S&P 500, Dow Close Slightly Lower as Trade Uncertainty Persists After Trump Extends Deadline on Tariffs

Biggest S&P 500 Movers on Tuesday

47 minutes ago

Decliners

• Shares of Fair Isaac (FICO), the data analytics firm known for its consumer credit scores, ended the day down 8.9%, falling the furthest of any stock in the S&P 500. The decline came after William Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, said that government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would allow lenders to use the VantageScore 4.0 credit scoring model, a competitor to the FICO credit score. Shares of credit bureaus Equifax (EFX), Experian (EXPGY), and TransUnion (TRU), which operate VantageScore as a joint venture, edged higher.
• Trump signed an executive order on Monday aimed at terminating subsidies for wind and solar energy projects, including directives to “build upon and strengthen the repeal” of clean-energy tax credits under the recently passed budget bill. Stocks with exposure to renewable energy were among the weakest performers in the S&P 500 on Tuesday. Shares of solar panel maker First Solar (FSLR) were down 6.5%, while shares of power generator NRG Energy (NRG) lost 4.7%.
• Gold prices slipped, with optimism about potential negotiations with major trading partners weighing on the safe-haven asset. An uptick in Treasury yields, which makes the precious metal a less attractive investment by comparison, added to the downward pressure. Shares of Newmont (NEM), the world’s largest gold producer, declined 4.2%.

Advancers

• Several high-profile medical organizations filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., alleging that new policies related to COVID-19 vaccines represent a public health threat. Plaintiffs including the American College of Physicians are asking courts to rescind a Kennedy directive that removed the COVID-19 shot from immunization schedules for children and pregnant women. Shares of major vaccine maker Moderna (MRNA) surged 8.8%, topping Tuesday’s S&P 500 leaderboard.
• Intel (INTC) shares added 7.2% as a regulatory filing revealed that the semiconductor giant is eliminating more than 500 positions from its facilities in Oregon. The latest layoffs are part of a turnaround plan under new Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, who has focused on slashing operating costs since taking the helm in March. Tan’s strategy received a vote of confidence from Citi, which lifted its price target on Intel stock. Analysts highlighted the potential for strong demand across the chip industry, noting that previous expectations of a tariff-driven slowdown have not come to fruition.
• Shares of Albemarle (ALB), the world’s largest lithium miner, also jumped 7.2%. Albemarle stock has seen significant volatility in the past month, sinking to a low beneath $60 on June 20 before entering an uptrend that has lifted the shares to their highest level since April. The company has taken measures to reduce costs as it navigates a persistently soft lithium price environment.

–Michael Bromberg

Intel Stock Surges as Chip Giant Cuts Jobs

1 hr 7 min ago

Intel (INTC) said it plans to start laying off hundreds of workers in Oregon as part of previously announced cuts under its restructuring plan. 

Shares of the embattled chipmaker jumped over 7% Tuesday, extending recent gains driven by hopes that new CEO Lip-Bu Tan can engineer a turnaround and speculation of potential deals to sell parts of its business. Still, the stock has lost close to a third of its value over the past 12 months.

The cuts will affect about 529 employees at four facilities in Aloha and Hillsboro, Ore., starting on July 15, Intel said in a regulatory filing Monday. The chipmaker in recent weeks said it would trim over 100 roles in Santa Clara, Calif.

Intel did not immediately respond to Investopedia’s request for comment.

Bloomberg in April reported the company could move to cut over 20% of its staff, more than the 15% Intel previously said it would. The company had more than 100,000 employees worldwide as of the end of last year, according to a regulatory filing .

–Kara Greenberg

Tesla’s Musk ‘Soap Opera Must End’, Wedbush Says

1 hr 46 min ago

One of Wall Street’s longtime Tesla (TSLA) bulls is urging the company’s board to curb CEO Elon Musk’s political activity.

The “soap opera must end,” Wedbush analysts led by Dan Ives wrote Tuesday, a day after Musk’s statements about starting a new political party sent shares tumbling nearly 7%.

“Shut up, Dan” Musk later posted on his social media platform X.

The analysts said Tesla can’t afford to have Musk’s time split during its current push into automation and robotics, nor can it afford making political enemies in the Trump administration while regulations about autonomous vehicle expansion are yet to be finalized. Musk left the Trump administration earlier this year, as analysts had called   for the CEO to spend more time at his companies.

“In a nutshell, we believe this is a tipping point in the Tesla story and ultimately the Tesla Board needs to act now and set the ground rules for Musk going forward around his political ambitions and actions,” the analysts wrote.

Tesla shares ticked about 1% higher to just under $298 Tuesday, but have still lost over one-quarter of their value this year.

Still, with a $500 price target and “outperform” rating for Tesla’s stock, Wedbush has the highest target of 18 analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha. Among them, nine give Tesla’s stock a “buy,” compared to five “hold” and four “sell” ratings, with a mean target of about $308.

Wedbush also suggested Tesla’s board redesign Musk’s next pay package, as his prior $56 billion deal is still in legal limbo, with three key priorities in mind: adding stock incentives to get Musk on the path to his goal of 25% voting control, establish time requirements for Musk to spend at Tesla, and give the board the ability to influence Musk’s political activity.

“The Board cannot control Musk’s donations,” the analysts wrote, “but they can have oversight if his political ambitions/endeavors interfere with his role as CEO of Tesla.”

Separately, analysts at JPMorgan said Monday they “continue to see risk” to Tesla’s full-year outlook and nearly $1 trillion valuation, after second-quarter deliveries last week came in better than feared, but continued to decline year-over-year.

–Aaron McDade

Oracle Gets a New Top Bull on Wall Street

2 hr 12 min ago

Oracle (ORCL) has a new top bull on Wall Street. Jefferies raised its price target for the cloud computing giant’s stock to $270 from $220, the highest target among firms tracked by Visible Alpha. 

Shares of Oracle gained 1% Tuesday to close at $234.50. The mean target among Wall Street analysts is about $219, per Visible Alpha.

Jefferies said Oracle’s recent cloud deals, including one expected to generate revenue of $30 billion a year starting in fiscal 2028, “represent a pivotal moment in its evolution.”

Oracle didn’t specify the client in that particularly deal, but Jefferies suggested it could be ChatGPT developer OpenAI. The two companies are partners in the Stargate AI infrastructure initiative, and Oracle last week agreed to rent 4.5 gigawatts of data center capacity to OpenAI, according to a Bloomberg report.

In addition to Jefferies’ target hike, analysts at Stifel last week reportedly raised their price target for Oracle stock to $250 per share from $180, pointing to Oracle’s strong cloud growth.

–Andrew Kessel

Freeport-McMoRan Jumps on News of 50% Copper Tariff

3 hr 24 min ago

Shares of American metals firm Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) rose Tuesday as President Donald Trump said at a Cabinet meeting that he would impose a 50% tariff on copper imports.

“Today, we’re doing copper,” Trump said. “I believe the tariff on copper, we’re going to make it 50%.”

The price of copper futures soared nearly 10% following Trump’s comments.

The Phoenix-based Freeport-McMoRan is one of the world’s largest producers of copper and gold, with operations in North America, South America, and Indonesia. Its shares were little changed at around $45 until Trump’s statement, then popped to more than $49. The stock recently was up 3% at $46.50.

–Aaron Rennie

GlobalFoundries Stock Pops on AI Chip Designer Acquisition

4 hr 13 min ago

GlobalFoundries (GFS) stock jumped Tuesday after the contract chip manufacturer agreed to acquire artificial intelligence and processor IP supplier MIPS.

The companies did not disclose the purchase price.

Shares of Malta, N.Y.-based GlobalFoundries rose nearly 7% in recent trading to rank among the biggest gainers in the Nasdaq 100. For the year to date, the stock is down about 3%.

“This acquisition will be a powerful step forward to push the boundaries of efficiency and performance across a broad range of applications in automotive, industrial and datacenter infrastructure,” GlobalFoundries president and COO Niels Anderskouv said.

The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2025. San Jose, Calif.-based MIPS would continue to operate as a standalone business upon closing.

–Andrew Kessel

Goldman, BofA Raise Year-End S&P 500 Targets

4 hr 49 min ago

Wall Street continued to look past tariff uncertainty on Tuesday, with analysts at two major firms lifting stock market price targets they slashed just months ago.

Bank of America analysts, led by Savita Subramanian, on Tuesday raised their year-end S&P 500 target to 6,300, implying a 1% gain for the index through the remainder of the year. BofA entered 2025 with a target of 6,666—one of the highest on Wall Street—but cut its forecast to 5,600 after President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement roiled markets. 

“The resiliency of large companies in the face of macro uncertainty leads us to lower our equity risk premium (ERP) assumption,” Subramanian said. The firm’s ERP estimate—down to 200 basis points (bps) from 250 bps—is well below the post-Global Financial Crisis average of 540 bps, “but a lower ERP is justified today given the index’s shift toward a higher-quality, more asset-light index.” That is, tech companies with healthy balance sheets, high margins, and strong cash flows make up more of the index now than in the past. 

Goldman Sachs’ David Kostin lifted the firm’s year-end target to 6,600 from 6,100. Kostin in January forecast the index would end the year at 6,500, but cut his estimates as Trump’s tariffs ratcheted up economic uncertainty. 

Goldman analysts expect Fed rate cuts to help boost stocks in the second half of the year. The bank’s economists expect officials to make three sequential 25 bps cuts starting in September, followed by two more quarterly cuts next year. Lower rates should increase the S&P 500’s price-to-earnings ratio. 

Goldman expects S&P 500 earnings to increase 7% both this year and next, but Kostin notes confidence in that forecast is low due to the ever-changing tariff landscape. “Recent inflation data and corporate surveys indicate less tariff pass-through so far than we expected,” he wrote. He also noted that tariffs are expected to be absorbed gradually and large-cap companies have built up an inventory buffer that could delay their impact. 

Stocks have rebounded sharply since President Trump paused the “Liberation Day” tariffs that tanked stocks in early April. Since closing at a year-to-date low on April 8, the S&P 500 has rallied 25%, one of the biggest 3-month rallies of the last 50 years and “the sharpest outside of a recession in 20 years,” according to Kostin.

Subramanian acknowledges it may be difficult for the index to sustain the breakneck rally. Tech earnings—“the meat of corporate profits”—are expected to decelerate, and the Federal Reserve, in BofA’s view, appears unlikely to cut interest rates soon. 

Kostin notes the recent rally, driven by soaring tech stocks like Nvidia (NVDA), Meta (META), and Broadcom (AVGO), has “lowered our market breadth indicator to one of its narrowest readings during the last few decades and its lowest level since 2023.” That could set the index up for either a “catch up” by laggards or a “catch down” by market leaders, he said. 

The former is more likely than the latter due to resilient earnings, the likelihood of Fed cuts, and neutral investor positioning, according to Kostin. “As the perceived economic and earnings risk from tariffs continues to fade and the Fed resumes its cutting cycle this fall, investors will likely continue to search for laggards that have not participated in the rally,” he wrote.

–Colin Laidley

What Lies Ahead for Banks the Remainder of the Year

5 hr 50 min ago

Banks, a barometer of the broader U.S. economy, are seeing early signs that the tariff-induced pause in activity is lifting. 

It is by no means the jubilant scenario bank CEOs envisioned in November, when President Donald Trump’s victory ushered in optimism about a boom in loans. But it is a welcome shift from April, when Trump’s tariff plans sparked fears that a recession would cause borrowers to default.

Bankers and bank investors hope the fog keeps clearing, paving the way for businesses to pull the trigger on projects they paused this spring.

“We’re not out of the woods here, but it has a better feel than we’ve had in a while,” said Scott Siefers, a bank analyst at Piper Sandler, though any loan rebound would be coming from “a very low base of expectations.”

More borrowers are behind on loan payments, but that number is not “alarming” yet and is similar to pre-pandemic levels, experts say.

Meanwhile, banks have built large capital reserves to protect themselves from losses if the economy falters.

Read the full article here.

–Polo Rocha

Some Analysts Get More Bullish on Lyft and Uber

7 hr 14 min ago

Some Wall Street analysts are more bullish on rideshare giants Uber (UBER) and Lyft (LYFT). 

In Lyft’s case, it was the team at Oppenheimer, which late yesterday boosted its price target by $3 to $20, above the average near $17 compiled by Visible Alpha and just $1 off the Street high. As for Uber Technologies, Bank of America on Tuesday boosted its target to $115 from $97, above the roughly $98 mean but a bit off the $120 high.

Oppenheimer sees Tesla’s (TSLA) robotaxi launch as “disappointing,” which it said supports optimism about the rideshare business. 

“The bear thesis that robotaxi will subvert rideshare marketplace demand has been firmly halted,” Oppenheimer said. “Additionally, consumer demand and the competitive outlook remains unchanged since [first-quarter] earnings, suggesting a healthy [second quarter/second half] backdrop for rideshare.”

Lyft in May said first-quarter revenue rose 14% year-over-year. Its shares were recently up nearly 2% to above $16, leaving them up close to 27% in 2025.

Bank of America cited a higher multiple for projected free cash flow at Uber, noting optimism about the company’s position in autonomous vehicles as well as growing bookings and “subscriber lock in,” as evidenced by its Uber One offering. The company also said first-quarter revenue grew 14% year-over-year. 

Uber’s shares, which ticked about 1% lower in recent trading, are up roughly 60% this year at around $96 apiece.

–David Marino-Nachison

Solar Stocks Slump as Trump Cuts Federal Support

8 hr 3 min ago

Enphase Energy (ENPH), First Solar (FSLR), and NextEra Energy (NEE) were among the worst-performing stocks in the S&P 500 after President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at ending most federal support for alternative energy.

The order calls on the government to “rapidly eliminate the market distortions and costs imposed on taxpayers by so-called ‘green’ energy subsidies.” It’s designed to use the recently passed budget plan, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, to increase the repeal and modifications to wind, solar, and other alternative energy subsidies.

In addition, Trump ordered the end of “taxpayer support for unaffordable and unreliable ‘green’ energy sources and supply chains built in, and controlled by, foreign adversaries.”

The requirements of executive order are to be implemented by the Secretaries of Treasury and Interior over the next month and a half.

Trump argued that for too long, taxpayers have subsidized “expensive and unreliable energy sources like wind and solar,” which he said have hurt domestic energy sources and the natural landscape, compromised the energy grid, and threatened national security.

NextEra and First Solar were each down nearly 4% in recent trading, while Enphase dropped about 3%.

–Bill McColl

What Analysts are Saying About Airlines Ahead of Earnings

9 hr 7 min ago

Delta Air Lines (DAL) is scheduled to release its second-quarter results Thursday, setting the tone for other carriers like United Airlines (UAL), Southwest Airlines (LUV), and American Airlines (AAL), each set to report later this month.

Analysts from Bank of America, UBS and Morgan Stanley said in recent notes that they expect Q2 results will be unsurprising after a difficult first half of the year for airline stocks, with third-quarter outlooks more likely to move shares.

“The message from airlines in 2Q25 has been one of stability, a theme we see in many of the demand indicators we follow,” Bank of America analysts wrote. “As such, we expect 2Q25 results to be largely in line with outlooks.”

Morgan Stanley analysts wrote Monday that the second quarter “arguably shaped up better than feared” following warnings from several airlines about declining demand. However, they added that “there is no question that cracks remain in the macro even if the industry is not falling apart” and “below the relatively calm surface, danger may lurk.”

UBS analysts said they “we see potential for sluggish updates from airlines from their 2Q prints and forward outlooks,” and cut their full-year profit estimates for Delta and United to “reflect a more cautious view on the pace of improvement in demand and RASM performance.”

Delta is expected to report adjusted earnings per share of $2.05 on revenue of $16.38 billion, each lower than a year ago, according to estimates compiled by Visible Alpha. Analysts tracked by the investment research firm are bullish on Delta’s stock, with 10 “buy” ratings and just one “hold,” and an average price target of $58.18, 16% higher than Monday’s closing price.

–Aaron McDade

Tesla Levels to Watch After Monday’s Sell-Off

10 hr 1 min ago

Tesla shares were higher in premarket trading after tumbling Monday following news CEO Elon Musk plans to start a new political party, reigniting concerns that his attention will turn away from running the EV maker and that a public feud with President Trump will escalate. 

Tesla shares gained 23% in the second quarter, but are 18% below last month’s high amid escalating tensions between Musk and Trump over the president’s mega tax and spending bill. After Musk announced the formation of the “America Party” on Saturday, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that Musk had gone “off the rails.”

Tesla shares broke down from a flag earlier this month before shifting gear to retest the pattern’s lower trendline late last week. However, selling accelerated in Monday’s trading session, with the stock falling to its lowest level since early June.

Moreover, the relative strength index registered its lowest reading since early June, confirming weakening price momentum in the EV maker’s stock.

Investors should watch key support levels on Tesla’s chart around $285, $265 and $225, while also monitoring vital overhead areas near $318 and $365.

Tesla shares were up about 1% at around $297 in recent premarket trading, after falling nearly 7% yesterday to lead S&P 500 decliners.

Read the full technical analysis piece here.

–Timothy Smith

S&P 500, Nasdaq Futures Point Higher

10 hr 39 min ago

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down less than 0.1%.

S&P 500 futures were up 0.1%.

Nasdaq 100 futures added 0.3%.