Stock Market Today: Stocks Struggle Ahead of PPI, Powell Speech
While the main indexes were relatively quiet Monday, GameStop made a lot of noise as it reclaimed its meme-stock status.
Stocks were choppy Monday as investors looked ahead to a busy week of economic news. In addition to an appearance from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, investors will get key inflation updates, starting with tomorrow morning's release of the Producer Price Index.
Recent hotter-than-expected economic reports have pushed back expectations on the Fed's rate-cut plans. However, last Friday's weak jobs report was just the sort of bad-news-is-good-news data investors were looking for.
Deutsche Bank economists think Tuesday morning's inflation print will show slight month-to-month increases in both headline PPI and core PPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices. The data will also give Powell the first look at April inflation numbers before tomorrow's mid-morning speech.
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No matter the results, the Deutsche Bank team expects Powell to stick close to the script he gave after the May Fed meeting. "As a reminder, Powell ditched calendar-based forward guidance and indicated it would take longer to gain sufficient confidence on inflation to cut rates – a theme largely echoed by other officials since the meeting," they said.
GameStop races higher as Roaring Kitty returns
In single-stock news, GameStop (GME) soared 74.4% today, with several media outlets pointing to a post on X from Keith Gill, aka "Roaring Kitty," as the catalyst behind the jaw-dropping rally. Gill and his fellow members of Reddit's WallStreetBets are often cited for sparking the massive short squeeze in early 2021 that created volatile trading in several highly shorted stocks. This weekend's X post was Gill's first in three years.
Today's surge in GME had a halo effect on fellow meme stock AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC, +78.4%) and newly public social media platform Reddit (RDDT, 8.7%). Mark Hackett, chief of investment research at Nationwide, says that while this is "likely just a blip, [it's] still something for investors to watch."
Jefferies thinks Nvidia can rally another 33%
Elsewhere, Nvidia (NVDA) gained 0.6% after Jefferies analyst Blayne Curtis boosted his price target on the Magnificent 7 stock to $1,200 from $780, representing implied upside of 33% to current levels.
The analyst adds that Nvidia is a "top pick" among artificial intelligence (AI) stocks given the chipmaker's exposure to the technology. And while he admits that "there may need to be winners and losers eventually … the time is not now with [the] AI tide rising."
Curtis' new price target is hardly the highest on Wall Street. That honor goes to Hans Mosesmann of Rosenblatt Securities, who has a $1,400 price target on NVDA.
Overall, industry analysts tracked by S&P Global Market Intelligence have an average target price of $1,021.20 for Nvidia. They also have a consensus Strong Buy rating.
As for the main indexes, the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.2% to 39,431 to snap its eight-day win streak as Home Depot (HD) dropped 1.6% ahead of its early morning appearance on the earnings calendar. The S&P 500 fell 0.02% to 5,221, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.3% to 16,388.
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