commercial clients across the Midwest.

The company offers a wide range of services, including checking and savings accounts, mortgages, auto loans, credit cards and wealth management, as well as business lending.

Huntington is not exposed to global risks like Wall Street megabanks with proprietary trading desks. Like most regional banks, it generates revenue by making practical loans to households and businesses.

This is no small-fry financial stock, however, with current assets of nearly $300 billion. That's enough scale to support a reliable dividend and make HBAN a top stock trading below $20.

Newell Brands

• Sector: Consumer staples
• Market value: $2.1 billion
• Dividend yield: 5.7%

Newell Brands (NWL), a small-cap stock, isn't the most recognizable name on our list. But its products–such as Rubbermaid storage containers, Sharpie markers, Coleman camping gear, Yankee Candle scented accessories, Paper Mate pens and Graco baby gear–are very well known to consumers.

Indeed, a diversified product line is Newell's biggest strength, as it generates revenue from a collection of everyday goods rather than resting on a one-dimensional business model.

Multiple moving parts with varying exposures to the consumer economy can make it hard for the company to deliver breakneck growth.

But Newell offers a generous dividend yield, and management has spent recent years streamlining operations and reducing debt to provide long-term stability.

Nokia

• Sector: Information technology
• Market value: $80.7 billion
• Dividend yield: 1.4%

Nokia (NOK) is best known for its former dominance in mobile phones.

Today, the tech stock provides the equipment supporting fiber-optic and cloud-computing networks, as well as hardware essential for 5G infrastructure.

With a customer base that includes telecom providers, governments and large enterprises, Nokia has deep relationships with clients and expertise that's hard to match.

As demand for faster and more reliable data networks continues to grow, this telecom infrastructure company will only be more important in the years ahead. Stability makes NOK a solid low-priced stock.

Ambev

• Sector: Consumer staples
• Market value: $48.9 billion
• Dividend yield: 1.2%

Ambev (ABEV) lacks name recognition in the U.S. But the large-cap stock is one of the biggest beverage companies in Latin America. Ambev is also a majority-owned subsidiary of global brewing giant Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD).

Ambev produces and distributes beer, but it's also licensed to make soft drinks such as Gatorade, Lipton iced tea and other products owned by PepsiCo (PEP).

Legacy soda and beer brands face headwinds in the U.S. because of changing consumer tastes. But growth is strong south of the border.

The dividend has grown more than 40% over the last five years, and Ambev is well-positioned to continue to support a generous yield.

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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."

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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."

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If you're in the home stretch of saving for retirement, you'll generally hear that your shift into more stable assets like bonds should be gradual, and that you should continue to lean on stocks for the strong returns they've historically been known to deliver. In fact, if you're about a decade away from retirement, you may be inclined to keep a good chunk of your money in a broad mix of stocks to hit your target savings number and wrap up your career with a clear head.

But investors hoping for an upcoming period of strong returns may be in for disappointment. Some experts have been sounding the alarm that the stock market is in for a lost decade — meaning a decade of flat or considerably lower-than-average returns.

If you're banking on stock market growth to get to your retirement finish line, that's clearly bad news. Let's explore why the fear of a lost decade exists and whether you should or shouldn't believe the hype.

Stock values are super high

In late 2024, Goldman Sachs estimated that over the following 10 years, the S&P 500 would deliver an annualized nominal total return of 3%. When adjusted for inflation, that 3% drops to 1% in real terms.

Since then, experts have been on high alert for a decade of stagnant returns. And recent CAPE ratio values do paint a somewhat alarming picture.

The cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings (CAPE) ratio, also known as the Shiller P/E ratio, measures the value of the S&P 500 relative to the average of the previous 10 years of reported earnings, with those earnings adjusted for inflation. In contrast to the traditional P/E ratio, which relies on a single year of earnings, the CAPE ratio reduces the impact of short-term fluctuations, providing investors with a more stable and reliable view of the market.

In a nutshell, a higher CAPE ratio suggests the market is overvalued. A lower CAPE ratio suggests there's room for growth.

As of this writing, the CAPE ratio sits at roughly 42. The last time it rose that high was in the late 1990s, ahead of the dotcom peak.

Many investors remember the stock market imploding in 2000. But what's equally significant is that, following that crash, investors experienced a "lost decade" during which the S&P 500 produced little to no net growth. And given where the CAPE ratio is today, there's fear of a repeat.

Some of the fear may be unfounded

The idea of seeing little or no growth in your retirement portfolio can be scary. But before you panic, it's important to dig deeper.

Matthew Dicken, founder and CEO of Strategic Wealth Designers, makes the important point that concerns about high market valuations aren't exactly new, yet the market has continued to gain value.

"High valuations increase risk and may lower future returns, but they don't tell us when markets will reprice," he says.

Dicken also points out, "Markets rarely move in a straight line… A decade that ultimately produces average or below-average returns can still include periods of significant gains, corrections, and recoveries."

Frank Davis, President at New Era Financial, points out that while the CAPE ratio has historically been a useful indicator of future long-term returns, today's market is different from the one investors experienced in 2000.

"Many of the companies driving today's market gains are highly profitable businesses with strong balance sheets, substantial cash flow, and competitive positions, unlike the technology companies of the dotcom era, which were overhyped on the speculative immediate need," he explains.

Think back to the year 2000, when Pets.com became the symbol for burning millions on marketing without a clear path to profitability. The company went from a multi-million dollar Super Bowl ad to liquidation in under a year.

"Today's market leaders are generating real earnings and returning capital to shareholders," Davis continues, making them far less speculative than the internet darlings of the late 1990s.

What to do if retirement is 10 years out

A potentially overvalued stock market doesn't necessarily change the game plan for retirement savers who are only a few years or even a decade or so into their investing journeys. If you're roughly 10 years away from retirement, it's a different story.

But that doesn't mean you should resign yourself to a decade of absent returns or, worse yet, dump your stocks in a panic.

"The danger is that investors hear 'lost decade' and make drastic allocation changes that end up causing more harm than the risk they're trying to avoid," Dicken says. "No one has a crystal ball that works, so investors should focus on being properly diversified."

Davis agrees.

"Investors should not ignore today’s current valuation concerns," he says. "Too often, savers who are within 10 years of retirement lack diversification and are taking more sector risk than they should. The greatest risk may not be a major market crash, but rather a prolonged period of mediocre returns after a correction in one sector."

Dicken recommends constructing a portfolio that goes beyond stocks and bonds across various market sectors.

"Proper diversification includes other assets such as alternatives like private equity and private credit, annuities, precious metals, cash, and sometimes real estate," he says.

Dicken also says investors who are about a decade out from retirement may benefit from exposure to areas of the market that are trading at more reasonable valuations, including international stocks.

A holistic approach is best

If you're banking on your stock portfolio to deliver returns that mimic the past decade, it may be time to reset some expectations, Dicken says.

"Retirement plans built on 10% annual returns may need to be stress-tested using more conservative assumptions," he insists.

That said, Dicken thinks the best approach for the next 10 years isn't to predict market performance so much as to control the variables you can.

"That includes increasing savings rates, reducing unnecessary debt, maintaining adequate cash reserves, and ensuring [your] portfolio diversification extends beyond a handful of stocks and bonds," he explains.

Dicken also highlights the importance of preparing for an early market crash, known as the sequence of returns risk.

"A major downturn in the years immediately before or after retirement can have an outsized impact on portfolio longevity," he explains. "That's why investors should gradually build a portfolio designed not just for growth, but also for resilience."

Davis agrees, and thinks it's wise to maintain a reserve of conservative assets that could help reduce the impact of poor market performance.

Don't assume all is lost

All told, Davis says, there's no reason to assume the next 10 years will be a wash for stock market investors. Though history suggests that periods of lower returns are a normal part of the investment cycle, particularly when starting valuations are overly high, that doesn't mean the market is guaranteed to grossly underperform.

That said, Davis insists that successful retirement plans are not built on forecasts.

"Rather than attempting to predict the market's next big win, retirement savers are often better served by building a financial plan capable of weathering both strong and weak market environments," he says.

Read More

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The Nasdaq Stock Market might be America’s second-largest stock exchange, behind only the 234-year-old New York Stock Exchange. But it's increasingly becoming the exchange of choice for Wall Street's best stocks.

Just take a quick glance at the S&P 500. The eight largest holdings are listed on the Nasdaq. Among them are Nvidia (NVDA), Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT), a murderer's row of multitrillion-dollar firms and some of the market's top-rated equities.

In fact, if you homed in on the best Nasdaq stocks at any given moment, you'd be looking at companies in some pretty rarified air. And you'd probably also be a little surprised.

Although some of the Nasdaq's best stocks are the mega caps that have carried the broader market for some time, others are lesser-known names that attract fewer headlines but are nonetheless swarming with bulls.

Nasdaq ascendant

Another massive initial public offering (IPO), another feather in the cap for the Nasdaq.

Recent years have seen it capture some of the biggest IPOs of all time, including Rivian Automotive (RIVN), Cerebras Systems (CBRS) and Arm Holdings (ARM).

In June, it landed the greatest lunker of them all: SpaceX (SPCX). At $75 billion raised, the SpaceX IPO was the largest offering ever.

And it's not just new companies adding to the Nasdaq's appeal. Many of the world’s largest stocks are already aligned with the stock exchange.

The Nasdaq has managed to lure numerous mega-cap NYSE listings, including tech-related names such as Palantir Technologies (PLTR) and DoorDash (DASH) and also consumer staples stocks like Walmart (WMT), Kimberly-Clark (KMB) and Campbell Soup (CPB).

In other words, while the Nasdaq is still heavily concentrated in tech stocks, tech-adjacent companies and biotechnology names, the exchange has more breadth than you might appreciate.

How I picked the best Nasdaq stocks

First things first, I needed to whittle the Nasdaq's 4,000-plus equities to a more digestible universe.

To do that, I screened for stocks with the following characteristics.

• Trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market, Nasdaq Global Market or Nasdaq Capital Market. These are three different tiers of the Nasdaq Stock Market covering large-cap stocks, mid-cap stocks and small-cap stocks, respectively.
• Have a market cap of at least $250 million. While I'm including large-, mid- and small-caps, I'm excluding micro- and nano-caps.
• Are incorporated in the United States. This is more for simplicity's sake—companies that report in different currencies can provide false positives in certain screens.
• Meet a few basic financial-quality criteria. We include companies that grew earnings last year, are expected to grow earnings at least 5% annually on average over the next three to five years and have a debt-to-equity ratio of less than 1.5.
• Have a consensus Buy rating. All of the stocks have an average broker recommendation of 2.5 or lower within the ratings scale established by S&P Global Market Intelligence.e. Anything with a score of 2.5 or lower is considered a Buy.
• Have at least 10 covering analysts. This ensures there's plenty of information and analysis available for these companies, and that consensus earnings estimates and ratings aren't skewed by one or two professionals.

From there, I identified the five highest-rated stocks across five different sectors. I didn't sacrifice quality to do so, either.

All five of the best Nasdaq stocks we talk about enjoy consensus "Strong Buy" ratings and fall within the 20 best-rated stocks on the entire exchange.

Data is as of June 14.

Amazon.com

• Sector: Consumer discretionary
• Market value: $2.6 trillion
• Dividend yield: N/A
• Consensus rating: 1.34 (Strong Buy)

Amazon.com (AMZN) is categorized as a consumer discretionary stock, but it's easily the most diversified company on this list, with hands in several sectors.

Amazon's businesses include its sprawling e-commerce empire, Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing, Amazon Prime Video and Amazon Music streaming programming, Amazon Pharmacy, Kindle tablets, Echo smart speakers, Whole Foods grocery stores, Ring home security, Amazon MGM Studios production and distribution and so, so much more.

"We believe that AMZN merits a premium … given the company's growth in high-end offerings such as Prime and Prime Video; superior growth in AWS, digital advertising, and subscription services; and unmatched volume and vendor leverage,” says Argus Research analyst Jim Kelleher, who has a Buy rating on the stock.

Amazon is also getting involved with artificial intelligence (AI) through its AWS unit. Its Bedrock service, for instance, helps developers build generative AI applications.

As Wedbush analyst Dan Ives notes, Amazon's annual recurring revenue from AI has grown by approximately 260 times to more than $15 billion since Bedrock's launch.

"While AWS AI continues to see incremental demand," Ives writes, "customers are also leveraging AMZN's non-AI services for multiple capabilities including compute, storage, databases, analytics, security amongst others with AWS being named a leader across all cohorts."

Those are merely two of the 63 Buy calls on Amazon's stock, making it one of the largest bull camps on Wall Street. The only remaining calls are a quartet of Holds; no one, at least at the moment, is willing to call AMZN a Sell.

And despite Amazon's enormous size, at well more than $2 trillion in market cap, the pros still see the company generating robust average annual earnings growth of more than 20% over the next three to five years.

Meta Platforms

• Sector: Communication services
• Market value: $1.4 trillion
• Dividend yield: 0.4%
• Consensus rating: 1.31 (Strong Buy)

Meta Platforms (META) is the social media company, responsible for Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads. At the end of 2025, the company boasted 3.58 billion "daily average people" across its family of apps.

Meta, like Amazon, is one of the most-covered stocks on the planet, and those analysts are similarly bullish: Fifty-eight Buys dramatically outweigh a mere six Holds and no Sells. Projected long-term earnings growth of more than 20% a year backs those optimistic calls.

Noting that Meta has relied on ads to drive a compound annual growth rate for revenue of approximately 45% over the last 15 years, Truist analyst Youssef Squali emphasizes management's focus on building additional revenue sources so it can grow faster for longer. "These additional revenue sources are also meant to support the company's massive capex investment in pursuit of AI superintelligence," Squali observes.

But the communication services stock is down by double digits so far in 2026, most recently slipping on news that it also might be considering a multibillion-dollar sale of new shares to help finance those AI ambitions.

Indeed, META might represent the biggest question mark among the Nasdaq's best stocks right now. Argus Research analyst Joseph Bonner, for instance, has a Buy rating on the stock, but he also shares numerous reasons for caution.

"The year 2026 may be a make-or-break time for Meta's GenAI ambitions," he says. "The company has spent for talent, and the commitment of CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the company as a whole is palpable. However, Meta has yet to deliver a truly breakthrough model and will probably need to do something at least close to a breakthrough this year to maintain credibility in the AI space."

Allegro MicroSystems

• Sector: Information technology
• Market value: $9.3 billion
• Dividend yield: N/A
• Consensus rating: 1.25 (Strong Buy)

The Nasdaq's best-rated names are expectedly thick in technology stocks broadly and semiconductor stocks specifically–many of them bigger, more broadly known and better-covered than the top-rated stock in the space.

Allegro MicroSystems (ALGM) is a chipmaker that specializes in sensing, motion control and power management in electromechanical and power conversion systems. And it's increasingly focusing its efforts around four growth areas: advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), robotics, electrification and industrial datacenters.

"The March-quarter print and June guide drive little change to numbers but reinforced the datacenter business as the most compelling growth pillar in the story," says Jefferies analyst Blayne Curtis. "The segment reached a record ~14% of total company revenue in Q4 and is tracking to grow 20%+ sequentially again in the June quarter to 16%-17% of total company sales, representing one of the highest relative exposures of Analog companies in our coverage."

Curtis also cites "one of the highest exposures to ADAS and xEV" in his bull thesis, and notes that while the automotive and industrial segments might have a little more weakness ahead, the company should "return to a [double-digit] revenue growth rate with increasing margins, given improving mix and efficiencies."

UBS's Timothy Arcuri says that after an in-line first-quarter report he still sees strong growth prospects and looks for fiscal 2027 and 2028 revenue growth in the mid-20s.

Jefferies and UBS aren't alone in their upbeat views. All 12 of ALGM's covering analysts call the stock a Buy, expecting the company to deliver 29% average annual bottom-line growth over the next three to five years.

Remitly Global

• Sector: Financials*
• Market value: $4.0 billion
• Dividend yield: N/A
• Consensus rating: 1.20 (Strong Buy)

Remitly Global (RELY) is an international money transfer company that provides digital financial services in the U.S. and roughly 170 other countries. The financial stock went public in September 2021, and it's spent the past couple of years expanding its offerings.

In 2025, it launched the Remitly One membership plan providing access to a host of products, including Remitly Flex, a no-interest "send now pay later" cash-advance product allowing for remittances up to $250; Remitly Wallet, a store-of-value product; Remitly Card, a digital debit card; and cash-back rewards. And it’s expected to launch a credit-building line of credit, Remitly Credit, this year.

RELY has been focused on expanding existing customer segments, too. June 2025 also saw the launch of Remitly for Business, a platform enabling businesses to pay employees, vendors and invoices that is predominantly focused on micro-businesses.

"Remitly has a small share of a massive, highly fragmented market; there are over 300 million immigrants and the global consumer-to-consumer cross-border payments market exceeds $2 trillion annually,” say William Blair analysts Cristopher Kennedy and Marc Feldman. "Market-share gains should be driven by expanding its presence into new geographic markets and by adding new users."

Remitly's stock has already climbed nearly 40% in 2026. However, Wall Street remains extremely bullish on the name, in part because of its potential long-term earnings growth, which analysts peg at 64% annually on average. All 10 covering analysts say RELY is a Buy, putting it among the Nasdaq's best stocks right now.

* The Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS), which publishes S&P Dow Jones Indices like the S&P SmallCap 600, classifies Remitly as a financial company. However, other data providers, such as Morningstar, classify it as a technology firm.

BrightSpring Health Services

• Sector: Healthcare
• Market value: $12.4 billion
• Dividend yield: N/A
• Consensus rating: 1.12 (Strong Buy)

The Nasdaq is known for hosting highflying biotech stocks whose novel treatments can trigger massive share spikes. However, the exchange's top-rated healthcare stock, while highflying, has nothing to do with developing drugs in a lab.

BrightSpring Health Services (BTSG) is a home- and community-based healthcare services company. Its Pharmacy Solutions platform includes pharmaceutical care to long-term care and assisted living facilities, at-home pharmaceutical care to oncology patients and specialty infusion services.

Its Provider Services arm offers home health care, hospice services, behavioral health, neuro-rehabilitation, a variety of personal care services, and even family and youth services such as counseling and foster care.

Wall Street believes its adjusted bottom line will jump by 68% this year, and that long-term earnings growth will come in around 46% annually on average. A team of Morgan Stanley analysts says growth is being driven by "a consistent playbook—strong volume underpinned by execution and quality, efficiency gains from scale and disciplined M&A," and management is applying it in large, underserved markets.

"Longer term," they write, "BTSG sees meaningful runway across a diversified set of end markets—including Oncology, Infusion, Behavioral and Home & Community—while maintaining a dual focus on driving core growth within each segment and increasingly integrating capabilities (e.g., VBC, tech-enabled solutions) to unlock incremental value across the platform."

Valuation has become a concern thanks to shares’ 70% year-to-date ascent, but the pros remain undeterred. All 17 covering analysts call BrightSpring a Buy.

"Shares trade at about 15.5 times our 2027 adjusted EBITDA estimate, toward the high end of healthcare services peers," William Blair's Jared Haase and Ryan Daniels wrote on June 3. "We believe the stock still presents an attractive risk/reward equation based on the growth momentum across the business and potential for further upside revisions to estimates."

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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."

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.)

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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.

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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.

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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."

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The first half of 2026 will be a tough act to follow. In our 2026 full-year outlook, we were bullish on stocks, but we cautioned investors to dial back risk in their portfolios.

Right on cue, the broad market peaked on January 27, then sank more than 9%, a whisker below the 10% threshold that marks an official correction. But it’s the about-face from the market’s low at the end of March that has been truly stunning, with the S&P 500 Index taking just 11 trading days to set a new high — and subsequently notching six more by April 30, the date for prices, returns and other data in this story.

For context, consider that a pullback of that magnitude takes an average of 45 days to break even, according to financial research firm CFRA. "It’s funny," says Dan Phillips, chief investment officer at BMO Wealth Management. "People always say markets go down in an elevator [that is, quickly] and up on an escalator [more gradually]. This market is the exact reverse."

Another market adage says bull markets climb a wall of worry (and bear markets slide down a river of hope, goes the second part). This bull has plenty of worries to fuel its climb: Start with a war with Iran and an accompanying oil shock lifting Brent crude from about $71 a barrel to $114 recently, and gas prices in the U.S. from an average $2.98 a gallon to $4.30.

That in turn ignites fears of sticky inflation and other knock-on economic effects, including reduced spending by increasingly strapped consumers. Plus, unresolved worries from earlier this year linger, including the potential for artificial intelligence to upend the software industry and cut a wide swath through white-collar jobs, and whether the opaque private lending market is about to implode.

And yet, the bull marches on. The second half of the year presents a few sizable hurdles, including a changing of the guard at the Federal Reserve, the midterm elections and a historically weak period for stocks.

But investors who look beyond some choppy, volatile months and focus instead on the strong underpinnings of stellar corporate earnings and a resilient U.S. economy should be rewarded by the end of this year and into 2027, say the majority of market experts we’ve spoken to.

In our January outlook, we thought 7,500 was a realistic level for the S&P 500 at year-end. The median brokerage target is now a bit higher, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, at a touch over 7,600. Let’s call it a roughly 5% price gain from the April 30 close of 7,209, or more than a 10% gain from the start of 2026.

Add in a dividend yield of just over 1.3%, and a total return approaching 12% for 2026 appears within reach.

Embrace uncertainty

You hear it all the time, says Andrew Slimmon, senior portfolio manager at Morgan Stanley Investment Management: Expect volatility; there’s a lot of uncertainty.

"When do you ever hear, ‘It’s full of certainty out there’? Markets do better when there are high levels of uncertainty," he says. "Embrace the uncertainty!" Investors seem to have heeded his advice, taking the war, rising inflation and the potential downsides of AI in stride.

In fact, given the strength of the spring snapback, Slimmon is a bit worried that investors are on their way from complacent to euphoric, which is a bad sign for bull markets. "I think it would be healthy to have a new worry — the more they crop up, the more it pulls down speculation and extends the life span of the bull."

For now, despite recurring threats of a stalemate in the Iran war, economists and investors continue to look past it, expecting an imminent de-escalation, which would imply a relatively limited impact on the U.S. economy.

For example, of the economists surveyed in April by Blue Chip Economic Indicators, a monthly survey of economic forecasts, 87% recently lowered their 2026 outlook because of the surge in oil prices, with the April consensus forecast for overall gross domestic product (GDP) growth in 2026 coming in at 2.2%, down from expectations of 2.5% growth in March.

But most of the slowdown is slated to occur in the second and third quarters, and the economy could be largely back on track in the fourth quarter, with the economists expecting a growth rate of 2.0% by then. Kiplinger’s outlook is for 2.1% GDP growth for the year, the same as in 2025.

All eyes, of course, are on the price of oil, the locus of the economic and financial cost of the war. Assuming exports from the Gulf normalize in the next couple of months, commodity analysts at Goldman Sachs see Brent crude at $90 a barrel by the fourth quarter, and U.S.-based West Texas Intermediate oil at $83 a barrel.

"Full normalization of energy costs could take well into 2027 because of extensive damage to energy infrastructure in the Middle East," says Kiplinger economist David Payne.

Inflation expectations have increased apace. In March, the government's inflation report showed that consumer prices rose 0.9% month over month, led by a 10.9% increase in energy costs, including a 21.2% jump in gasoline — the largest monthly increase since the series was first published in 1967.

That pushed the year-over-year increase in inflation to 3.3%, up from 2.4% in February. Kiplinger expects an annual inflation rate of 3.0% at the end of 2026 — 4.0% if oil prices stay where they are.

Not your father's oil shock

Why then, given the havoc wreaked in the oil patch, has this market remained so resilient? "We’ve been here before," says BMO’s Phillips, "and the economy has managed through it." Oil hovered in the $100-per-barrel range for months following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he notes, and from roughly 2011 to 2015, oil prices similar to today’s "were the norm, and we did just fine," he adds.

It’s not that surprising, then, that the stock market tends to shake off oil crises, with the S&P 500 returning an average 12% in the 12 months after an energy shock, going back to 1990 (see the table on the facing page).

Structural changes in the U.S. economy have helped, notes Jeff Schulze, head of economic and market strategy at ClearBridge Investments. First, the U.S. is far more energy independent, having become a net producer of energy rather than a net consumer.

Consumers, meanwhile, are less exposed to the cost of energy goods and services, which represented 3.9% of consumption in March, says Schulze, not far off record lows. "The overall wallet of consumers has gotten bigger while the share spent on energy has gotten smaller," he says.

And we’re far more energy-efficient. Compare the current economy to the one nearly two decades ago, when West Texas Intermediate crude first neared $100 per barrel — equivalent to more than $150 in today’s dollars. Since 2007, the amount of economic output per barrel of oil has increased tremendously, says Phillips.

Back then, we got about $8 to $10 of economic output for each dollar of oil. Today, we get almost $30. Look at it this way, he says: "In 2007, for every dollar of oil you could get a Value Meal at McDonald’s. Today, you could go to a pretty nice restaurant and get yourself a steak."

It’s also fortuitous that tax refunds are rolling out as gas prices have started to soar. By Phillips’s calculations, drivers will end up having paid $25 billion more at the pump in March and April combined. That could increase if gas prices continue to climb and as peak-driving season arrives.

But an expected $100 billion increase in tax refunds this year compared with last year provides an ample cushion. "With near-full employment and tax refunds, we believe the U.S. economy can see its way through recently elevated oil prices," he says.

A more important question is whether the Federal Reserve can see its way through higher energy costs. After three back-to-back quarter-point cuts in the Fed’s benchmark target interest rate in late 2025, the Fed’s April meeting marked the third straight pause on rates, with the federal funds target range holding at 3.50% to 3.75%.

In his last press conference as chair, Jerome Powell said the Fed was moving closer to a neutral position on rates, although for now it retains a bias toward easing. (Powell also said he would stay on as a Fed governor, and he reiterated concerns about the potential for continued legal attacks on the central bank’s independence.)

Before the Iran war, markets were expecting at least two 0.25 percentage point cuts this year and saw a significant chance of a third. More recently, the majority of traders were looking for no cuts this year, according to the CME’s FedWatch tracker, with less than 13% expecting a quarter-point cut by year-end and nearly 9% expecting a quarter-point hike.

Shannon Saccocia, Chief Investment Officer–Wealth at investment management firm Neuberger, sees things differently. "The basis for a hike is difficult to find," says Saccocia, who still expects two quarter-point cuts this year.

Although the new Fed chair, Kevin Warsh, has pointed to AI-driven productivity gains as a potential source of disinflation, monetary policy "will more likely hinge on whether higher energy costs begin to feed into other components of the consumption basket, which could complicate the path toward further easing," says Jason Pride, chief investment strategist at investment management firm Glenmede.

Triple threat

The transition to a new Fed chair is one of a trio of challenges for the market that also include the run-up to midterm elections and a seasonally weak period for the market, says Philip Orlando, chief market strategist at investment firm Federated Hermes. This year marks only the seventh time in 90 years when the three have occurred together, and that could result in a rocky summer, says Orlando.

Start with the new Fed chair. Looking at market performance going back to when Eugene Black took the helm in 1933 to when Powell took over in 2018, the pattern is the same. After a bit of a honeymoon, the market stumbles some three to six months into a new chair’s tenure, with the maximum pullback for the S&P 500 in the first six months a median 10%.

"Historically, there’s volatility surrounding the Fed chair, and this year that volatility will be on steroids," Orlando says.

The second challenge is the midterm elections — the run-up to which is typically marked by a spike in volatility as political rhetoric and policy uncertainty intensifies, spooking investors.

Going back to 1945, average S&P 500 price returns for the second and third quarters of midterm-election years have been a negative 2.6% and 0.8%, respectively, with four of the five months from May through September showing losses, according to CFRA.

The good news is that the 12 months following midterms are usually rewarding, with stocks returning more than 15% on average, according to data going back to 1990 from investment management firm Capital Group.

If the House flips to majority Democratic but the Senate remains in Republican control — as many pundits expect — it should be fine for investors. That configuration under a Republican president has delivered an average annual return of 13.7% dating back to 1933, according to Orlando — the second-best average on record. (A Democratic House and Senate with a Republican president is the worst, returning just 4.9%, on average.)

Finally, you’ve probably heard the old Wall Street saw, "Sell in May and go away." It stems from a seasonal market malaise that typically dampens returns from May through October. Compare the 2.1% average return for those months (since 1945) with the average 6.7% delivered from November through April.

What should investors do with this forecast of a summer squall? "Play defense now," says Orlando, with bargain-priced small-company and international stocks, the latter with a focus on emerging markets. They are likely to be more resilient in a pullback, he says.

"Then look for an opportunity to put money to work in late summer or early fall in growth and tech names." Whatever you do, don’t give up on the bull. Federated’s 2026 year-end target for the S&P 500 is 7,500; for 2027, it’s 8,200.

"Suppose I’m right," says Orlando. "We hit an air pocket and the market drops 10%, then bottoms in October — you could be looking at a 25% increase through December 2027," he says.

Earnings to the rescue

Bulls like Orlando are betting that a phenomenally strong corporate earnings picture wins the day — and the year, and the year after that. And they’ve got good reason: The first quarter has been a blockbuster, and analysts are revising earnings estimates higher for the future.

As of the end of April, first-quarter earnings growth for companies in the S&P 500 was set to top 27% compared with the first quarter of 2025, according to earnings tracker FactSet. That would mark the sixth straight quarter of double-digit, year-over-year earnings growth if the number holds when all reports are in.

"What’s remarkable," says market strategist Ed Yardeni, of Yardeni Research, "is that industry analysts continue to raise their S&P 500 earnings-per-share growth rates for all four quarters of this year. The gains are all in the double digits."

Analysts are looking for average earnings per share of $331 this year for S&P 500 companies, compared with $271 in 2025, up more than 20%; they estimate earnings of $379 per share in 2027.

It’s no surprise energy companies are expected to see the highest earnings growth this year, up nearly 45%, followed by — again no surprise — technology stocks, up 39%. The sector expected to see the least growth is real estate, where earnings are forecast to increase just 5.0% in 2026. But the breadth of earnings growth is encouraging: The share of S&P companies with positive growth estimates for the 12 months ahead could reach 90% over the rest of the year, says Yardeni.

Another bullish fundamental: Net profit margins — the percentage of sales turned into profits after expenses — were tracking at an average 14.7% for the first quarter as of the end of April, the highest level since FactSet started logging the metric in 2009 and well above the high of 13.2% set in the fourth quarter of 2025.

And S&P companies are expected to spin even more revenues into gold as the year progresses, according to FactSet.

Where to invest now

The U.S. is the best house on the investment block for the back half of 2026, with the large-company, growth-oriented stocks that have powered much of the bull market back in favor after a several-month hiatus — and yes, that means technology and AI leaders.

That sounds like a bit of a shift away from a preference for the value-focused small-company and international stocks that many strategists recommended before the war, but the latter remain potent portfolio diversifiers and still offer attractive return potential, so a balanced approach is best.

Within tech, it’s important to be selective, as a wide dispersion of recent returns represents renewed bullishness about the continuation of massive AI-related corporate capital spending, as well as an increasing worry about AI’s existential threat to other parts of the sector.

For the year to date through late April, for example, semiconductor equipment makers were up 63%; IT consultants and software-application providers were down 28% and 24%, respectively.

Our favorite tech fund is T. Rowe Price Global Technology (PRGTX), a member of the Kiplinger 25, the list of our favorite no-load mutual funds. A good choice for exchange-traded fund investors is Kiplinger ETF 20 member State Street Technology Select Sector SPDR (XLK).

Arista Networks (ANET), a technology hardware and equipment company, makes a Goldman Sachs list of long-term growth stocks that have notched at least 10% revenue growth in each of the prior two years, and are expected to do so in the current and next two years.

Eaton (ETN) is on Goldman’s list of stocks likely to benefit from spending on AI and on buttressing power infrastructure.

Value-focused stocks are a good foil for the high-octane portion of your portfolio. Consider Dodge & Cox Stock (DODGX), a longtime Kip 25 constituent. The fund’s biggest sector holdings at last report are healthcare and financial services.

Be careful about running headlong into oil stocks. The sector is a hedge against continued political upheaval, and some strategists recommend it. But it also carries significant risk, according to analysts at CFRA. They downgraded the sector in April, despite expectations of oil prices averaging $100 a barrel in 2026.

"Beware of the sugar high," they caution, in a sector that appears overvalued currently and vulnerable to downward earnings revision in 2027, when CFRA sees lower oil prices.

Small-capitalization stocks have been on a tear, with the Russell 2000 small-stock index outpacing the S&P 500 over the past 12 months, for the year to date and since the market bottomed on March 30.

Small and midsize companies should benefit from moderating wage growth — a big line item for them — and will see other cost savings as AI becomes more broadly adopted across the economy, says Schulze, at ClearBridge.

Funds we like include Kip 25 members Oberweis Small-Cap Opportunities (OBSOX), a growth-oriented fund, and T. Rowe Price Small-Cap Value (PRSVX), which tilts toward bargain-priced fare.

Outside the U.S., strategists have largely soured on most developed markets, particularly Europe, where economic growth expectations are fading. "They’ve been hit harder by this war," says Keith Lerner, chief investment officer at Truist Wealth. "They’re not insulated from the energy part of it."

Japan remains intriguing, though, as it reaps the benefit of recent shareholder-friendly reforms. Fidelity Japan (FJPNX) ranks in the top 5% of its category so far this year through April. If you want to take currency swings out of the equation, consider the iShares Currency Hedged MSCI Japan ETF (HEWJ).

Emerging markets are the favored international play currently for many portfolio strategists. EM stocks were outperforming U.S. stocks on a one-year and year-to-date basis before the war, and since the war started have remained resilient, down just 0.3%, as measured by the MSCI Emerging Markets index.

We like Kip 25 fund Baron Emerging Markets (BEXFX) for active management; iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets (IEMG) is our low-cost, indexed ETF pick, with an expense ratio of just 0.09%.

Consider capitalizing on surprisingly good earnings with FullerThaler Behavioral Small-Cap Growth (FTXNX), available with no load or transaction fee at brokerage platforms including Schwab and Fidelity.

The fund looks for firms reporting large earnings surprises, seeking to profit from behavioral biases that can cause markets to under-react to positive new information. There should be plenty of fodder: FactSet reports that at the end of April, companies reporting earnings surprises were coming in an average 20.7% higher than what analysts expected — above the five- and 10-year averages of just over 7%.

Our advice for fixed-income investors at the moment is short — as in short term. Worries about stubborn inflation and a growing federal budget deficit could keep upward pressure on long-term rates, and rates and bond prices move in opposite directions.

You can’t go very wrong with Vanguard Short-Term Treasury Index (VGSH), an ETF with an effective duration (a measure of sensitivity to interest rate movements) of just 1.9 years, implying a roughly 1.9% loss in value if rates move up a percentage point. But pay attention to possible inflection points: As yields on 10-year T-notes crest 4.50%, says Truist’s Lerner, they might be worth a look.

Lastly, you might be inclined to jump into Treasury inflation-protected securities, but proceed with caution. TIPS can help you maintain purchasing power and diversify your portfolio, but longer-duration issues can react sharply to interest rate swings, which means you could be surprised by a decrease in value if rates move higher, even if inflation expectations are rising.

Stick with a low-duration option such as Vanguard Short-Term Inflation-Protected Securities Index (VTAPX).

Note: This item first appeared in Kiplinger Personal Finance Magazine, a monthly, trustworthy source of advice and guidance. Subscribe to help you make more money and keep more of the money you make here.

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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."

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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.

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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."

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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."

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The market for initial public offerings (IPOs) has struggled to see the same enthusiasm it had in 2021, when 397 offerings raised $142.4 billion in proceeds. While 2026 has gotten off to a slow start — 71 IPOs have raised $35.7 billion — a string of highly anticipated offerings is signaling renewed excitement for IPOs.

First up was the SpaceX IPO, Elon Musk's space and exploration company going public in the largest offering ever and SPCX stock now trading on the Nasdaq.

The Kiplinger team is reported on the SpaceX IPO, bringing you the news and our expert analysis of what this means for the stock market, the economy and your money. Scroll for the updates.

Should You Buy SPCX Stock? | Hot Upcoming IPOs to Watch | The Space Sector Prepares to Blast Off

What is SpaceX?

Elon Musk founded SpaceX in 2002, intending to lower costs for space launches and eventually build a livable colony on Mars. The company had its first successful space launch in 2008 and has since had more than 650 total launches. It also wants to build data centers in space.

"A key to its success has been a relentless focus on innovation," writes Kiplinger contributor Tom Taulli in his feature on the hottest upcoming IPOs to watch for. "The company's breakthroughs include reusable orbital rockets, which have greatly reduced the costs of space flights; vertical rocket landings; and onboard autonomous systems."

In 2015, SpaceX moved to diversify its revenue stream with Starlink, a satellite internet project that today provides coverage to roughly 10 million customers across 160 countries and territories. It also has contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense to provide satellite service through its Starshield segment to government and military organizations, including with Ukraine during its war with Russia.

Geopolitical conflicts are increasing the demand for satellites, and the conflict in the Middle East shows "how space tech is crucial for missile warning and tracking, communications, surveillance, drone and vehicle connectivity, and more," writes John Miley, senior associate editor at The Kiplinger Letter.

SpaceX also bought xAI, Musk's artificial intelligence (AI) company that owns X (formerly Twitter), in February 2026 in an all-stock deal valued at roughly $250 billion. In May, Musk announced that xAI is fully absorbed by SpaceX and will rebrand as SpaceXAI.

According to its S-1 filing, which became publicly available on May 20, SpaceX had revenue of $4.7 billion in the three months ended March 31. It also incurred a loss from operations of $1.9 billion and had adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) of $1.1 billion.

In 2025, the company's revenue totaled $18.67 billion, while adjusted EBITDA arrived at $6.58 billion.

SpaceX is poised to benefit from surging growth in the global space economy, which is expected to reach $1 trillion by 2034, according to Novaspace, up from $626 billion in 2025. "The U.S., led by SpaceX launching 85% of spacecraft into orbit and its Starlink Internet service, reaps most of the business," says Miley.

- Karee Venema

Space is hard

One thing I've heard over and over again from space analysts, investors and executives: "Space is hard."

The industry mantra may seem like a tired cliché or even an excuse for mishaps and bad business decisions, but it's true. The incredibly capital-intensive industry requires extraordinary feats of engineering and technology. Things can go wrong suddenly, as seen in the recent explosion during a Blue Origin engine test. Funding could dry up as timelines get extended and revenue is slow to appear.

So, when looking at the space sector, keep in mind that delays are common and outright failures happen. Or, to echo another industry cliché, it's literally rocket science.

- John Miley

How to buy the SpaceX IPO

Allocations of IPOs — especially hot ones — typically go to institutions and wealthy investors. This is a way for investment banks and brokerages to reward their best clients. This usually means that allocations for retail investors are small, say 5% to 10% of the number of shares issued.

But with the upcoming SpaceX IPO, the script will be different. The company has set the allocation up to 30%, or about $23 billion in market value.

Here are the brokerages that have been assigned to distribute the shares:

• E*Trade
• Fidelity
• Schwab
• SoFi
• Robinhood

Each firm has its own requirements. Yet there is a general process for retail investors to buy SpaceX shares.

• Investor questionnaire: You will need to fill out a form that gauges whether you meet the firm's eligibility criteria. This might include an account minimum, investor experience and risk tolerance.
• Offer: The firm will provide access to SpaceX's prospectus, which is the disclosure document for the IPO. You will then submit an indication of interest or conditional offer — that is, the number of shares you want to buy. This is for a price range. When the IPO is priced, which typically happens the night before the public offering, you will confirm the indication of interest.
• Allocation: On the day of the IPO, the firm will notify you if you received shares.

Keep in mind that you are not guaranteed to receive shares. If there is substantial demand for the offering, there may not be enough for the retail investors who submitted their indications of interest. Furthermore, each firm will have its own procedures for allocations. For example, if an investor "flipped" a prior IPO, which is when they sold shares soon after the offering, they may not get an allocation.

Then again, some firms have fairly straightforward approaches. In the case of Robinhood, it's solely based on a random allocation.

- Tom Taulli

What is the SpaceX IPO share price?

On June 3, SpaceX updated its S-1 filing to show that it priced its offering at $135 per share. Based on the roughly 555.6 million Class A shares it is selling, SpaceX will raise $75 billion, easily making it the biggest U.S. IPO ever. Chinese tech conglomerate Alibaba Group Holding (BABA) currently holds that title, having raised $4.6 billion in its March 2021 offering.

Most companies offer a price range for their offering in the week or so leading up to their IPO and then set a final price the night before their stock begins trading on public markets. And SpaceX could change its price later today, but it's widely expected that the $ 135-per-share price set by CEO Elon Musk last week will be the final offer.

There are likely several reasons for this, including Musk's likely desire to take SpaceX public on his terms.

Additionally, there's massive demand for SpaceX shares. According to some estimates, the IPO is 3.3 times oversubscribed, meaning demand for SPCX stock has more than tripled the number of shares available for purchase. This suggests that shares could see a big first-day pop given the supply-demand imbalance.

- Karee Venema

The SpaceX IPO is increasing excitement around the space industry and consolidation could be coming

Similar to the AI industry, there's immense excitement about space, supercharged by SpaceX's IPO. That's led to venture capitalists betting big on a growing number of start-ups.

Generally speaking, there are too many companies, even as the overall global market is poised to grow. Look for a wave of consolidation as things shake out over the next three to five years.

SpaceX's dominance could be a driving force in this trend as it aggressively seeks to control both traditional and new markets. When SpaceX decides to get involved in a particular segment of space, its competitors get nervous.

- John Miley

SpaceX will not be fast-tracked into the S&P 500

Several exchange operators have recently changed their rules to fast-track inclusion for mega-cap IPOs, including SpaceX.

Nasdaq (NDAQ), for instance, unveiled new "fast entry" rules in early May that allows it the ability to accelerate the time frame in which large companies are added to its Nasdaq-100 Index. Previous rules required that a company wait up to a year before being included in the index, but its new requirements lower the eligibility for inclusion to just 15 days.

"That's important for a number of reasons," explains Kiplinger contributor Dan Burrows in his feature on the Nasdaq's new fast entry rules. "For one thing, the delay stops hedge funds from front-running ETF investors. Under the new rules, hedge funds could buy the stock on the day of the IPO, then flip it to passive investors just 15 days later. That's basically a wealth transfer from long-term index investors to fast-money pros."

Additionally, it forces institutional investors to buy SpaceX shares once the company is included in the indices their index funds track.

But one index that SpaceX will not be allowed fast entry to is the S&P 500. "Based on S&P DJI's Index Committee review of the markets and after consideration of responses received from a wide range of market participants, no changes will be made to the eligibility criteria including financial viability screens, seasoning period, or minimum IWF, for the S&P 500, S&P MidCap 400, or S&P SmallCap 600 as a result of the S&P Dow Jones Indices consultation on the treatment of MegaCap companies," wrote S&P Dow Jones Indices in a June 4 release. "Accordingly, there will be no changes to existing methodology for this index family."

Specifically, S&P Dow Jones Indices chose to keep several rules in place, including one that requires a company to trade on a major exchange for 12 months before being considered for inclusion in an index.

So, while SpaceX shares will likely make their way into several index funds within the next several weeks, they will not be in S&P 500 ETFs for at least the next year.

- Karee Venema

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Just how dominant is SpaceX as a company?

To underscore SpaceX's dominance, consider that it had 165 launches in 2025, vastly more than any other rocket launcher, and launched 85% of global spacecraft into orbit. Its small satellite constellation, Starlink, is by far the leader in
internet speed and customers.

Unlike many space companies of years past, SpaceX is vertically integrated. It makes its own satellites, antennas, rockets, engines and all sorts of other equipment. It will build its own AI satellites, and plans to even start making its own computer chips through a partnership with Intel (INTC). Controlling all aspects of the business gives it an ongoing edge.

Perhaps an underappreciated competitive threat to SpaceX's Starlink is Amazon's (AMZN) upcoming Leo broadband service. I've tracked Amazon's planned mega-constellation over the years, and my impression is that they are very serious about winning consumers, businesses and governments.

Amazon has deep pockets and is touting how its Leo broadband service will integrate with its AWS cloud computing business. It could even offer discounted broadband for Amazon Prime subscribers.

Of course, Amazon must rely on outside rocket companies, including SpaceX, to get thousands of its satellites into orbit.

Blue Origin, which is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, could help if it starts launching a lot more in the coming years.

But Blue Origin only had two launches last year, failed to put AST SpaceMobile's satellite into orbit in April and had a massive launchpad disaster last month.

– John Miley

What Renaissance Capital's Avery Marquez is expecting from the SpaceX IPO

Few IPOs arrive with the level of anticipation surrounding SpaceX. The company's scale, brand power, retail investor interest and unusual deal structure have already made it one of the most talked-about offerings in recent memory. But the IPO also comes with significant complexity, from expected volatility and staged lockup releases to the possibility of fast-tracked index inclusion.

For perspective on what this could mean for investors and the broader IPO market, I spoke with Avery Marquez, director of Investment Strategies at Renaissance Capital, a provider of pre-IPO research and IPO-focused ETFs.

Your thoughts on the prospects for the IPO?

It's hard to contest the general consensus that this will be a hot deal. Forgoing the typical range for a set price is a solid indicator that the deal is already covered, or at least that the company and underwriters are confident in the massive demand this is expected to generate.

Early trading will likely be very volatile, especially with such a large portion expected to go to retail. I've seen reports still indicating up to 30%. I believe the extensive lockup release schedule and "forced buying" by indexes fast-tracking inclusion will also lend to some interesting trading dynamics in the first few weeks and months.

How does this compare to other large IPOs?

I'm partial to say that there is no real comparison. You can look at something like Saudi Aramco, which is the closest example in size, but the dynamics were quite different, given the government involvement and the market's relative opacity (though worth noting that the Tadawul is more transparent now than back in 2019).

In the U.S., Facebook — now Meta Platforms (META) — may be worth comparing, given the size, governance structure and disruptive tech pitch. But the months of hype leading up to the IPO, the intricacies of SpaceX's business, the sheer number of moving parts make this a wholly unusual deal.

What about the lock-up? Implications?

SpaceX's lockup is one of the most complex I've ever seen. Given the float dynamics, it could be framed as a bid to control that potential flow, or maybe it's just a way to give early investors liquidity before the standard 180 days. I do wonder how much overlap there will be between the release schedule and the schedule of indices that will now be fast-tracking inclusion.

How important is this IPO? What might it mean for the expected IPOs of OpenAI and Anthropic?

It's difficult to point to this as a bellwether for broader IPO activity, given how unusual the deal is. It will be a test of demand at scale, however, which will be particularly important for OpenAI and Anthropic, given how much capital they are expected to raise at IPO. Overall, it's going to be a historic test for the IPO market and will show us how much hype or FOMO is being baked into these high-profile names right now.

- Tom Taulli

Blue Origin explosion highlights the challenges facing a heavy launch

As SpaceX moves from the reusable Falcon 9 to the much bigger Starship, it's worth noting the unique challenges of heavy launchers. Starship is nearly 400 feet tall, while Falcon 9 is 230 feet tall. Starship can lift far heavier payloads, but that requires more powerful engines.

The challenge of a heavy launch was on display during the recent Blue Origin explosion. Its New Glenn rocket is also a heavy launcher. After the incident, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said on X, "Spaceflight is unforgiving and developing new heavy-lift launch capability is extraordinarily difficult."

In May, Elon Musk said on X that he was confident about Starship's road to commercialization: "The Starship production pipeline is full and will complete roughly 10 more ships and about half that number of boosters this year, so, if something goes wrong, it will not be a major setback, unless the launch stand is destroyed."

Back in 2020, Musk already had a clear view of Starship's importance, saying it "needs to be reusable and rapidly so, designed to be relaunched an hour after landing with zero nominal work."

- John Miley

Elon Musk reveals space's first space-based AI data center

In a video posted on X, Elon Musk talked about his vision for space-based AI data centers. The first one is called the AI1 satellite, which is expected to be 230 feet long and provide 120 kilowatts of compute power.

The AI1 satellite is based on the core foundation of the Starlink V3 system. According to Musk: "The AI satellite is much simpler than a Starlink satellite. The AI satellite is essentially a lot of solar cells, you still need some laser links, but you don't have all of the super complex antennas that you have on a Starlink satellite. The easier one to design for is the AI satellite."

The AI1 satellite is also expected to include Nvidia (NVDA) GPUs to power the AI processing.

In terms of timing, SpaceX expects to launch demonstration versions of the system in late 2027. So it could easily be a few years until the company generates any revenue from this program.

And Musk has a tendency to overpromise.

Still, space-based data centers are likely to gin up lots of excitement for investors. Land-based systems consume enormous amounts of power and are increasingly running into backlash from communities concerned about electricity demand, water usage, noise and local infrastructure strain. But in space, a data center could tap solar power directly and avoid many of these earthly constraints.

- Tom Taulli

SpaceX's big bets won't come in a hurry

The entire space ecosystem hinges on the success of Starship driving down launch costs. Some space business ideas only pencil out if launch costs are lowered to a certain point.

SpaceX has dreams of launching Starships daily or even hourly to send 1 million AI data centers into space. But how much it costs SpaceX to launch Starship and the price it charges outside customers are different. It may use most or all of Starship's capacity on its own orbital data centers.

While SpaceX has drastically lowered launch costs with its reusable Falcon 9, it's not passing all those savings over to customers, since it controls the market. Still, it does continue to have good relationships with all its customers.

Other launchers include Rocket Lab, Arianespace, United Launch Alliance and Firefly Aerospace. Rocket Lab ranked second globally in commercial launches last year with 18.

SpaceX takes the long view and dreams big. I often remind readers that SpaceX is 24 years old. Starlink was announced in 2015, and the first satellites were launched in 2019. It took a long time for SpaceX to get to this point.

When you look over SpaceX's prospectus and investor presentation, you see plans that could take years or decades to happen, including a mission to Mars. SpaceX will keep betting big on missions that will take a long time to pan out, using money from today's successes to fund tomorrow's dreams. Such a strategy carries inherent risk.

Consider that Musk has said, "The whole purpose of SpaceX is to help make life multiplanetary."

- John Miley

Hyperliquid SpaceX perpetual futures signal a big premium to IPO price

Perpetual futures on Hyperliquid, a decentralized blockchain-based trading platform, showed SpaceX shares trading around $168 at last check — a nearly 25% premium to the $135 IPO price. Still, that's down more than 6% from where the SpaceX "perp" was trading a month ago.

Hyperliquid has become a place for traders to speculate on assets such as cryptocurrency and commodities without actually owning them.

"Perpetuals never expire and users can hold positions indefinitely," explains BofA Securities analyst Julie Hoover. "Because there is no maturity, venues employ a funding-rate mechanism to keep perp prices anchored to the spot price. Volume on perps has tripled from ~$30T in 2023 to ~$93T in 2025."

According to BofA, Hyperliquid, in particular, has become popular for its pre-IPO pricing markets. "Like prediction markets gained popularity for calling the U.S. Presidential election, people argue that Hyperliquid is having their moment for accurately predicting IPOs."

If Hyperliquid's pre-IPO pricing of SpaceX perps is accurate, shares could be poised for a big jump when they first start trading.

- Karee Venema

SpaceX's unconventional IPO pricing

Elon Musk has always had a penchant for being unconventional. It has certainly been key to his many successes and his enormous wealth. So it should be no surprise that the SpaceX IPO has taken a different path from the traditional Wall Street playbook.

In a typical IPO, the company and its underwriters set an initial price range, conduct a roadshow, collect orders from investors and then determine the final price based on demand. This process is called "book building." It's a way to gauge investor demand. If the demand is strong, the company will set the deal at a higher price and vice versa.

The SpaceX IPO, on the other hand, has used a fixed price approach. According to Reuters, SpaceX set the IPO price at $135 per share, with plans to sell 555.6 million shares and raise about $75 billion. This would value the company at roughly $1.77 trillion.

The valuation was likely based on SpaceX's own internal assessment of the business and its long-term opportunities. But this was not just about traditional metrics such as revenue, earnings or comparable companies. A big part of the valuation was probably the "Musk factor." He has a long track record of making money for investors, and he has built a large base of loyal retail followers.

Still, the approach carries risks. The IPO is massive, the valuation is aggressive and the markets have been volatile lately. Even for a company like SpaceX, that makes the debut far from risk-free.

- Tom Taulli

The economics of AI data centers

Orbital data centers are unproven, though some companies have already launched prototypes. The economics of AI data centers in space is a big question mark. Can they really compete with terrestrial data centers? SpaceX certainly thinks so.

Consider the vast scale Elon Musk is talking about. Nearly 2,200 tons were launched into orbit in 2024. During a presentation this year, Musk talked about launching 10 million tons into orbit per year to put a terawatt of compute into space yearly.

Sound impossible? Musk's response: "We're confident this is feasible. No new physics or impossible things are required to get there."

Musk also envisions humanoid robots manufacturing satellites on the moon and then using electromagnetic mass driving to send them into orbit. Pursuing these ventures will be enormously expensive.

- John Miley

SpaceX confirms IPO pricing

Shortly before the close on Thursday, SpaceX set its final pricing for its initial public offering, confirming (PDF) that it will sell 5.6 million shares at $135 apiece.

The company also said that it will grant its underwriters a 30-day option to buy up to 83.3 million additional shares of its Class A common stock.

At $135 per share, SpaceX is poised to raise $75 billion in its offering, which will make it the largest IPO ever, easily exceeding the current record holder — Alibaba Group Holding (BABA) and its $21.8 billion offering in 2014. It will also give the company a $1.75 trillion valuation, making it the seventh-largest U.S. company by market cap and just ahead of Musk's other public company, Tesla (TSLA).

- Karee Venema

Stocks close higher ahead of SpaceX's market debut

Stocks closed higher Thursday after President Donald Trump 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."

A rebound in chip stocks also helped the broader markets bounce back from early week losses, though AI stock Oracle (ORCL) tumbled sharply after its earnings report on cost concerns.

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.

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

That's it from us today. Join us tomorrow for more updates and insight into the SpaceX IPO.

Stock futures point mostly higher on SpaceX day

The main equity indexes are trading mostly higher ahead of SpaceX's (SPCX) market debut.

At last check, futures on the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average are up 0.3% and the broader S&P 500 are 0.1% higher. Futures on the Nasdaq-100 are down 0.3% lower, though, as Adobe (ADBE) slumps after earnings.

SpaceX gets mixed reviews from Wall Street

One reason there have been few analyst reports on the SpaceX IPO is that the company hired 23 banks for the offering. Keep in mind that they are under strict conflict-of-interest rules and must endure a 25-day quiet period.

But this week, several interesting reports from analysts surfaced that were not part of the IPO syndicate. On the bullish side, New Street Research set a $165 price target on SpaceX shares, representing a 22% premium to the IPO price. This is based on a $195 billion revenue projection for 2030.

Additionally, Oppenheimer initiated coverage on SPCX stock with a Buy rating. The price target: $190.

But Morningstar published a report that was quite bearish. Analyst Nicolas Owens puts the valuation on SpaceX at only $63 per share, or a 53% discount to the IPO price.

"Our valuation is the result of mathematics more than skepticism," says Owens. "With such a wide range of possible outcomes for the company's financial future, we created forecasts and valuations for three scenarios and probability-weighted them."

- Tom Taulli

What time will SpaceX stock start trading?

SpaceX stock will likely start trading on the Nasdaq this afternoon. New stocks typically make their market debut after lunchtime, so look for shares to open for trading around 1 pm to 2 pm Eastern Standard Time.

SpaceX IPO will boost funding and attention to space stocks, but investors must be aware of risks

Related to Elon's vision of a Mars mission and taking the long view, here's a quote I have in my notes from a keynote I attended at the 2020 satellite conference in Washington, D.C.: "I hope I'm not dead by the time people come to Mars. If we don't improve our pace of progress, I'm definitely going to be dead before we go to Mars. If it's taken us 18 years to get people to orbit, we have to improve our pace of innovation a lot."

With a huge amount of funding from the IPO, there's no doubt the intense focus on pushing the "pace of progress" will only accelerate.

As I wrote in April, SpaceX's stock listing will bring a new wave of capital to the entire sector, including from a flood of retail investors. Investors in the space sector are bullish about SpaceX's unprecedented stock listing.

The IPO is an "inflection point" for the space industry, said Michael Mealling, general partner at Starbridge Venture Capital, at SatShow. Mark Boggett, CEO of Seraphim Space, said it will pull up valuations across the entire sector.

The heightened attention means that more Wall Street analysts will start covering the sector as space companies are included in more stock funds and more space companies go public.

Investors should know that space stocks can be risky, requiring due diligence, and that the frenzy among investors could outpace the reality of individual businesses.

"I am a little concerned about public market investors looking at the space sector and not understanding the level of risk," said Mealling. "Not every company that goes public is a good company." Mealling also said that having lived through the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s, "I hope we don't replicate that."

- John Miley

Neuberger Berman's Daniel Hanson on why SpaceX fits a quality equity strategy

Daniel Hanson, manager of the $2.1 billion Neuberger Berman Quality Equity Fund (NBSLX), has delivered strong results, with the fund generating an average annual return of 24.2% over the past three years. One of the more distinctive parts of the portfolio has been its pre-IPO investment in SpaceX.

I had a chance to interview Daniel and here's what he had to say:

When did you start buying SpaceX? What were the factors for making the investment? What is the current allocation?

We established the NBSLX position in SpaceX in the second half of 2023 at a company valuation of $150 billion, based on SpaceX's alignment with the Quality Equity investment philosophy. I look for 3 criteria for any Quality Equity investment, all of which SpaceX is aligned with: strong profitable growth, an entrepreneurial management team and an ownership culture. It also has a clear business purpose. The NBSLX fund's pre-IPO private allocation was approximately 7%.

What's your bullish case for the next few years? Drivers?

SpaceX comprises three distinct leadership mega-cap businesses, each of which has a promising growth outlook.

First is the launch business, where SpaceX has an unmatched global lead with the Falcon 9, and exceptional upside with the Starship program.

Second is the Starlink business, currently with 11 million subscribers and rapid growth prospects to add tens of millions of incremental subscribers.

Third is the xAI business, which has both leading proprietary initiatives, including 500 million+ monthly active users on Grok and X.com, with highly profitable third-party data center compute contracts with the likes of Anthropic and Alphabet (GOOGL). There is also its market-leading ambitions to commercialize orbital data centers in the coming years.

Besides SpaceX, does your firm have any other private investments?

Yes, Neuberger has a large private equity business.

The Neuberger Berman Quality Equity Fund was the only direct private pre-IPO owner of SpaceX at Neuberger due to the strong track record of the SpaceX team and the alignment of the business with the Quality Equity investment approach.

- Tom Taulli

How worried should investors be about the "Musk Effect"?

Perpetual futures are indicating a big jump for SpaceX stock when it begins trading this afternoon, last seen trading near $180 — 33% above the IPO price.

Part of this is likely due what many refer to the "Musk Effect. As I told CNET, Elon Musk has the tendency to stoke enthusiasm given the number of extraordinary things he's done, and we're seeing that in the excitement surrounding the SpaceX IPO.

"I don’t think the 'Musk Effect' is some made-up premium ... it's backed by execution over and over again," says David Fetherstonhaugh, senior vice president and investment strategist at VistaShares. "There is something real there."

For SpaceX, specifically, Fetherstonhaugh points to the company's aggressive launch cadence over the past several years. "SpaceX did 25 launches in 2020. Then 31. Then 61. Then 96. Then 134. Then 165 last year. At some point, that is not a cool stat anymore. He is actively pushing the boundaries of multiple industries."

And impressive growth in Starlink revenue, which jumped 50% year over year in 2025, will help fund SpaceX's other initiatives.

Fetherstonhaugh admits that the SpaceX IPO is not cheap, but says that "no other public company that gives you this combination of launch, satellites, connectivity, and full-stack control of space infrastructure." So, if you buy SPCX stock, you're "paying up for execution, speed, and the possibility that the market is much bigger than investors originally thought."

However, buyers should know that the "Musk Effect" goes both ways. Folks were quick to sell Tesla shares and stop buying Tesla cars in early 2025 in part because of a backlash related to Musk's actions and commentary when he was head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

As Fetherstonhaugh cautions, "anything tied to Musk is going to come with volatility."

- Karee Venema

Elon Musk's net worth could top $1 trillion today

Elon Musk has long held the title as the richest person in the world, but he cemented that status following SpaceX's blockbuster IPO, which will likely make him the first-ever trillionaire once SPCX stock begins trading, on paper at least.

At last check, Forbes had Elon Musk's net worth at $981.1 billion. We'll check this again at the end of the day.

The energy impact on orbital data centers

I'm still skeptical of orbital data centers technically working in a lot of ways. But the economics is an even bigger question. How the heck do you get the cost equivalent or better than Earth-based data centers?

I wrote a story about why AI dominance is measured by energy, and it's true AI models get better with more data, parameters and compute. That takes massive amounts of energy. There's no real sign that it's slowing, but in a decade, could there be some energy-efficient breakthrough? Or more efficient models? Or demand dies down? Seems possible and that would mess with orbital data center business models. They also require very low launch costs.

I read an interesting article that if Starship launched hourly, it would be a huge pollution issue. Because Starship is so enormous, it requires far bigger engines that create massive amounts of pollution. That's not an issue now with 10-20 heavy launches per year. But if you do 100s of heavy launches? I guess it could be an issue.

- John Miley

SpaceX stock opens above IPO price

SpaceX (SPCX) stock has officially begun trading on the Nasdaq, with shares opening at $150 per share, more than 11% above the IPO price.

At last check, shares were seen near $157 after hitting an intraday high of $162.98 (as of 11:55).

SpaceX IPO governance: why Elon Musk's control could become a bigger investor issue

The buzz surrounding the SpaceX IPO has focused mostly on the company's massive valuation, retail investor demand and the potential for one of the largest public offerings in market history. But there has been much less attention on a critical issue for investors: corporate governance.

Alon Kapen, a partner and corporate transactional lawyer at Farrell Fritz P.C., has reviewed SpaceX's S-1 and sees several provisions that stand out. Here's what he had to say:

What are some of the key governance issues?

I'd say the concentration of control is the major governance issue here. SpaceX's governance structure seems designed to ensure that Elon Musk retains authority over the company's strategic direction, even as public shareholders come in.

The mechanism for effectuating this level of control begins with SpaceX's dual-class share structure, in which Musk's Class B shares carry 10 votes each, versus one vote per Class A share sold to the public. The structure results in Musk controlling 85% of SpaceX's voting power despite holding only approximately 42% of its equity.

Also, Musk can only be removed from his roles as CEO, CTO and chairman by a vote of Class B shareholders, which he controls.

Another key governance issue is dispute resolution. SpaceX has adopted a mandatory binding arbitration clause for all shareholder disputes, and I believe it's the first major U.S. company to do so in a public offering. Shareholders must "irrevocably and unconditionally" waive the right to a jury trial and are prohibited from bringing class actions against the company or its directors, officers or controlling shareholders.

Finally, SpaceX reincorporated in 2024 from Delaware to Texas. Texas imposes greater procedural hurdles for initiating tender offers, proxy contests and shareholder proposals, making it more difficult for activists to wage activism campaigns such as removing directors or officers.

How does SpaceX's governance compare to other tech companies?

SpaceX's dual-class capital structure certainly fits within a broader pattern of founder-led companies where insiders retain supermajority control post-IPO. Think Facebook, Snap, Google and Tesla where dual-class shares preserve founder authority beyond an IPO. But unlike SpaceX, at least most of those companies had built in sunset provisions.

Might SpaceX's governance approach influence other companies? Or is this more of a special situation?

I think it's both. SpaceX is obviously a special situation. It has a national security dimension that arguably gives regulators reason to defer to management continuity. That makes it hard to generalize. But it could still reinforce an ongoing trend of founders pushing for dual-class structures and extending control post-IPO.

If SpaceX goes public with aggressive founder control preservation mechanisms and the stock performs well, it will be harder for investors to push back on the next company that tries it.

Ultimately, SpaceX can justify its structure because of its track record and unique positioning with governments. Without those factors, though, companies trying to duplicate their governance model would likely face significant investor pushback.

- Tom Taulli

Why history points to a rough road for SpaceX stock

The SpaceX IPO may be one of the most anticipated public offerings in years. But a recent Truist study offers a cautionary reminder: big-name IPOs often come with severe volatility. The study looked at 30 major IPOs and found that the average maximum drawdown in the first year was 55%. Even more striking, the best case still involved a 20% decline, while the worst fell 90%. While the average 12-month return was positive, the median return was negative.

This could be an ominous sign for early SpaceX investors. The company has enormous promise, but the hype is already intense. That alone can create a valuation that is difficult to sustain once the stock begins trading and investors start scrutinizing the numbers.

SpaceX is also a complicated business. It is not just a rocket company. It includes launch services, Starlink broadband, Starship development, an AI-related segment and even X (the social media platform formerly known as Twitter). Each has different risks, economics, capital needs and timelines. That complexity could make it harder for public investors to value the company, especially if one segment disappoints.

Then there is the lock-up issue. Many early employees, executives and investors are sitting on enormous gains. Once they are allowed to sell, the temptation to unload shares could be strong.

This does not mean SpaceX will fail as a public company. But it does suggest that the first year could be far more volatile than the launch-day excitement implies.

- Tom Taulli

Tesla trades lower as SpaceX stock soars

While SpaceX stock is higher in afternoon trading on Friday, Tesla (TSLA) shares were last seen in negative territory, down 0.2%.

Elon Musk's other publicly traded company has struggled on the price charts in recent months and is down more than 11% for the year to date.

But in the longer term, Tesla has been a strong performer. Over the past 15 years, for instance, the consumer discretionary stock has averaged an annual gain of 43%, outperforming the broader S&P 500 by more than 28 percentage points.

And Wall Street is generally upbeat on Tesla's outlook. Of the 47 analysts covering the stock who are tracked by S&P Global Market Intelligence, 23 say it's a Buy or Strong Buy, 18 have it at Hold and six rate it a Sell or Strong Sell. This works out to a consensus Buy recommendation.

Meanwhile, the average 12-month price target of $420.55 represents implied upside of nearly 6% to current levels.

- Karee Venema

SpaceX IPO mints one new trillionaire, thousands of new millionaires

Elon Musk is officially a trillionaire, on paper at least. With SpaceX stock trading near $165 per share at last check, Musk's net worth has swelled to $1.1 trillion, up $88.7 billion from yesterday.

However, Musk isn't the only person who has seen their net worth swell today. According to The New York Times, roughly 4,400 current and former SpaceX employees who held onto their early shares are poised to become millionaires in the aftermath of the blockbuster IPO.

And 400 of those people are expected to see their wealth jump past the $100 million marker.

- Karee Venema

What Wall Street is saying about the SpaceX IPO

There was no shortage of analyst notes released today about the SpaceX IPO. Here's a small sampling of what Wall Street has to say, edited at times for brevity:

"Everyone thinks of SpaceX as a rocket company. Increasingly, that’s the wrong lens. In a matter of months, SpaceX has become the world's largest and most profitable AI neocloud, and over the next year, that business will contribute more profits than launches or satellite internet." - Nicholas Anderson, portfolio manager at Thornburg Investment Management

"It's important to take some of the projections with a grain of salt. Elon has talked about a total addressable market of $28.5 trillion. Interestingly, the majority of that opportunity is tied to what is currently the company's cash incinerator — the AI segment of the business. We're also expecting a merger with Tesla in 2027 or 2028, so it's possible to envision a scenario in which not only the company's market capitalization, but also its revenue growth, becomes exponential. Right now, it's difficult to even quantify the potential scale." - Nancy Tengler, CEO and CIO at Laffer Tengler Investments

"This is not just an IPO — it's a major liquidity event for venture capital, with significant upside potential but elevated valuation, governance, and volatility risks." - Kaush Amin, Managing Director and Head of Private Market Investing at U.S. Bank Asset Management

"We have a negative outlook given dependence on unproven outcomes including Starship commercialization, orbital AI compute, and xAI monetization. While Starlink remains the strongest business, it faces risks from capacity expansion needs, regulatory approvals, and competition from terrestrial broadband and other LEO systems. We believe the market assigns too much value to future optionality and insufficient discount to execution risk." - Keith Snyder, Senior Equity Analyst at CFRA Research

"What's worth watching more closely is what comes after SpaceX. The upcoming IPO pipeline may look like a celebration of the AI boom, but looking at trader sentiment, it could have the makings of a late-cycle rush. As the company dominates commercial launch and Starlink continues to scale, analysts at New Street Research are already projecting 22% upside within 12 months of listing. The risks here aren't necessarily that SpaceX is a bad investment, but that a $1.77T entry point leaves very little margin for error, and that the retail enthusiasm surrounding it could produce the kind of volatility that shakes out investors before things play out in the long-term." - Stephen Callahan, Trading Behavior Analyst at Firstrade

- Karee Venema

SpaceX becomes the sixth largest U.S. company by market cap

At last check, SpaceX stock is trading near $170 per share, giving Elon Musk's space and exploration company a market valuation of $2.22 trillion. This makes SpaceX the sixth-biggest U.S. company by market cap, behind Nvidia (NVDA), Alphabet (GOOGL), Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT) and Amazon (AMZN).

Tesla (TSLA), Elon Musk's other publicly traded company, is the eighth-largest U.S. company by market cap, with a valuation of $1.51 trillion.

"SpaceX is not your typical mega-cap company," says Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. "Investors are being asked to underwrite an investment case and product roadmap that stretches well beyond the time horizon for your typical trillion-dollar-club business."

Britzman adds that traditional valuation tools can help frame the debate on a stock, "but they only go so far when so much of the story depends on future breakthroughs, new markets and successful execution across several ambitious areas at once."

As such, he cautions that this creates both opportunity and risk, and "investors would do well to be mindful of both sides of that coin."

- Karee Venema

SpaceX enjoys a peaceful launch

The main equity indexes were mixed this morning, ahead of the debut of Elon Musk's SpaceX as a publicly traded company.

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.

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.

By the closing bell, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.7% at 51,202, the broad-based S&P 500 was higher by 0.5% at 7,431, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite had added 0.3% at 25,888.

– David Dittman

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

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.

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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%.

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2026 could be the biggest year ever for initial public offerings (IPOs), with high-profile private companies SpaceX, Anthropic and Databricks among numerous super-sized upcoming IPOs expected to hit the markets over the coming months.

If you're a stock investor looking for fresh meat to sink your teeth into, 2026 is a veritable Fogo de Chão.

But even if most or all of your money is wrapped up in low-cost index funds and you have no real hunger for these shares, you still might be digesting a considerable slice of some of these and other potential mega-cap IPOs.

And depending on which funds you own, that day might be coming sooner rather than later.

How index funds pick stocks

Index investing is a simple concept. An index is a hypothetical portfolio of stocks built by a set of rules. And an index fund "tracks" that index by owning the same companies in the same weights as that index dictates.

But the rules can be complex and numerous — not just in niche indexes that carve up far-flung corners of the market, but even in ubiquitous indexes such as the S&P 500.

A common misconception is that the S&P 500 represents the 500 largest U.S. companies. Not so. It's 500 of the largest companies, all of which have met a much more exhaustive set of selection criteria than most people realize. Here's what the S&P 500 looks for in prospective components:

On that final point: the S&P 500 ultimately is not 100% governed by a set of rules. A selection committee ultimately makes calls on which stocks enter and exit the indexes.

Which stocks are eligible are determined by the rules, but the U.S. Index Committee can and does review those stocks, and can even make exceptions for stocks that otherwise wouldn't make the cut. This isn't specific to the S&P 500, either — this applies to a host of S&P Dow Jones indexes.

The U.S. Index Committee can also choose to revise index rules over time, so yesterday's rules might not necessarily apply tomorrow. For instance, they've raised the minimum market cap several times throughout the S&P 500's history.

Most other fund providers don't employ an individual-stock level of human review in their index funds. But they absolutely can use index rule changes to give them the flexibility they need to own mega-cap IPOs … and several have done just that ahead of the SpaceX IPO.

Will SpaceX be in your index fund? Well …

Elon Musk's SpaceX (SPCX) is expected to join the public markets later this week in what will likely be the biggest IPO ever. And many believe that its offering will value the aerospace manufacturing company at $1.75 trillion.

If the SpaceX IPO were most other offerings, we wouldn't expect it to show up in the low-cost funds in your portfolio for at least a couple of months. That's because many indexes have seasoning rules like the S&P 500's that prohibit companies from quickly joining.

This gives IPO companies time to meet liquidity and float thresholds. It also ensures index fund shareholders don't suffer if insiders sell shares in droves when the company's lockup period expires, which is usually 90 to 180 days after the IPO.

But most index providers have "fast-track" or "fast-entry" rules that allow them to waive that requirement, typically for massive IPOs where demand is expected to be high regardless of the risk.

"Fast-entry rules are important because they allow rules-based passive ETFs to keep pace with the market," says Tejas Dessai, director of Thematic Research at Global X, whose Global X NYSE 100 ETF (NYSX), a mega-cap fund, and Global X Space Tech ETF (ORBX), a space fund, have fast-track allowances. "When a major private company becomes public, investors should not necessarily have to wait months for that exposure to appear in a relevant ETF."

Importantly, SpaceX and other offerings would have to meet those indexes' other eligibility rules, Dessai says.

Among the major index makers with fast-track rules?

• Nasdaq recently changed its rules to allow IPOs to join an index as soon as 15 days after listing. That's expected to allow SpaceX to join the Nasdaq-100 Index — the largest 100 non-financial companies on the Nasdaq exchange. If so, owners of Invesco QQQ ETF (QQQ) and its smaller, more cost-effective cousin, Invesco Nasdaq 100 ETF (QQQM), would own a slice of SPCX.
• FTSE Russell updated its methodology to allow companies to join some of its indexes after just five trading days. Funds like the iShares Russell 1000 ETF (IWB) and iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF (IWF), then, could add shares quickly.
• The Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP), which already had fast-track rules in place, recently relaxed its float requirement, and new IPOs are eligible for inclusion after just five trading days. That puts the likes of Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund ETF (VTI) and Vanguard Growth ETF (VUG) into play.

But far more noteworthy is where S&P Dow Jones Indices didn't loosen up the rules: the S&P 500.

SpaceX is only making a sliver of its overall shares available in its public offering; its float is expected to be about 4% of shares outstanding, which is well below the S&P 500's threshold. SpaceX is also deeply unprofitable, posting a net loss of $4.3 billion during Q1 2026. Add in the 12-month IPO seasoning period, and that's a clear strikeout.

S&P Dow Jones Indices recently reviewed potential changes to several of its indices. It actually let through a few — it relaxed the float rules on a few products with fast-track allowances, most notably the S&P Total Market Index, which anchors the iShares Core S&P Total U.S. Stock Market ETF (ITOT).

However, it kept its float, profitability and seasoning criteria in place for the S&P 500, as well as the S&P MidCap 400, S&P SmallCap 600, and S&P Composite 1500.

That means if you hold any of the S&P 500 ETFs — Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO), iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV), State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), State Street SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 ETF (SPYM) — you won't be holding any fraction of SpaceX stock for at least a year.

The same goes if you own S&P 500 tracking index mutual funds, or even funds that are indirectly tethered to the S&P 500, such as State Street's sector funds.

And we can expect similar fates for Anthropic, OpenAI and other mega-cap listings that are expected to offer small slivers of their total outstanding shares in their IPOs.

How much SpaceX am I about to own?

The good news — at least for anyone worried about the prospects of SpaceX taking over their portfolio — is that in many cases, SPCX might not enjoy a significant weight in your fund.

Not right away, anyway.

Again, SpaceX is expected to fetch a $1.75 trillion valuation. For perspective, $1.9 trillion chipmaker Broadcom (AVGO) is a top-10 holding in Vanguard's VTI, accounting for almost 3% of the index's weight. That's a massive amount of influence relative to all but a handful of VTI's 3,500 components — and by pure market cap alone, SpaceX would qualify for pretty similar treatment.

However, many index funds (including VTI) are "float-adjusted," which means weights aren't assigned based on total market cap, but the market cap based on the float.

So even though SpaceX would be a $1.75 trillion company, many index funds that include it would have to treat it like a $70 billion company. In Vanguard's total-market ETF, then, SPCX would enjoy a similar weight as $73 billion retailer Ross Stores (ROST) — currently the 157th-largest stock in VTI, accounting for about 0.1% of its assets.

That could change. Morningstar's Dan Lefkovitz points out that "by the end of the lockup period, it's typical for a company's free float to rise to 50% to 60% of its overall value. As the float increases, so will the stock's weighting in the indexes." Which means in a few months, your fund could end up owning a greater share of SPCX … even if the company's value shrinks.

And remember: Different funds have different weighting methodologies. So, whether you're concerned or excited about the prospect of owning SpaceX and/or other mega-cap IPOs in your index fund, now's a good reminder to go to the fund's provider page and look at its fact sheet and prospectus.

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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.

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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.

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Dividend investing is one of the most reliable ways to generate passive income from your portfolio. But how much of that income you actually keep depends heavily on one factor — taxes — and specifically whether your dividends qualify for the preferential tax treatment the IRS calls "qualified" status.

Depending on your income level, you may owe nothing on your qualified dividends. But even at high-income levels, the taxes will almost always be lower than what you pay on most other investments.

Dividend tax rules here are quirky and can make a major difference in how much of your dividend income you actually get to keep.

So, let's get to it. We're covering the basics you need to know and go over a few tips on how to use the tax code to maximize your income and minimize your tax bill.

Ordinary dividends vs qualified dividends: what you need to know

Before you start considering how to manage your investment income, it's important to know the difference between ordinary dividends vs qualified dividends.

Ordinary (non-qualified) dividends are taxed as regular income, no different than interest or short-term capital gains. If you're in the 35% tax bracket, then that's what you're paying on your ordinary dividends, plain and simple.

Dividends from money market or bond funds (which are essentially repackaged bond interest), dividends paid by most real estate investment trusts (REITs), dividends paid by most foreign companies or dividends on shares that you held for too short of a period to qualify will all generally be taxed as ordinary dividends.

Qualified dividends benefit from preferential tax rates: 0%, 15% or 20%, depending on your income. The brackets change from year to year, but as of 2026, single taxpayers with taxable income of up to $49,450 and married taxpayers with taxable income up to $98,900 pay nothing on their qualified dividends.

Single taxpayers with taxable income between $49,451 and $545,500 and married taxpayers with taxable income between $98,901 and $613,700 pay 15%. And taxpayers with incomes above those levels pay 20%.

To be categorized as "qualified," a dividend must meet two core conditions. It must be paid by a U.S. corporation or a qualifying foreign corporation whose stock trades on a U.S. exchange and whose home country has an income tax treaty with the United States. And you must have held the stock for more than 60 days during the 121-day window surrounding the ex-dividend date.

That second condition is a little confusing, so it's probably best explained by example. Let's say your stock's ex-dividend date is June 15. Your 121-day window would extend from April 16 to August 14. You would need to have held the stock for more than 60 days within that window. (Don't worry, you don't need to keep track of this yourself. Your broker will handle the accounting.)

If you're a long-term, buy-and-hold dividend investor, you can assume you're meeting the holding period requirements for qualified dividend status.

Minimizing your dividend tax bill

With that as background, let's go over a few strategies to squeeze the most value out of the tax code.

We'll start with the most obvious: Don't engage in short-term trading with your dividend stocks.

There's nothing wrong with short-term trading, of course. In fact, if done with discipline, it can actually reduce the risk of your overall portfolio. Just be sure that you're not actively trading the stocks you intend to hold for dividend income.

If you're still working and don't yet need the income for your living expenses, consider automatically reinvesting the dividends in new shares. This turns your income stocks into compounding machines, and when the day comes to start taking distributions, you'll be doing so on a larger base of shares.

Here's where the real planning starts. Where you hold your dividend-paying stocks is ultimately the biggest factor in the taxes you pay.

Let's say your investment accounts are a mix of tax-advantaged retirement accounts and regular taxable brokerage accounts.

Remember that all investment earnings in an IRA are tax-free. You only pay taxes on the distributions you take out of your traditional IRA in retirement, and those distributions are taxed at ordinary income tax rates.

So, to the extent you can move things around, it makes sense to hold your lowest-taxed investments, such as index funds and stocks paying qualified dividends, in your taxable accounts, and save your higher-taxed investments including non-qualified dividend stocks, REITs, foreign stocks or active trading strategies that generate short-term gains for your IRAS.

Let's use a hypothetical example. Say you have $10,000 in an IRA and $10,000 in a taxable brokerage account and that you want to buy $10,000 of Altria (MO) – a high-yielding stock that generally pays qualified dividends – and $10,000 in Realty Income (O) – a REIT that typically pays non-qualified, or ordinary, dividends.

The smart move would be to hold Altria in the taxable account and Realty Income in the IRA. You'd owe no capital gains taxes on the Altria position until you sold it, and the dividends would be taxed at a low rate (or not taxed at all, depending on your income).

The higher taxes you'll pay on Realty Income dividends, meanwhile, will get deferred until you take distributions from the IRA, at which point you're paying the same amount. Non-qualified dividends are taxed at the same rate as IRA distributions.

Timing matters too

Most taxpayers will never pay the 20% dividend rate, given the high income threshold. But the $98,900 level separating 0% and 15% is roughly at the 60th income percentile for a married couple. That's the definition of a regular, middle-class American.

If you earn significantly more than that, there's really not much you can do. But if you're right at the threshold, there are a few things you should watch out for.

Let's say you're considering a Roth conversion — moving funds from a pre-tax retirement account, such as a 401(k) or traditional IRA, into a Roth IRA. This could be a great idea for any number of reasons, but it could also very easily push you into the higher income bracket. Those dividends you were expecting to get for free are now coming with a 15% haircut.

The same could be true with appreciated stock. Let's say you have some stocks in your portfolio that you've owned for years and are now sitting on substantial capital gains. If you're considering selling, you might want to wait to sell until next year or sell over multiple tax years to keep your income from landing in a higher tax bracket.

In the end, you're never going to escape taxes completely. And you can comfort yourself knowing that paying taxes means that you made money. But strategically using qualified dividend tax rates to your advantage can help you keep your tax bill tolerably low.

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When the boss of a company with a $4 trillion market value steps down, investors tend to sit up and take notice. That's why Apple (AAPL) shares dipped temporarily when the firm announced in April that after 15 years, chief executive Tim Cook was moving to a new role in September. His replacement, John Ternus, is a 25-year Apple veteran who now leads the company's hardware engineering division.

Ternus has big shoes to fill. Under Cook, Apple quadrupled its sales, its stock climbed more than a cumulative 2,300%, and its market value increased 10-fold. Cook presided over two product launches — the Apple Watch and AirPods — that now each pull in $10 billion in sales a year. And he successfully negotiated with Trump for tariff exemptions for Apple products.

His signature accomplishment, however, was operational: He streamlined the company's global supply chain, creating a geographically diverse production system across Asia that drastically reduced the time Apple holds its parts in inventory, among other things.

Still, there's much to commend the new guy. For starters, Ternus, a near-lifer at the firm, has played a role in the development of nearly every major Apple product over the past two decades. Analyst Mark Newman, of investment firm Bernstein, says Ternus “has owned the product slate most investors care about — iPhone, iPad and AirPods.”

Apple's board said Ternus's appointment followed a “thoughtful” planning process. It tapped him over better-known senior managers, who arguably were more on display (they made more appearances at the company's events). But they are all in their early sixties, only a bit younger than the 65-year-old Cook.

At 51, Ternus's relative youth stands out. Word is he's a well-respected, well-liked executive with a steady management style akin to his predecessor. He's also all-in on Apple's secretive culture. On a recent call with analysts, he said, “We have an incredible road map ahead. And you're not going to get me to talk about the details of that road map.”

Apple's AI challenge

Ternus earned his bona fides in hardware, but his biggest test will be a software challenge: Artificial intelligence.

Apple has so far opted out of being a hyperscaler like Meta (META), Microsoft (MSFT) and Google (GOOG), all of which are spending hundreds of billions a year to build up their AI capability. Instead, the company has partnered with Google to power its AI solutions. That has enabled Apple to safeguard its hefty cash flow and to continue buying back its stock aggressively.

But critics say Apple has failed to deliver on a number of promised enhancements to Siri, the built-in AI feature in its devices. And that has made Apple's AI plan unpopular with some investors. “Apple Intelligence is a country mile from the ‘wow' experience that was promised,” says Matt Britzman, an analyst with the U.K.-based investment firm Hargreaves Lansdown. Laura Martin, an analyst with investment firm Needham, is no fan either. The company's “lagging AI integrations appear tone-deaf and could have existential risks,” she says.

That said, Ternus could be just what the company needs right now. “We expect him to execute new ideas faster, take on more risk, and drive higher internal accountability,” Martin adds.

A CEO switch can be perilous for a company's stock, particularly if the outgoing chief has been a big success. But Oxford University's Said Business School found that if a new CEO presents their strategy in their first 100 days, company shares tend to move up, albeit by a slim average of 5.3%.

We, along with the estimated millions of Apple shareholders, will be watching.

Note: This item first appeared in Kiplinger Personal Finance Magazine, a monthly, trustworthy source of advice and guidance. Subscribe to help you make more money and keep more of the money you make here.

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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.

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.

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%).

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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."

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Like hemlines, investing styles go in and out of fashion. And for the better part of 15 years, value investing — the strategy of buying shares trading at a discount — has been out of vogue, significantly lagging an approach focused on fast-growing stocks trading at pricey valuations.

Late last year, however, a shift began. Bargain-priced stocks in the Russell 3000 Index gained a bit more than 6% over the past six months through the end of March, for example, trouncing the nearly 9% loss in the bogey's growth stocks over the same period. It's early days, of course.

"I'm hesitant to call a regime change for something that's only a couple of months old, but the magnitude of what we're seeing today is stunning," says Christian Heck, a value-oriented fund manager at First Eagle. "It's not a small outperformance. And it's something that is very different than what we've seen over the past five or 10 years."

In any case, you don't have to believe in a value comeback to view bargain-priced stocks favorably right now. The war in Iran has increased market rockiness, certainly, and thrown a splash of cold water on value's edge over growth shares.

But "volatility is a value investor's friend," says Heck, because it creates opportunity for bargain hunters to snap up shares in companies they admire that had previously been too pricey.

Moreover, buying stocks at low prices is one way to build some defense in your stock portfolio. Finally, just as frothy stock valuations can portend lower future returns, low stock valuations are often a good predictor of generous long-term gains.

Fire-sale prices on stocks

Cheap stocks are super-cheap now. At last report, the S&P 500 Pure Value Index — 100-odd stocks with the strongest value traits — boasted a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio, based on estimated earnings, of 12. Its Pure Growth counterpart trades at a P/E of 24. That gap is "egregiously" wide, says Lewis Altfest, chief investment officer at Altfest Personal Wealth Management in New York City.

"It's value's turn," he says. "Things are changing now, at least for the time being, and investors should be taking some money out of growth stocks" and investing in value.

We'll point you toward some bargain-priced opportunities, including mutual funds, exchange-traded funds and stocks. Returns and data are through March 31, unless otherwise noted. But first, a primer on value.

Value is in the eye of the beholder

All value investors seek a discount, but there are many ways to define a bargain, whether that's measured by a stock's price in relation to earnings, sales, book value (assets minus liabilities), dividend or "enterprise value" — the value of a company if it were acquired today. At one end of the value spectrum are deep-value investors who target the cheapest stocks in the market.

"Often, they're contrarian investors who are looking for stocks that have fallen out of favor, but they have reasons to be more optimistic about them," says Robby Greengold, a principal member of the equity strategies team at investment research firm Morningstar. "They tend to employ some of the riskiest strategies in the value universe, because these stocks are controversial. The stocks could be cheap for a very good reason, and often the reason is there's a high-risk situation. They might even face bankruptcy," he adds.

At the other extreme is an approach that focuses first on finding good businesses and buying only if the shares trade at a significant discount — called "a margin of safety," says Heck — to what the business is worth. Often these investors are more willing to own some fast-growing companies that trade at price-to-earnings or price-to-sales multiples that are richer than those of traditional value stocks.

"They argue that the stocks are worth owning because the revenue and earnings growth rates justify higher-price multiples," says Greengold.

Value indexes typically tilt more toward certain sectors, such as materials, industrials, real estate, energy and utilities, while growth benchmarks favor tech and communications services. But these divisions aren't set in stone. The key to value investing is to home in on bargain prices.

"I'm a value investor, but that doesn't mean I can't own technology," says John Buckingham, editor of The Prudent Speculator.

Finally, although growth has trumped value for years now, it's worth noting that bargain-priced investors have still generated decent returns on an absolute basis. The typical large-company value fund, for instance, has returned 11% a year, on average, over the past decade.

"Is value back?" says Buckingham. "It hasn't really gone away."

How to invest in value stocks now

The easiest way to add a dollop of value stocks to your portfolio is to buy shares in a diversified mutual or exchange-traded fund. The Kiplinger 25, the list of our favorite actively managed no-load mutual funds, includes several good value-oriented strategies: Dodge & Cox Stock (DODGX), T. Rowe Price Small-Cap Value (PRSVX) and Dean Mid Cap Value (DALCX).

The Dodge & Cox managers are self-described contrarians. That kind of strategy can take a fair amount of patience, as the investment thesis for any given stock might take time to play out.

T. Rowe Price's manager, David Wagner, favors "unloved and under-followed" small companies. And Douglas Leach, Dean Mid Cap Value's manager, calls himself a "classic" value investor who favors high-quality companies trading at low prices for reasons that are temporary.

But there is a universe of other funds to consider. One is the iShares MSCI USA Value Factor ETF (VLUE). It has a good record of staying on a value track, according to Morningstar. It's pegged to an index of 150 undervalued stocks in large and midsize companies with solid earnings outlooks and low debt. Technology (38% of assets), financial services (11%) and communications services (10%) are its biggest sector exposures.

Notably, the fund has held up well since the start of the year, with a 4.4% return. That's better than 86% of its peers, as well as the 4.3% loss in the S&P 500. Over longer hauls, the fund stays well ahead of peers, too. And its 0.15% expense ratio is low. Cisco Systems (CSCO), General Motors (GM), Merck (MRK) and Bank of America (BAC) are among the top holdings.

The Vanguard Mega Cap Value ETF (MGV) stays focused on stable, large-company stocks, but it avoids an overconcentration in the Magnificent Seven stocks.

The exchange-traded fund tracks the largest companies by market value that score best on certain value traits, including stock price in relation to book value, sales, earnings (both estimated and historical) and other measures. Blue chip stocks JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B), Exxon Mobil (XOM) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) are top holdings.

For a bigger tilt toward midsize companies, consider the Vanguard Value Index ETF (VTV) or its mutual fund share class, Vanguard Value Index (VVIAX). Nearly 30% of the stocks in the fund are mid-size companies; the rest are large companies.

Another fund worth considering is Fidelity Value (FDVLX). Matthew Friedman runs the midsize-value fund with two co-managers, trolling for the cheapest stocks of the highest-quality companies with increasing earnings and good free cash flow (money left after operating expenses and spending to maintain or upgrade property and equipment).

For instance, he acquired shares in Western Digital (WDC), a maker of data-storage devices, when it was cheap in late 2024. The stock has since climbed meteorically due to soaring demand for artificial-intelligence-related data storage and is now a top holding.

Over the past 12 months, Fidelity Value returned 21.5%, ahead of 88% of its midsize-value fund peers and beating the broad U.S. stock market. The fund trounces peers over longer hauls, too. "Some of my peers cheated" by adding growth stocks to their portfolio in recent years, Friedman says, "We don't do that. We invest in cheap stocks. We've been consistent about that."

Dividend strategies can be an effective way to focus on value, and they come with the added benefit of good yields. Among our favorites: Vanguard Equity Income (VEIPX), an actively managed mutual fund and member of the Kiplinger 25. The fund yields 2.2% and charges a 0.26% expense ratio — super-low for an actively managed fund. Since the start of this tumultuous year, Equity Income has gained 1.5%.

The Capital Group Dividend Value ETF (CGDV) is a member of the Kiplinger ETF 20 list of our favorite exchange-traded funds. A team of managers aims to invest in established, high-quality U.S. companies with above-average dividend yields. The fund, which yields 1.3%, boasts a 21.4% annualized three-year return that beat 98% of its large-value fund peers.

Individual stocks to buy

If you want to invest in individual stocks, start your search in areas of the market that have lagged. "The time to buy is when there's a lot of pessimism," says Buckingham.

Software stocks, for instance, have plummeted nearly 25% over the past six months over fears that AI will disrupt their subscription sales. That angst is overblown in some cases, says Angelo Zino, an analyst who leads the tech team at CFRA Research, who recently reiterated his Strong Buy' rating on Salesforce (CRM). (Salesforce is a member of the Kiplinger ESG 20, the list of our favorite stocks that are environmental, social or governance standouts.)

Financial stocks are the worst-performing sector over the past 12 months, as well as so far in 2026. The sector is taking a drubbing in part over concerns about private credit.

Another snag is the war in Iran. The conflict is a risk for all businesses, for sure, but war raises the potential for higher interest rates, higher inflation rates and an economic slowdown, all of which can impact bank profitability. That said, any good news there could propel these stocks up; bad news will be a drag. Step in cautiously, but we found a few to consider.

JPMorgan Chase typically trades at a premium P/E multiple relative to its peers. But shares have fallen 15% since they peaked in January, and the stock now trades at a P/E of 13, on par with its finance and investment banker peers, according to Zacks Investment Research. "That's a reasonable price for the best bank with a fortress balance sheet," says Buckingham.

Shares in the investment bank Morgan Stanley (MS) have slipped 15% from their 52-week high, too, and now trade at a P/E of 15. In the meantime, the stock sports a fat, 2.4% dividend yield.

Or invest in a financial-sector ETF or mutual fund. T. Rowe Price Financial Services (PRISX) and Fidelity Select Financials Portfolio (FIDSX) actively invest across the sector. The iShares U.S. Financials ETF (IYF) is an index-based ETF that invests in banks, insurers and credit card companies.

Healthcare stocks have been laggards, too, though lately they've been clawing their way back. Among the sector's worst performers: healthcare equipment and supplies. Enter Becton, Dickinson (BDX). Becton is a dominant maker of needles and syringes. These pieces don't cost much — a few cents, says Heck — and are mission-critical.

"Ninety percent of all people who enter any medical practice in the U.S. will get touched or pricked with a Becton product," he says. The stock trades at 13 times expected earnings, which is cheap relative to its 10-year median P/E of 20.

You can ratchet down the single-stock risk by investing instead in an ETF focused on the industry, such as the iShares U.S. Medical Devices (IHI). Or consider a fund that invests across the health care sector. Fidelity Select Health Care (FSPHX) is our favorite actively managed health care fund; State Street Health Care Select Sector SPDR (XLV) is our favorite healthcare ETF.

How the pros avoid a falling knife

One of the biggest risks in value investing is a falling knife — a Wall Street metaphor for a stock with a rapidly declining stock price. You buy a stock you think is cheap, but it falls further. "I would love to say that never happens," says Christian Heck, a value-oriented fund manager at First Eagle.

To protect against catching a falling knife or stumbling into a value trap — a stock that's cheap because it's actually a bad investment — Heck says he and his cohorts limit the size of their initial stake to just over 1% of fund assets. Then, they watch the stock for a bit. If its price falls further, they go back to their original investment thesis to figure out whether it still holds.

"If the stock's variables are tracking as we expected, we may add shares," says Heck. If not, they stay put.

Steph Guild, chief investment strategist at Robinhood Strategies, the advisory side of broker Robinhood, takes another tack. "I don't invest when a stock price is really down, because when something has downward momentum, sometimes it keeps going down," she says.

Instead, Guild waits for a shift in the stock's moving averages, a technical indicator that helps investors visualize stock-price trends. A moving average is the average of a stock's closing price over a set number of days, "moving" because with each new close, the oldest is dropped.

Guild focuses on three periods: 200 days, 50 days and 20 days. If shorter trend lines start to cross above the longer ones, it can indicate that a stock-price recovery is not merely in the works but "has legs," she says. "I'll wait until it starts to show some evidence of bottoming before I buy."

Note: This item first appeared in Kiplinger Personal Finance Magazine, a monthly, trustworthy source of advice and guidance. Subscribe to help you make more money and keep more of the money you make here.

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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.

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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."

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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"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.

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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.

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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.

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Market volatility is the norm in 2026, with political uncertainty and inflationary pressures defining price moves in the first half of the year. History shows that long-term wealth is not built by reacting to these short-term headlines; rather, it's built by maintaining disciplined exposure to high-quality assets that can grow your nest egg over time.

Instead of choosing assets based on your prediction of where the price action might go next, the wiser approach for long-term investors is to seek out those with a history of durable growth and stability regardless of the market environment.

The following investments include a mix of stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that stand out as compelling options for investors wanting to navigate the current market turbulence and build a portfolio that's positioned for long-term success.

Vanguard S&P 500 ETF

• Type: Domestic index fund
• Assets under management: $1.60 trillion
• 10-year average annual total return: 15.6%

The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) is a simple but incredibly effective buy-and-hold investment. Like other S&P 500 ETFs, the VOO tracks the performance of the broad-market index, giving investors low-cost exposure to 500 of the largest publicly traded U.S. companies.

This broad diversification allows investors to participate in the long-term growth of the U.S. economy without having to buy individual stocks. The large-cap nature of the S&P 500 also ensures there are no risky start-ups included in VOO's holdings, and all are established companies with sizeable operations.

With an ultra-low expense ratio of just 0.03%, or $3 on every $10,000 invested, investors don't have to worry about sacrificing gains to management fees. Since the stock market always trends up when you measure in years and decades instead of weeks or months, there's a strong likelihood that this fund will ride out the noise and deliver gains no matter what happens in the second half of 2026 and beyond.

Vanguard Total International Stock ETF

• Type: International Index fund
• Assets under management: $606.0 billion
• 10-year average annual total return: 9.8%

While many U.S. investors maintain an outsize allocation to domestic assets, international exposure remains an important component of a well-balanced long-term portfolio.

That's particularly true now when it seems that America's global leadership is shifting as a result of weakening relationships with traditional allies and the rise of China as a world economic superpower.

The Vanguard Total International Stock ETF (VXUS) provides exposure to roughly 8,800 companies across developed and emerging markets — and no holdings within the U.S. This makes VXUS a valuable buy-and-hold investment for investors looking for an alternative to domestic stocks, as well as for those who want to layer on some geographical diversification via a single holding.

VXUS is a member of the Kiplinger ETF 20, our favorite exchange-traded funds.

Japan is the current country leader in VXUS with about 15% of assets, followed by the U.K. and Canada at around 8% of assets apiece. Asia is also well represented, with top holdings that include Taiwan's Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM) and South Korea's Samsung Electronics (SSNLF).

This broad exposure provides peace of mind for investors who don't want to place bets on which local economy is in favor, with VXUS providing access to the entire world of global stocks.

Health Care Select Sector SPDR Fund

• Type: Healthcare sector fund
• Assets under management: $606.0 billion
• 10-year average annual total return: 9.8%

Healthcare has long been regarded as one of the market's most defensive and dependable sectors, particularly during periods of economic uncertainty. People will keep buying medication or visiting the hospital regardless of broader spending trends or inflationary pressures.

Demographic trends also strengthen the long-term investment case for healthcare. Aging populations will create increased demand for medical services for decades, and leading companies are chasing a wide range of innovations such as cancer therapies and heart disease treatments to meet the growth opportunities within the sector.

The Health Care Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLV), another Kip ETF 20 member, is the largest exchange-traded fund tied to this critical sector of the U.S. economy. XLV offers investors targeted exposure to the largest and most financially stable companies in the pharmaceuticals, medical devices and healthcare services industries.

About 60 healthcare stocks make up the XLV portfolio, led by Big Pharma giant Eli Lilly (LLY) and Dow Jones stock Johnson & Johnson (JNJ).

Apple

• Type: Large-cap technology stock
• Market cap: $4.57 trillion
• 10-year average annual total return: 29.9%

It's hard to predict what the future looks like and which companies will be thriving in 10 or 20 years. But Apple (AAPL) remains one of the strongest buy-and-hold investments in global markets, and its odds of long-term success are strong regardless of any short-term volatility.

Just a few things that create stability for Apple are its massive scale, including its distinction as the first U.S. company to surpass a $1 trillion market capitalization in 2018.

It also has about $45 billion in cash on its balance sheet — which surges to about $132 billion total when you include marketable securities that can be converted to cash relatively easily. That's enough to buy a company the size of Starbucks (SBUX) outright.

This financial stability is built on unmatched brand loyalty, which generates significant cash even without selling new devices. Apple has successfully grown its high-margin Services division to a business that rakes in more than $100 billion in annual revenue through the App Store, Apple Pay, iCloud, Apple TV and other offerings.

There's no such thing as a sure thing on Wall Street. But with deep pockets, a history of success and a tremendous future revenue stream, AAPL seems to be one of the best stocks to buy for the long run.

iShares Gold Trust

• Type: U.S. commodities-focused fund
• Assets under management: $68.5 billion
• 10-year average annual total return: 13.7%

Commodities don't have any fundamentals — a pile of metal can't develop a new product or improve profit margins. But what physical commodities, including gold, do have is a real-world value that cannot be disputed. Unlike popular trends such as AI or blockchain, there's no debate as to what gold will become in the years ahead.

Because of its tangible and unchangeable nature, gold has re-emerged as an important portfolio diversifier amid heightened economic uncertainty, inflation concerns and ongoing market volatility.

The iShares Gold Trust (IAU) provides investors with direct exposure to the price of gold without the hassle of buying physical gold, storing it in a safe, then trying to sell it. IAU is one of the largest and most cost-effective gold ETFs available, and is tied directly to the movements of gold bullion. The trust owns gold bars stored in vaults, primarily in London, and each share in this fund represents fractional ownership of the trust's total holdings.

If you're looking for a buy-and-hold investment with peace of mind, the commodity-backed IAU is one of the most solid investments out there — in more ways than one.

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Longtime shareholders in Micron Technology (MU) used to be longtime sufferers. Not anymore.

The company for decades plodded along in the volatile, low-margin business of making computer memory chips. That's a tough racket. Chips are a commodity. They're cyclical. Meanwhile, chipmakers have to constantly plow cash into research and development — to say nothing of capital expenditures — just to keep pace with peers.

Micron escaped its formerly poky past thanks to the era of artificial intelligence (AI). The ongoing build-out of AI infrastructure isn't just creating massive demand for specialized chips from the likes of Nvidia (NVDA); it's also fueling a run on companies that supply storage. Demand for Micron's wares — Dynamic Random-Access Memory (DRAM), NAND Flash memory, Solid-State Drives (SSDs) and Ultra High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) – has absolutely exploded.

The once-ugly duckling is now a swan. And with shares up more than 850% over the past year, MU stock is no longer a long-term laggard. Indeed, it's been an improbably good bet for truly patient investors.

The lone major American computer memory manufacturer is one of the industry's "Big Three." It competes on the global stage with South Korean heavyweights Samsung (SSNLF) and SK Hynix (HXSCL). And business has never been better.

That's not too shabby for a company that was founded in the late 1970s in the basement of a dental office in Boise. Along the way, Micron helped lead the way in the development of memory chips, demonstrating a particular strength in increasing density. With more than 60,000 patents, it's an engineering powerhouse.

But the grim realities of relentless R&D and capital expenditures in an industry where chip prices regularly plummet made Micron a tough stock to love. Anyone who couldn't stomach prolonged drawdowns of anywhere from 40% to 70% did not belong in the name.

The bottom line on MU stock?

Micron's red-hot run has done wonders for its returns over every standardized investing period you care to look at. For its entire life as a publicly traded company, MU generated an annualized total return (price change plus dividends) of almost 21%. That beats the S&P 500 by about 11 percentage points.

More recent results are simply stupendous. Over the past three years, MU returned 133% vs 23% for the broader market. The five-, 10- and 15-year return periods delivered massive outperformance as well.

Which brings us to what $1,000 invested in Micron stock 20 years ago would be worth today.

Have a look at the above chart and you'll see that a thousand bucks invested in MU two decades ago would today amount to almost $57,000. That's good for an annualized return of nearly 23%.

By comparison, the same sum socked away in an S&P 500 index fund would be worth about $8,600 today – or 11.4% annualized.

Will the good times keep rolling for this darling of an AI play? Wall Street sure thinks so.

"This is the memory bottleneck trade where the company can't nearly supply the backlog of orders," writes David Miller, chief investment officer at Catalyst Funds. "AI workloads need a huge amount of high bandwidth memory and storage. Micron gives you a way to play that part of the AI buildout at a reasonable forward earnings multiple."

Miller's views are widely shared. Of the 44 analysts covering MU stock surveyed by S&P Global Market Intelligence, 39 rate it at Strong Buy, nine say Buy and four call it a Hold. One analyst rates it at Strong Sell. Nevertheless, that works out to a consensus recommendation of Strong Buy, with high conviction to boot.

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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.

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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."

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Mastercard (MA) shareholders might not be too thrilled with the stock's more recent run, but few names have treated buy-and-hold investors to better returns over the long haul.

The world's second-largest payments processor has lost some of its luster over the past few years, but that's more to do with the legal and regulatory landscape than the company's operations. Threats to Mastercard's duopoly with Visa (V) are overblown, bulls say, and shares are priced for future outperformance for patient investors.

Buy-and-hold types who've been in the blue chip stock for ages can attest to Mastercard's strength. And while its competitive moat might not be quite as wide as it once was, the company's global brand remains as powerful as ever.

That's no small feat. A firm that was launched more than 50 years ago by a consortium of regional banks to compete with Visa today operates in more than 210 countries and territories. Nearly 40 million businesses accept Mastercard credit cards, of which there are 3 billion in circulation.

Payments processors aren't all that sexy, but Mastercard has indeed notched some nifty wins for capitalism. In the 1980s, the company issued the first international payment card in the People's Republic of China, as well as in what was then the Soviet Union.

Mastercard also has a history of innovation in security features, pioneering the now-standard practice of putting laser-etched holograms on cards. Later, it spearheaded the global rollout of the chip technology that today makes cards far more secure.

But investors were best served by the company's transition from a bank-owned cooperative to a publicly listed company in 2006. Anyone who invested in Mastercard during those early post-IPO days should have no problem paying off their purchases.

True, shares are lagging the S&P 500 by a wide margin over the past year or so. MA hasn't kept up with the broader market over the past half-decade either. Partly, that's a function of the way the tech sector — and all things related to artificial intelligence (AI) — have soared since ChatGPT debuted at the end of 2022.

MA is also contending with industrywide concerns. Persistent scrutiny of swipe fees has been a headwind for years. And now, the bipartisan Credit Card Competition Act of 2026 threatens Mastercard and Visa's lucrative duopoly. Calls to cap interest charges, while unworkable, are also spooking investors. (Shares in Visa have likewise underperformed the market for years now.)

You can see these anxieties playing out in Mastercard's valuation. Shares currently trade at less than 22 times estimated earnings. That's 20% lower than their five- and 10-year averages. A stock that once commanded hefty premiums thanks to its high operating margins (nearly 60%) and wide competitive moat has been repriced to reflect rising risks.

Interestingly, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) sold its stakes in both Mastercard and Visa during the first quarter of 2026. The payments processors had been a couple of Warren Buffett's favorite stocks since 2011. Apparently, CEO Greg Abel, who is now calling the shots, sees things differently. Make of that what you will.

The bottom line on MA stock?

As noted above, Mastercard stock has been disappointing for more recent investors. Shares lag the broader market on an annualized total return basis (price change plus dividends) over the past one-, three- and five-year periods. Heck, over the past 52 weeks, MA stock is off about 4% vs a 30% gain for the S&P 500.

Beyond those recent periods, however, the returns have been priceless.

Over the past decade, MA stock leads the broader market by almost 3 percentage points. Over the past 15-year period, it beats the S&P 500 by more than 7 points.

Which brings us to what $1,000 invested in Mastercard stock 20 years ago would be worth today. Spoiler alert: a lot.

Have a look at the above chart and you'll see that a thousand bucks invested in MA stock two decades ago would today amount to almost $121,000. That's good for an annualized return of more than 27%.

By comparison, the same sum socked away in an S&P 500 index fund would be worth about $8,600 today – or 11.4% annualized.

That's remarkable outperformance. Happily for bulls, Wall Street analysts think Mastercard is priced to resume its winning ways.

"Solid quarterly earnings again underscored the resilience of MA's operating model amid a more mixed payments and macro backdrop," writes BofA Securities analyst Matthew O'Neill, who rates shares at Buy. "The underlying constant currency demand outlook remains intact, supporting confidence in Mastercard's long-term earnings durability and capital return profile."

O'Neill has plenty of company on the Street. Of the 39 analysts covering MA stock surveyed by S&P Global Market Intelligence, 29 rate it at Strong Buy, seven say Buy and three call it a Hold. That works out to a consensus recommendation of Strong Buy, with high conviction to boot.

More Stocks of the Past 20 Years

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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."

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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.

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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%.

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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."

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