Stock Market Today: Stocks Give Back Big Debt Ceiling Deal Gains
The major benchmarks opened solidly higher Tuesday after lawmakers announced a debt ceiling deal, but optimism faded into the close.


News that a debt ceiling deal was reached over the weekend sent stocks higher at the start of the holiday-shortened week, though optimism faded as the session wore on.
But it wasn't only the debt ceiling in focus today. Nvidia (NVDA) continued its monumental rise – briefly passing a milestone that's rarely been met on Wall Street. Tesla (TSLA) made headlines, too, after CEO Elon Musk headed to China for the first time in years.
Over the Memorial Day holiday weekend, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the White House agreed to a deal that will suspend the debt ceiling through January 2025, while keeping non-defense spending unchanged next year and limiting increases to 1% in 2025. The agreement also incorporates work requirements for certain food stamp recipients.

Sign up for Kiplinger’s Free E-Newsletters
Profit and prosper with the best of expert advice on investing, taxes, retirement, personal finance and more - straight to your e-mail.
Profit and prosper with the best of expert advice - straight to your e-mail.
The bill now heads to Congress where lawmakers will debate, and hopefully pass, the bill ahead of the June 5 deadline when the U.S. is projected to run out of money to pay its bills.
"It won't take a lot to disrupt this debt deal, but optimism remains that Congress won't mess with putting the economy at risk of an unnecessary catastrophe," says Edward Moya, senior market strategist at currency data provider OANDA. "Right now, it feels like we have a one run lead and are at the seventh-inning stretch."
Anxiety over whether or not the deal will gain enough support in Congress ahead of the default deadline had the major market indexes giving back early gains. The Nasdaq Composite, which was up 1.3% at its intraday peak, ended the day with a more modest 0.3% increase at 13,017. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 finished flat at 4,205 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 0.2% lower at 33,042.
Nvidia briefly hits a $1 trillion market cap
As for single-stock news, Nvidia was a notable gainer, building on last week's AI-induced momentum. Specifically, the chipmaker climbed almost 25% last week after it said demand for artificial intelligence will result in record revenue this quarter.
Today's gains came after Nvidia unveiled its new supercomputer over the weekend. "We believe Nvidia's accelerated computing GPUs stand out to be the biggest beneficiary in an AI-driven world and is the only way for cloud customers and broader enterprise space to create successful large language models at this time," says CFRA Research analyst Angelo Zino (Buy).
This sent NVDA up 7% at one point today, which briefly brought its market capitalization north of $1 trillion for the first time ever. This impressive milestone has been hit by just a handful of U.S. companies, with Apple (AAPL), Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon.com (AMZN) and Microsoft (MSFT) the only firms currently in the trillion-dollar club. NVDA narrowly missed closing above the key psychological level, ending today up 3.0% at $401.11, with a market value of $992 billion.
Tesla, meanwhile, rose 4.1% today as CEO Elon Musk headed to China for his first visit in roughly three years. "While the geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China are increasing, Tesla finds itself in a tight wire act to balance its success and production within China which remains a vital market on both the supply and demand front," says Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives (Outperform, or the equivalent of a Buy). Playing nice with Beijing is key to ensuring there are "no disruptions to Tesla's expansion and tentacles within China for the coming years as this remains the #1 EV market in the world," the analyst adds.
Stocks picked by AI to outperform
Big swings like we saw today are not for faint-of-heart investors, but they can be exciting for stock pickers. Many tactical traders have been homing in on the year's best momentum stocks as one way to play what's hot right now, but another approach leverages artificial intelligence.
Danelfin is an analytics platform that uses AI to analyze hundreds of fundamental, technical and sentiment data points per day for 1,000 U.S.-listed shares and 600 European-listed firms. Danelfin's algorithms then generate stock picks that it views as highly likely to outperform the market over the next 30 to 90 sessions.
So, what does Danelfin say are the best stocks to buy now? Read on as we take a look at the platform's latest high-scoring stocks.
Related Content
Profit and prosper with the best of Kiplinger's advice on investing, taxes, retirement, personal finance and much more. Delivered daily. Enter your email in the box and click Sign Me Up.

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.
-
Trump Tax Bill: Elon Musk and Most Americans Say It Isn’t So ‘Beautiful’
Tax Policy President Trump is betting big on his new tax cuts being passed by July 4. But not everyone is on board.
-
What's Happening With the New Jersey State Budget?
State Taxes The latest New Jersey tax laws include a new ‘mansion tax’ and Stay NJ payouts. Here’s what to know.
-
AI vs the Stock Market: How Did Alphabet, Nike and Industrial Stocks Perform in June?
AI is a new tool to help investors analyze data, but can it beat the stock market? Here's how a chatbot's stock picks fared in June.
-
Stock Market Today: A Historic Quarter Closes on High Notes
"All's well that ends well" is one way to describe the second quarter of 2025, at least from a pure price-action perspective.
-
Stock Market Today: S&P 500, Nasdaq Near New Highs
The S&P 500 hasn't hit a new high since February. It's been since December for the Nasdaq.
-
Stock Market Today: Stocks Struggle to Sustain Gains
Mixed messages from multiple sources continue to make for a messy market for investors, traders and speculators.
-
Stock Market Today: Stocks Chop as Chipmakers Decline
Several semiconductor stocks fell Friday on reports that the White House may consider revising license waivers for global chipmakers.
-
We Are Peter Lynch: How to Invest in What You Know
Take a look around, go to a free stock market data website, and get to work.
-
Stock Market Today: Stocks Rise on Less Deadly Concerns
Markets are forward-looking mechanisms, and it's good when price action shows there's a future to look forward to.
-
Stock Market Today: Stocks Stable as Inflation, Tariff Fears Ebb
Constructive trade war talks and improving consumer expectations are a healthy combination for financial markets.