Stocks Wrap Up a Down Week on a High Note; Dow Closes Up Nearly 500 Points; NY Fed Chief Signals Support for Rate Cut

Noteworthy S&P 500 Movers on Friday

9 hr 38 min ago

Advancers

Shares of Ross Stores (ROST) surged 8.4% after the off-price apparel, footwear, and accessories retailer surpassed third-quarter sales and profit estimates. The company is the latest discount retailer to demonstrate it’s benefiting from consumers’ bargain-seeking. Ross highlighted strength in the back-to-school shopping season and raised its outlook, pointing to optimism about the crucial holiday period.

Comments from John Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, helped boost expectations that policymakers might cut interest rates in December. Rate-cut optimism boosted the stocks of companies exposed to the housing market, which stand to benefit from lower mortgage rates. Shares of residential construction materials supplier Builders FirstSource (BLDR) jumped 7.1%, while homebuilders D.R. Horton (DHI) and Lennar (LEN) also notched solid gains.

Insulet (PODD) shares climbed 5.8% a day after the medical device maker held an investor day event. The manufacturer of continuous glucose monitoring devices provided a three-year sales and profit forecast that exceeded consensus expectations. Several research firms raised their price targets on Insulet stock following the event.

Decliners

Oracle (ORCL) shares tumbled 5.7%, extending their recent downtrend and suffering the heaviest decline of any S&P 500 stock Friday. The database software and cloud computing giant has been rattled recently by concerns about its elevated valuation and heavy borrowing tied to its data center investments. Following Friday’s drop, the stock is down around 28% over the past month.

Nvidia (NVDA) shares slid 1% as concerns about an AI bubble continued to weigh on high-flying tech stocks. Friday’s decline extended the stock’s 3% loss yesterday despite the AI chip giant blowing past estimates with its third-quarter earnings report. Nvidia’s largest rivals, Broadcom (AVGO) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), shed 1.9% and 1.1%, respectively, on Friday.

Nuclear power providers Vistra (VST) and Constellation Energy Corp. (CEG), whose stocks soared over the past year as they struck multi-billion dollar deals to power AI data centers, were also dogged by bubble fears. Their stocks fell a respective 3% and 2.2%.

–Michael Bromberg

Why Has Oracle Stock Dropped 40% in Two Months?

10 hr 18 min ago

Betting big on artificial intelligence is proving to be a double-edged sword.

Shares of Oracle (ORCL), the almost-50 year-old software company turned AI play, rallied furiously during the summer as investor enthusiasm for what could be the next transformative technology surged. Lately the company’s stock has given up much of those gains, down more than 40% from its all-time high in September, more than other related plays including Meta Platforms (META), Palantir Technologies (PLTR) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), whose stocks declined at least 20% from their respective peaks. Now investors are looking at Oracle as the poster child for AI-related excess.

Though concerns about AI valuations have been lingering for years, investors have recently started to pan stocks tied to the theme, weighing the amount companies are spending to develop the tech against the potential for future revenue.

Oracle has come under increased scrutiny since it raised $18 billion in new debt last month to fund its infrastructure buildout, pushing its overall debt to over $100 billion. In January, Oracle announced that it was joining forces with ChatGPT maker OpenAI and Japanese tech giant Softbank on a $500 billion project, called Stargate, to develop AI infrastructure in the U.S.

Oracle’s quarterly earnings report in early September blew past Wall Street expectations, sending the stock soaring 36% in one day and briefly making co-founder and Executive Chairman Larry Ellison the world’s richest person. A few weeks later, however, the company announced that longtime CEO Safra Catz would be replaced as CEO, and the stock has been declining ever since.

Meanwhile, traders have started to pile into Oracle’s credit-default swaps as a way to both hedge and bet against the AI trade, according to a recently published story by Bloomberg.2

 Credit default swaps are derivative contracts that serve as a kind of insurance against the possibility that a borrower will default on its debt obligations.

Read the full story here.

–Crystal Kim

Homebuilder Stocks Jump Amid Renewed Rate-Cut Hopes

10 hr 32 min ago

Builders are getting a big boost from rising expectations of a rate cut next month.

Homebuilder stocks were among some the biggest gainers in the S&P 500 Friday, after Federal Reserve Bank of New York president John Williams said at a conference that there is “room for a further adjustment in the near term to the target range for the federal funds rate,” adding fuel to hopes of a rate cut when the Fed next meets on Dec. 9 and 10.

Traders are now pricing in a roughly 70% chance of a rate cut next month following the comments, up from 39% just yesterday, according to CME Group’s FedWatch tool, which is based on pricing of Fed funds rate futures contracts.

Shares of Builders FirstSource (BLDR), D.R. Horton (DHI), and KB Home (KBH) each surged about 7% Friday as the odds of a cut rose, while Lennar (LEN) added close to 6%. PulteGroup (PHM) shares climbed just over 5%. Other stocks connected to real estate also gained, including Zillow Group (Z) and mortgage broker Rocket Companies (RKT).

Still, many of those stocks, including Builders FirstSource, KB Home, Lennar, and Zillow, remained in negative territory for 2025. The housing market has been sluggish this year as mortgage rates have remained elevated, leaving many buyers waiting on the sidelines for rates to drop, while others who bought a home in the years when rates were lower are more likely to stay put in order to hold on to their rate.

The prospect of a rate cut next month would be a boon for homebuilders and other companies tied to the real estate market, as it would mean lower mortgage rates, which could help stimulate demand from homebuyers, driving up revenues for companies that make and sell homes.

–Aaron McDade

Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq All Close Week Lower Despite Sharp Gains Friday

11 hr 13 min ago

Today’s big gains weren’t enough for the three major stock indexes to close the week in the green.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and Nasdaq all finished in negative territory for the week despite registering sharp gains today.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq had the biggest decline this week, closing down 2.5%, followed by the benchmark S&P 500 (2%) and blue-chip Dow (1.8%).

Fed’s December Cut Debate Heats Up, Now With More Data

11 hr 13 min ago

Markets are quite confused about whether the Federal Reserve will cut rates in December, as Fed officials’ sharp divide on that question plays out in public. 

One camp argues lowering interest rates next month would help a job market that’s showing signs of weakening. The other argues inflation remains above the Fed’s 2% target and sees more signs of economic strength.

Rather than clarify the debate, the return of missing economics data that went dark during the shutdown is equipping each side with more information. Each camp is making their leanings clear as the Fed’s Dec. 9-10 meeting approaches.

“It’s striking that both sides of the debate have high-conviction compelling arguments—cut based on cooling labor conditions or hold because of lingering inflation risks,” Ian Lyngen, head of U.S. rates strategy at BMO Capital Markets, wrote in a note to clients.

The long-delayed September report is a “perfect Rorschach test” for Fed officials, Matthew Luzzetti, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank, wrote in a note to clients. That is, their reading of the September report will likely depend on which camp they fall into. 

Read the full article here.

–Polo Rocha

Investors Just Endured a Brutally Volatile Week. What’s Next For the Stock Market?

11 hr 13 min ago

The stock market is in limbo. It could be there for a while.

After weeks of softness in tech stocks, bulls were hoping a blowout earnings report from Nvidia (NVDA) would revive the faltering AI trade. They got strong earnings—but not the payout. Stocks sold off Thursday as the Cboe Volatility Index (VIX), or the “Fear Index,” jumped to its highest level since April’s tariff debacle. 

Tech stocks rebounded on Friday, but those gains came with a caveat. When AI optimism is in full swing, the tech-heavy Nasdaq tends to handily outperform the other major indexes. On Friday, the Nasdaq rose 2%, not much more than the blue-chip Dow’s 1.7% gain. And market experts are now trying to navigate the road ahead after a week of confusing signals and volatile action.

The AI rally has been imperiled before. Tech stocks slumped in July 2024 amid concerns about over-investing in AI, but they found their footing and moved higher through the end of the year. Overspending fears resurfaced in January when Chinese startup DeepSeek burst onto the scene. That setback, too, was short-lived.

“We are going through another ‘DeepSeek Moment,’” wrote Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, one of Wall Street’s ardent tech bulls, on Friday. Ives compared today’s AI bubble debate to historical examples of tech skeptics getting it wrong, like dismissals of the iPhone in 2008 and Microsoft’s pivot to cloud computing in 2014.

Read the full article here.

–Colin Laidley

Intuit’s Stock Price Is Surging Friday. Here’s Why the TurboTax Maker is Gaining.

12 hr 6 min ago

Intuit (INTU) shares jumped Friday, one day after the maker of accounting software reported better-than-expected results as its AI tools boost demand from mid-market businesses.

The company behind QuickBooks, TurboTax and MailChimp posted first-quarter fiscal 2026 adjusted earnings of $3.34 per share, 25 cents more than analysts from Visible Alpha were looking for. Revenue grew 18% to $3.89 billion, also topping estimates.

Most of the revenue came from the Global Business Solutions division, which recorded an 18% increase to $2.99 billion. QuickBooks Online Accounting revenue climbed 25% to $1.21 billion.

CEO Sasan Goodarzi said the company continued “to execute on our AI-driven expert platform strategy.” In a call with analysts, Goodarzi said that Intuit’s Accounting Agent “is saving customers up to 12 hours a month and our Payments Agent helps customers get paid on average five days faster.”

Read the full article here.

–Bill McColl

Cognizant Technology Solutions Stock Pops on William Blair Upgrade

12 hr 23 min ago

Earlier this week, William Blair analysts hosted in-person meetings with Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTSH) CFO Jatin Dalal and head of investor relations Tyler Scott. They like what they heard.

William Blair on Friday upgraded the stock to “outperform” from “market perform,” writing that “Cognizant has momentum after five consecutive quarters of positive organic constant-currency growth for the business.” The analysts said the “meetings reflected positive sentiment from management on the remainder of the year. We heard no anecdotes of the macro becoming more challenging, and expect the year to finish toward the midpoint to higher end of the revenue guidance range.”

The analysts noted that the technology solutions firm “is entering a new phase of growth and profitability driven by an accelerated AI-focused strategy, improved operational execution, and strengthening demand across key verticals,” yet the stock trades “at a sharp valuation discount to peers, presenting an attractive risk-reward opportunity for IT services investors over the next 12 to 18 months.”

The stock popped in response, and was up about 5.5% with roughly an hour to go in the trading day, among the biggest gainers on the tech-heavy Nasdaq.

Still, even with today’s gains, Cognizant shares are little changed this year.

Bed Bath & Beyond Admits Its Stores Are ‘Overwhelming.’ Changes Are Coming

13 hr 20 min ago

Some stores aspire to be basic. Bath & Body Works is one of them.

Bath & Body Works (BBWI) on Thursday said it’s simplifying its approach after its sales dipped 1% year-over-year and adjusted income fell 33% in its latest quarter. The retailer known for soaps, candles and skincare products overlooked its core inventory while trying to woo younger consumers, CEO Daniel Heaf said, and grew too dependent on big-name collaborations and promotions.

To regroup, the company will focus on traditional offerings, prioritize “clean” ingredients, and streamline the way its inventory appears in physical and digital stores, Heaf said on a conference call. The company—and its boss—aims to revive a stock that has cratered in 2025.

“The customer tells us that our proposition in-store is too overwhelming and confusing,” Heaf said, according to a transcript made available by AlphaSense. “The outcome that we want is to be able to entice new consumers into our stores and onto our digital platforms. They [should be able to] find what they want easily and fall in love.”

Bath & Body Works is stepping back from hair care and men’s grooming products to focus on the home fragrances and body care products people expect, Heaf said. The brand will continue refining its inventory—and lean into “clean” ingredients—while running fewer, more targeted marketing campaigns, he said. Bath & Body Works is also refining its website and app, and is preparing to launch on Amazon (AMZN).

Read the full article here.

–Sarina Trangle

This Off-Price Retailer Is the Latest to Get a Boost From Bargain-Hunting Shoppers

14 hr 6 min ago

Ross Stores (ROST) shares jumped to an all-time high Friday after the off-price retailer became the latest to say it’s seeing sales surge as shoppers search for deals.

The stock was up nearly 8% over $173 in recent trading, leaving it on track to close at a record high.

Ross Stores posted third-quarter earnings per share of $1.58, beating the consensus of analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha by 18 cents. Revenue rose 10.4% year-over-year to $5.6 billion, also ahead of forecasts. Comparable store sales jumped 7%.

CEO Jim Conroy said the company had an “excellent” back-to-school season, and believes its “assortment of compelling brand name values resonated with shoppers,” with strong growth across major categories of merchandise, according to a transcript provided by AlphaSense.

“It is clear the consumer is prioritizing value and our updated assortment is driving stronger customer engagement,” Conroy said.

Read the full article here.

–Bill McColl

Walmart Stock Leads Dow Decliners After Soaring Yesterday

14 hr 17 min ago

Walmart (WMT) stock soared yesterday on a terrible day overall for equities indexes. Today, the opposite scenario is taking place.

Shares of the world’s biggest retailer led Dow decliners Friday, with the stock down roughly 2%.

In recent trading, just two other components in the blue-chip index were in the red: Microsoft (MSFT) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) shares were down roughly 1% and 0.2%, respectively.

Yesterday, Walmart shares jumped 6.5% to lead the Dow and S&P 500 after the company reported strong third-quarter results and lifted its fiscal 2026 outlook.

Walmart shares are up about 16% in 2025.

Are Stocks Weighing on Crypto—Or the Other Way Around? Here’s What Experts Think

14 hr 38 min ago

Have you seen the Spider-Man meme? You know—the one where two cartoon Spider-Men point at each other?

That might be a metaphor for the mood in risk assets these days, with some experts suggesting that stocks are to blame for the weakness in crypto markets, and others arguing that crypto is weighing on stocks. Whoever might be right, that investors seem to be reacting to excesses in both may not bode well for either.

The S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq indexes are rebounding a bit Friday, but coin markets continue to bleed. The price of bitcoin has tumbled roughly 8% in the last 24 hours, breaching the $81,000 level, moving closer to April’s year-to-date lows.

Interactive Brokers’ chief strategist on Friday suggested that yesterday’s intraday pivot in broad market indexes happened as bitcoin, which is being used as a “proxy for speculative fever,” started to fall below $90,000.

Read the full article here.

–Crystal Kim

Bitcoin Price Plummets Over $40,000 in Just Six Weeks as Market Faces Growing Uncertainty

15 hr 5 min ago

Crytocurrenies are selling off amid heightened uncertainty.

The price of Bitcoin (BTCUSD) extended its recent slide Friday, hitting a seven-month low at below $81,000. It traded recently around $83,300, leaving the world’s largest cryptocurrency on track to log its fourth straight week of declines as investors reassess their risk appetite amid broader volatility in financial markets. Bitcoin has lost about a third of its value since hitting a record high of around $125,000 on Oct. 6.

The prices of altcoins such as ether (ETHUSD) and solana (SOLUSD) tumbled along with bitcoin Friday, as did exchange-traded funds tracking the cryptocurrencies. Shares of Strategy (MSTR), the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, and crypto mining firm Mara Holdings (MARA) also lost ground.

Bitcoin has had just two positive days since Nov. 10, when it traded around $106,000. The cryptocurrency has tumbled in the weeks since as stocks have also declined amid concerns about an artificial intelligence bubble inflating the stock market.

Read the full article here.

–Aaron McDade

This Clothing Chain Feels Good About the Holiday Season. Its Stock Is Rising

15 hr 45 min ago

Shares of Gap took off after the clothing retailer exceeded earnings and revenue estimates and boosted its guidance on strong demand at its namesake locations.

The company, which also operates the Banana Republic, Old Navy, and Athleta chains, reported third quarter fiscal 2025 adjusted earnings per share of $0.62, with revenue up 3% to $3.94 billion. Analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha were looking for $0.58 and $3.91 billion, respectively. 

Gap’s (GAP) overall comparable store sales increased 5%. They rose 7% at Gap, 6% at Old Navy, and 4% at Banana Republic. Comparable sales slumped 11% at Athleta.

The “strength of our third quarter and quarter-to-date performance positions us well for the holiday selling season,” said CEO Richard Dixon. The company now sees fiscal 2025 sales increasing 1.7% to 2%, up from its previous estimate of 1% to 2%, and expects its operating margin to grow approximately 7.2%, above its previously issued range.

The news lifted Gap shares 8% and into positive territory for the year, offering investors a measure of optimism after an up-and-down 2025.

–Bill McColl

Elastic Shares Sink Despite Strong Results, Lifted Outlook

15 hr 52 min ago

After the close yesterday, Elastic (ESTC) posted better-than-expected results and raised its outlook. Investors are punishing the stock regardless today.

Elastic shares sank 15% Friday morning even though the Dutch-American data-analytics firm’s fiscal 2026 second-quarter adjusted earnings of $0.64 per share and revenue of $423 million topped consensus Visible Alpha estimates.

In addition, the company now sees fiscal 2026 adjusted EPS between $2.40 and $2.46, up from between $2.29 and $2.35, and revenue between $1.715 billion and $1.721 billion, up from between $1.679 billion and $1.689 billion.

However, although Elastic’s Q2 revenue increased 16% year-over-year, investors appeared to be disappointed that the growth slowed from a 20% rise the previous quarter.

With today’s stark selloff, shares of Elastic have lost nearly 30% of their value this year.

This Month’s Stock Trend Hasn’t Been AI. Here’s What’s Been Climbing Instead

16 hr 24 min ago

November’s Wall Street obsession hasn’t been AI. It’s been healthcare.

The S&P 500’s Health Care Index has risen 5% so far this month, handily outpacing the broader market, which is down more than 4%. Tech, meanwhile, has fallen more than 8% since the start of the month, making it the S&P 500’s worst-performing sector over that time. 

Pharmaceutical stocks have posted the largest gains in the healthcare sector. Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (REGN) has been best-performing stock in the S&P 500 over the past month, followed closely by Eli Lilly (LLY).

The latter’s shares have risen more than 20% this month, and on Friday the maker of the blockbuster weight-loss drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound briefly became healthcare’s first trillion-dollar company; its market cap currently sits in a territory between Walmart (WMT) and Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA, BRKB).

Broadly speaking, the move is largely a reflection of investors’ search for the perception of safety in the stock market. Wall Street has been all about AI for the better part of three years, but that enthusiasm has cooled in recent weeks as investors drew parallels between today’s AI boom and the Dotcom Bubble of the late 1990s.

Read the full article here.

–Colin Laidley

December Rate Cut Seems Likelier After One Fed Official’s Comments

16 hr 45 min ago

The odds of the Federal Reserve lowering borrowing costs in December have suddenly flipped from unlikely to more likely than not after the words of a key federal official. 

John Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, shook up the outlook for the Fed’s key interest rate Friday. He made comments indicating he was open to lowering the fed funds rate at the next meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee in December to help bolster the job market.

His remarks made a rate cut seem far more likely: financial markets were pricing in a 73% chance of a December rate cut on Friday morning following Williams’s speech, up from 39% the day before, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool, which forecasts rate movements based on fed funds futures trading data.

The Fed’s 12-member policy committee has been sharply divided over whether to cut rates to breathe some life into an increasingly sluggish job market, or to keep them higher for longer to fight inflation that has run above the Fed’s target of a 2% annual rate for more than four years.

Read the full article here.

–Diccon Hyatt

Eli Lilly Briefly Hits $1 Trillion Market Cap

16 hr 57 min ago

Eli Lilly (LLY) briefly became the first healthcare firm to hit a market capitalization of $1 trillion Friday morning.

Shares of the maker of blockbuster weight-loss drugs Zepbound and Mounjaro, currently up 0.5% at $1,048, rose as high as about $1,061 in the opening minutes of trading to surpass the threshold.

Eli Lilly stock is up about 35% this year. By contrast, rival Novo Nordisk’s (NVO) U.S.-listed shares have fallen about 45% this year and the Danish maker of weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy replaced its chief executive over the summer.

Oracle Stock Continues Pullback, Leads S&P 500 Decliners Friday Morning

17 hr 14 min ago

Oracle (ORCL) shares continue to decline.

Oracle was the worst-performing stock in the S&P 500 in the first hour of trading Friday, with shares down 6%.

The database software and cloud computing firm’s shares were trading around $198.50, down 12% from Wednesday’s close and more than 40% off their all-time intraday high of $345.72 set on Sept. 10.

Despite the sharp declines over the past two months, shares remain up about 20% this year.

Tariffs Made Car Buyers Hit The Gas

18 hr 23 min ago

Tariffs influenced the buying decisions of more than a third of car buyers this year, showing the far-reaching effects of President Donald Trump’s sweeping import taxes.

That’s according to market research firm J.D. Power, which found 36% of buyers factored in tariffs when purchasing a new vehicle this year, and 87% of those bought sooner than they had planned as a result. Buyers of vehicles made in Europe and Japan were most affected, according to the survey of 32,616 car buyers released Wednesday.

The report also hinted at the impact of tariffs on prices, as 15% of respondents reported paying more than they had planned.

Car buyers rushed to make purchases this spring to get ahead of Trump’s car tariffs, which took effect in May.

Tariffs haven’t yet driven up consumer prices as much as anticipated, since automakers have avoided passing the costs to customers. But forecasters expect that consumers will soon have to take on a share of the cost, which will hit hard, given that many are already struggling to afford a new car.

Read the full article here.

–Diccon Hyatt

BJ’s Wholesale Club Lifts Full-Year Profit Forecast

20 hours ago

Shares of BJ’s Wholesale Club (BJ) rose 4.5% in premarket trading after the wholesale retailer reported better-than-expected third-quarter net income and raised its full-year profit forecast before the bell.

The Marlborough, Mass.-based firm reported adjusted earnings of $1.16 per share, while analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha expected $1.10 per share. Revenue of $5.35 billion was in line with forecasts, although comparable club sales growth, both including and excluding gasoline sales, came up short.

For the full year, BJ’s now sees adjusted EPS of $4.30 to $4.40, up from the prior forecast of $4.20 to $4.35. However, it lowered the top end of its guidance for comparable club sales growth excluding gasoline to 3% from 3.5%.

Shares entered Friday up less than 2% this year.

Stock Futures Mixed to End Down Week

20 hr 34 min ago

Futures contracts tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 0.4%.

S&P 500 futures were little changed.

Nasdaq 100 futures were down 0.2%.