Nasdaq Ends the Week at a New High: Stock Market Today

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Stocks finished Friday with comfortable daily gains and impressive weekly returns, with one of the three main benchmarks ending today at a new all-time closing high.

Amid a relatively bare economic calendar, market participants turned to another onslaught of corporate earnings reports, with several stocks making outsize moves.

On the positive side of the ledger was Monster Beverage (MNST), which jumped 6.4% after stronger-than-anticipated second-quarter results.

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Wall Street was quick to chime in on the energy drink maker after it reported earnings. UBS Global Research analyst Peter Grom, for one, lifted his price target on the consumer staples stock to $67 from $64, while maintaining a Neutral (Hold) rating.

"A key question heading into the print centered on the magnitude of higher tariff costs and how this would impact MNST's gross margin trajectory," Grom says. "There are many moving pieces, but we think the stronger profit delivery in the quarter and constructive commentary on the path forward is likely to alleviate any margin concerns in the near term."

Other post-earnings gainers included drugmaker Gilead Sciences (GILD) and cybersecurity stock Gen Digital (GEN), which added 8.3% and 7.7%, respectively, after their beat-and-raise quarters.

LegalZoom stock soars after a double upgrade

Meanwhile, LegalZoom.com (LZ) was one of the biggest percentage-gainers on Friday, soaring 31.2% after the small-cap stock was double upgraded to Buy from Underperform (Sell) by BofA Securities analyst Michael McGovern.

He also hiked his price target to $12 from $8, representing implied upside of more than 9% from today's close.

McGovern says the online platform, which supports legal, compliance and business management needs, has shifted its focus toward subscription-based growth and added strategic artificial intelligence (AI) partnerships, namely with Perplexity and OpenAI.

"LZ can likely sustain double-digit subscription revenue well into next year, as revenue growth has significantly exceeded our expectations," McGovern writes in a note to clients.

And the company's AI collaborations "can create a new funnel of throughput as AI usage substantially increases penetration of legal services online, lifting all boats."

The double upgrade came after LegalZoom reported its second-quarter earnings results, which showed a 10% year-over-year increase in subscription revenue. It also raised its full-year revenue forecast.

Trade Desk stock has its worst day ever after earnings

There were plenty of stocks that found themselves in the red after earnings, including The Trade Desk (TTD), which plummeted 38.6% after its results – its worst day on record.

While the cloud-based advertising platform beat on the top and bottom lines for Q2, CEO Jeff Green cautioned that third-quarter revenue growth could slow as "some of the world's largest brands are absolutely facing pressure and some amount of uncertainty" as a result of tariffs and their potential impact on inflation.

And Wedbush analyst Scott Devitt warned of "rising competitive intensity," which he says is primarily coming from Amazon.com (AMZN).

"The narrative has turned cautious, and we highlight multiple reports in recent months suggesting Amazon has more aggressively improved its demand-side platform (DSP) capabilities and offerings, with several marketers migrating larger budgets from TTD to Amazon's DSP," Devitt writes in a note to clients.

The analyst downgraded TTD stock to Neutral from Outperform (the equivalents of Hold and Buy, respectively), and slashed his price target to $68 from $90.

As for the main indexes, the Nasdaq Composite rose 1.0% to 21,450, a new all-time closing high. The S&P 500 gained 0.8% to 6,389, finishing just fractions of a point below its record high, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.5% to 44,175, putting it less than 2% below its peak from December.

July CPI headlines a busy week of economic data

Looking ahead to next week, the earnings calendar quiets down a bit. But all eyes will be on the economic calendar, with several key inflation updates set for release.

Most notable is the July Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, slated for release ahead of Tuesday's open.

The June CPI report showed that President Trump's tariff policies are starting to have a moderate impact on inflation.

And over the next few months, Goldman Sachs economists "expect tariffs to continue to boost monthly inflation and forecast monthly core CPI inflation between 0.3% and 0.4%."

For July, specifically, the group anticipates a rebound in used car prices, though it believes new car prices fell 0.2%. The economists also expect upticks in airfare and categories with outsize exposure to tariffs, including household furnishings.

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With over a decade of experience writing about the stock market, Karee Venema is the senior investing editor at Kiplinger.com. She joined the publication in April 2021 after 10 years of working as an investing writer and columnist at a local investment research firm. In her previous role, Karee focused primarily on options trading, as well as technical, fundamental and sentiment analysis.