S&P 500 Closes Lower for 4th Straight Session as Tech Stocks Remain Under Pressure; Investors Awaiting Nvidia Earnings

Noteworthy S&P 500 Movers on Tuesday

5 hr 17 min ago

Decliners

• Home Depot (HD) stock tumbled 6% to log the worst performance in the S&P 500 after the home improvement retailer missed forecasts with its third-quarter earnings, noting that a lack of storms during the period weighed on its performance. The company also lowered its full-year profit forecast, citing persistent headwinds in the housing market and suggested that homeowners are pushing back remodeling projects amid broader economic uncertainty.
• Concerns about high valuations for companies in the artificial intelligence space weighed on the tech sector. Shares of Western Digital (WDC), the hard disk drive maker that has drawn attention from investors given its opportunity to help satiate AI’s massive data storage needs, fell 5.9% Tuesday. Shares of memory chipmaker Micron Technology (MU) lost 5.6%.
• Amazon (AMZN) and Microsoft (MSFT) shares slipped 4.4% and 2.7%, respectively, as regulators in the European Union announced that they were launching investigations into cloud computing services offered by the two tech giants.
• The move lower for Microsoft stock also came as the software giant  announced a partnership with AI startup Anthropic. Chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA) announced a deal with Anthropic as well. Nvidia shares slid close to 3% Tuesday ahead of the chipmaker’s highly anticipated earnings release Wednesday afternoon.

Advancers

• Medtronic (MDT) stock advanced about 5% after the medical device maker topped analysts’ estimates with its fiscal second-quarter sales and adjusted profit. The manufacturer of pacemakers and other cardiovascular devices also lifted its full-year forecast for organic revenue growth, highlighting strong procedure volumes and a positive demand picture across its end markets.
• Merck (MRK) announced positive results from a Phase 2 trial of a key heart treatment, and shares of the pharmaceutical company jumped nearly 4%. In the study, Merck’s Winrevair met its primary endpoints in helping patients with certain heart conditions reduce pulmonary hypertension, or high blood pressure in the blood vessels that supply the lungs.

–Michael Bromberg

Why Nvidia Earnings Are So Important

5 hr 31 min ago

A lot is at stake when the world’s most valuable public company reports earnings Wednesday.

Nvidia’s (NVDA) latest quarterly financial update, due after the closing bell, is being widely viewed as the biggest event of this earnings season. It could have wide-reaching implications for the AI trade and the broader stock market.

A strong showing from the chipmaker at the heart of the AI boom, viewed as a bellwether for the industry, could prove just what the market needs to revive confidence in the AI rally that boosted shares of Nvidia, its partners, and stocks across industries this year, pushing the major indexes to a series of record highs.

However, with expectations riding high and signs investors may be more difficult to impress amid persistent worries that elevated stock valuations have created an AI bubble, the stock could be primed for punishment if Nvidia’s results are anything less than stellar.

With the chipmaker facing a particularly challenging setup heading into Wednesday night’s event, some investors are already bracing for enhanced volatility in its wake. Options pricing suggests traders see shares swinging roughly 7% in either direction by the end of the week.

Nvidia’s outsized influence on major indexes—with a market capitalization of around $4.4 trillion, the stock accounts for about 8% of the S&P 500—also means a big move in its stock would impact the market broadly. And if Nvidia’s shares soar or slump, those of its partners and others related to AI likely will too.

Even if you don’t hold Nvidia stock directly, a big share price move could affect you if you hold money in broad market index funds through brokerage accounts or tax-advantaged retirement accounts such as a 401(k) or IRA. Options pricing indicates traders expect the S&P 500 could move close to 2% in either direction by the end of the week, affecting a wide swath of investors and savers.

In recent quarters, the AI chipmaker’s quarterly report has tended to be a sell-the-news event, with the stock finishing the week of its earning lower than its levels heading into the event in three of the last four quarters, despite strong results. However, Nvidia’s stock has typically picked up in the months that followed.

The shares, which slid nearly 3% Tuesday amid broader losses, have still added over one-third of their value this year so far. Most Wall Street analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha believe the stock has room to rise.

–Kara Greenberg

Why Lower Interest Rates May Not Fix America’s Job Market

7 hr 45 min ago

The Federal Reserve’s current round of interest rate cuts is meant to boost hiring, but experts say they may not be able to fix what’s wrong with the job market.

The Federal Reserve officials cut their benchmark interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point at each of their last two meetings, and there’s a chance they’ll do it again when they next meet in December. Central bankers hope lowering borrowing costs will gas up the economy just enough to prevent the recent job market slowdown from worsening into a surge of unemployment.

Fed officials are divided about whether to cut rates to boost the job market or to keep them higher for longer to restrain inflation that has been above the Fed’s target of a 2% annual rate for five years. And some experts are skeptical that lower interest rates will even help the job market all that much.

“I don’t see the types of weaknesses that interest rate cuts are really going to help,” said Martin Eichenbaum, professor of economics at Northwestern University.

Read the full article here.

–Diccon Hyatt

Bitcoin’s Price Fell $30K+ Since Last Month—Why Is It So Volatile?

8 hr 11 min ago

Just this fall alone, the price of Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency, has plunged by more than a quarter (28%), dropping below $90,000 before rebounding about 4%. At 2 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, the price stood at $93,848. But back on Oct. 7, it was over $124,000—a $30,000+ difference.

The rapid price shifts are a gut-wrenching reminder that the world’s most popular cryptocurrency remains breathtakingly volatile, swinging on everything from whale trades to weekend headlines. 

The whiplash is especially striking as many investors expected a sustained run upward, thanks to a crypto-friendly administration and relaxed U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) oversight. But almost two decades after Bitcoin’s launch, the token still behaves less like digital gold and more like a speculative fever dream.

Read the full article here.

–Nathan Reiff

Home Depot Says It’s Seeing Homeowner ‘Fatigue’ That Is Cutting Into Projects

8 hr 52 min ago

Homeowners aren’t taking a siesta when it comes to projects—but they might be losing steam.

Contractors and home improvement professionals are adding fewer projects to their pipelines, and their clients are choosing less expensive materials, Home Depot (HD) CEO Edward Decker said Tuesday. The shifts aren’t tied to a given income group, Decker said on a conference call, but the big-box store has described its customer base as among the most financially stable in the country.

With “things like countertops, there’s been some trade down, but we have still not seen trade down across the broader assortment,” Decker said, according to a transcript made available by AlphaSense. There could be “some fatigue in taking on bigger projects,” Decker said, citing signs that home-improvement businesses’ backlogs are shrinking.

Home Depot’s fiscal third-quarter (ended Nov. 3) results came up short of earnings and sales growth estimates. The retailer also lowered its earnings expectations for the fiscal year, citing headwinds including fewer storms spurring roofing and plywood sales; consumer caution amid economic uncertainty; and pressure on the housing market. Additional insight on homeowners’ health may come out early Wednesday, when Lowe’s is slated to report its own results.

Home Depot and Lowe’s (LOW) have been telling investors for months that relatively high interest rates—and home prices that are out of reach for many—have deterred consumers from moving and undertaking home improvement projects. Lowe’s previously said housing turnover was at a 30-year low, and today, Home Depot estimated it may be closer to a 40-year low. That’s led consumers to put off some $50 billion in home repair and remodeling work, the retailers have said.

Read the full article here.

–Sarina Trangle

Nvidia and Microsoft Just Teamed Up For a Massive AI Deal. Is It The Latest Sign of an AI Bubble?

9 hr 21 min ago

Big artificial intelligence deals aren’t what they used to be. 

Nvidia (NVDA) and Microsoft (MSFT) on Tuesday announced a partnership with private AI startup Anthropic that will see the latter buy $30 billion of cloud computing capacity from Microsoft and contract up to 1 gigawatt of additional capacity. The first gigawatt of Anthropic’s commitment will run on Nvidia’s Grace Blackwell and Vera Rubin systems. In exchange, Nvidia and Microsoft have agreed to invest up to $10 billion and $5 billion, respectively, in Anthropic.

The deal expands a web of entanglements between AI software makers, chip companies and cloud operators that has elicited suspicion on Wall Street. Nvidia has agreed to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI, which vowed to buy or lease 10 gigawatts worth of Nvidia chips. OpenAI has also committed to acquiring 6 GW of chips from Nvidia competitor Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), which, as part of the deal, awarded OpenAI stock warrants that could give the ChatGPT maker a nearly 10% stake. Nvidia upped its investment in CoreWeave (CRWV) when the cloud computing provider went public in March, and, in September, agreed to buy all of CoreWeave’s excess cloud capacity until 2032.

These and other agreements raised concerns that the AI craze on Wall Street was being fueled by splashy deals that overstate the size of the industry and demand for its services. At the same time, investors have become increasingly concerned that AI revenue won’t compensate big tech companies like Amazon (AMZN) and Meta (META) for their massive data center investments anytime soon.

Read the full article here.

–Colin Laidley

Crypto Has Bitcoin Alternatives to Sell You as the Coin’s Price Slips Below $90,000

9 hr 40 min ago

Bitcoin is down. Crypto is still shipping.

Investment appetites are being tested as products—including new exchange-traded funds, initial coin offerings and an index-linked token—launch into a bear market for the industry’s best-known asset.

It’s happening at a challenging time for investors, both in crypto and risk assets broadly. The crypto market has lost over $1 trillion in market value, down more than 25% since bitcoin’s (BTCUSD) October peak. Meanwhile, the most well-known and largest coin recently continued its descent, sinking below $90,000 overnight to levels last seen in April, before recovering to around $93,000.

But amid the downbeat price action, investors continue to have more options for their crypto capital—which, for some, may amount to alternatives to bitcoin.

Coinbase Global (COIN), the largest U.S. public crypto exchange, earlier this week debuted its revamped ICO platform—a marketplace for the crypto industry’s version of IPOs—with the launch of Monad’s token sale. CoinMarketCap, meanwhile, launched a crypto index token.

Also, the pace of spot altcoin ETF debuts has quickened in the last few weeks, owed in part to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s new standards for coin fund listings.

Read the full article here.

–Crystal Kim

Warner Bros. Discovery Stock Pops on Report Paramount, Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Funds Prepping $71B Bid

10 hr 2 min ago

Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) shareholders evidently like what they read in Hollywood trade publications.

Shares of Warner Bros. Discovery popped 5% after Variety reported, citing sources, that David Ellison-led Paramount Skydance (PSKY) was preparing a $71 billion bid for the media and entertainment giant along with three Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds.

“The bid is being largely backed by the Ellison family (which owns 100% voting control in Paramount Skydance) with involvement from three Arab countries: Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), the sources said,” Variety reported. “In addition, Gerry Cardinale’s RedBird Capital is backing the bid.”

In September, The Wall Street Journal reported that Paramount was preparing a cash bid for all of Warner Bros. Discovery. Last month, WBD said it was initiating a strategic review amid interest from multiple suitors.

The Journal reported last week that Comcast (CMCSA) and Netflix (NFLX) were interested in WBD’s movie and television studios and HBO Max streaming service, but not its cable networks.

Shares of Paramount, Comcast, and Netflix also were higher in recent trading.

Home Depot’s Earnings Miss Estimates. Here’s What It Says About the Housing Market

10 hr 48 min ago

Home Depot (HD) shares slid Tuesday after the home improvement retailer posted weaker-than-expected quarterly earnings and trimmed its full-year profit outlook, citing a sluggish housing market along with a lack of storms.

The stock was down nearly 4% in recent trading, bringing its year-to-date losses to about 11%. 

Home Depot posted adjusted earnings per share of $3.74 for the third quarter, down 4 cents from the same time a year ago and well below the analyst consensus compiled by Visible Alpha, though revenue came in above estimates at $41.35 billion. Comparable store sales rose just 0.2%, while analysts were looking for 1.4% growth.

“Our results missed our expectations primarily due to the lack of storms in the third quarter, which resulted in greater than expected pressure in certain categories,” CEO Ted Decker said, adding that an expected boost in demand failed to materialize. “We believe that consumer uncertainty and continued pressure in housing are disproportionately impacting home improvement demand,” he said.

Home Depot lifted its full-year sales forecast to about 3% growth, up from a projection of 2.8% last quarter, with recently acquired distributor GMS expected to provide about $2 billion in sales. However, the company also said it now anticipates adjusted earnings per share to fall about 5% year-over-year, compared to an expected 3% drop previously, given continued pressure from “ongoing consumer uncertainty and housing pressure,” among other things.

Read the full article here.

–Aaron McDade

Check Your Streaming Bills. ‘Streamflation’ Could Be Costing You More Than You Think.

11 hr 19 min ago

If you haven’t checked how much your streaming services cost in a while, you might be spending more than you think.

You can thank “streamflation.” Many of the country’s biggest entertainment companies have hiked subscription prices in recent months, with Netflix (NFLX), Warner Bros. Discovery’s HBO Max, Disney’s (DIS) Disney+ and Hulu, Comcast’s (CMCSA) Peacock and Apple (AAPL) TV all raising prices this year or announcing plans to do so.

Paramount (PSKY) became the latest last week, saying that the cost of Paramount+ will go up in the first quarter of 2026.

Some streamers have introduced ad-supported versions of their plans at lower rates, offering a way for users to save, with some signs those plans have grown in popularity. Last month, analytics firm Comscore said it found viewing on ad-supported tiers jumped 16 percentage points year-over-year through August for Disney+, and 11 percentage points for Netflix. About 45% of Netflix’s viewing time came through its ad-supported tier, up from 34% last year, Comscore found.

Some viewers are using free streaming services that are fully ad-supported. Comscore found that viewing time on those services rose to 1.8 billion hours from 1.3 billion a year ago.

“Once positioned as a lower-cost alternative, ad tiers are now a central pillar of platform strategy, and audiences are responding,” Comscore wrote.

Read the full article here.

–Aaron McDade

A Cloudflare Outage Knocked Out Web Services Like X, ChatGPT, and More Today

12 hr 12 min ago

Cybersecurity firm Cloudflare’s network buckled early Tuesday, cutting off access to widely used websites such as X and Spotify (SPOT), as well as government authorities like New Jersey Transit.

Cloudflare (NET) was working to restore service after a “spike in unusual traffic” at 6:20 a.m. ET triggered errors, company spokeswoman Jackie Dutton told Investopedia. A number of impacted sites appear to be back online, including those of X, Ikea, Alphabet’s (GOOG) YouTube, and UPS (UPS).

But around 9:30 a.m ET, some websites were still inaccessible or displayed an error message that referenced the outage, including ChatGPT, the College Board, and New Jersey Transit. The company didn’t provide precise information about how many clients were impacted by the outage.

Read the full article here.

–Sarina Trangle

Klarna Stock Sinks Following First Results Since IPO

13 hr 43 min ago

Buy now, pay later firm Klarna’s first results since its IPO mostly came in better than analysts had expected, and its current-quarter outlook also topped estimates. However, it came up short in one key metric, and its shares are dropping Tuesday morning.

Klarna (KLAR), which went public in September, reported a third-quarter net loss of $0.25 per share on revenue of $903 million, both better than the analyst consensus compiled by Visible Alpha. Gross merchandise value (GMV), or the total amount of products bought with Klarna’s services, beat estimates at $32.7 billion, as did its number of active users at 114 million.

Further, Klarna guided for fourth-quarter revenue of $1.065 billion to $1.080 billion and GMV of $37.5 billion to $38.5 billion, both better than analysts’ estimates.

However, the company reported an adjusted operating loss of $14 million, while consensus called for an $11.3 million loss.

Shares were down roughly 10% less than an hour after the opening bell and have lost about 30% of their value since the IPO, although analysts have remained bullish on the stock.

Here’s How Much Traders Expect Nvidia Stock to Move After Wednesday’s Earnings

14 hr 58 min ago

Nvidia is set to report its latest quarterly results after the closing bell Wednesday, with traders expecting a big move in the AI chipmaker’s stock.

Options pricing suggests traders expect Nvidia (NVDA) shares could move nearly 7% in either direction by the end of the week. A move of that size from Monday’s close near $187 could help the shares recover some of their recent losses to return to last week’s levels around $199, or pull them down to about $174, a level not seen since September.

In recent quarters, Nvidia’s earnings have tended to be a sell-the-news event, despite a string of record-breaking results. In all but one of the most-recent four quarters, the chipmaker’s stock finished the week lower than its levels heading into the event.

With expectations riding high ahead of the earnings, and results from rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and other AI favorites indicating investors may be harder to impress this season, Nvidia could face an increasingly difficult bar to clear.

Read the full article here.

–Kara Greenberg

More Americans Found Work After a Sluggish Summer, Delayed Labor Report Is Expected to Show

15 hr 33 min ago

A long-delayed report on job growth Thursday is likely to show the job market bounced back in September after a dismal summer.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is set to publish its monthly report on job creation and unemployment for September on Thursday, six weeks after its regularly scheduled release. The report was one of many official statistics delayed by the government shutdown that ended last week. It will indicate whether and to what extent the job market has recovered after a significant slowdown over the majority of the summer.

U.S. employers likely added 51,000 jobs in September, according to a consensus forecast cited by economists at Bank of America. That would be more than double the 22,000 added in August, but still relatively few by recent standards: The economy added an average of 147,000 jobs each month in the 12 months through April, for example.

The unemployment rate is expected to hold steady at 4.3%, a relatively low rate by historic standards, according to the consensus forecast.

The report will demonstrate how well the job market is weathering several headwinds, including uncertainty created by President Donald Trump’s increased tariffs on most U.S. trading partners and the growing use of artificial intelligence.

It will also influence policymakers at the Federal Reserve, who will meet in December to set the nation’s benchmark interest rate. Members of the Fed’s policy committee are split on whether to cut rates to boost the economy and job market, or keep them higher for longer to push inflation down to the Fed’s target of a 2% annual rate.

Read the full article here.

–Diccon Hyatt

Trump’s $2,000 Tariff Check Plan Could Face Key Test in Congress

15 hr 45 min ago

President Donald Trump’s proposed tariff rebate checks may have a bumpy road to becoming a reality.

Over the weekend, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Trump’s proposed $2,000 tariff “dividend” check would require congressional approval. However, a key member of the House of Representatives said there would be a “robust debate” over what to do with the tariff revenue.

In a social media post last week, Trump floated the idea of a $2,000 “dividend” check for Americans to be paid for by revenue from the sweeping tariffs he’s instituted this year. 

However, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said in a televised interview on Sunday that legislators want to gain a better understanding of how much money the tariffs are generating. Before the government shutdown, the Treasury Department reported $95 billion in new tariff revenue through August.

With Trump negotiating new agreements that lower tariff rates, Scalise also said the revenue from tariffs may not be sustainable in the long term.

While new tariffs have generated a significant amount of revenue, it’s unclear whether it will be enough to fully cover Trump’s $2,000 check proposal, which Bessent said could be limited to families making $100,000 or less.

Read the full article here.

–Terry Lane

Topgolf Callaway Brands to Sell Majority 60% Stake in Topgolf Unit

16 hr 15 min ago

Topgolf Callaway Brands (MODG) said before the bell that it was selling a 60% stake in its Topgolf and Toptracer business to to private equity funds managed by Leonard Green & Partners, confirming a recent report.

Last Friday, Topgolf Callaway shares jumped after The Wall Street Journal reported that the company was in talks with Los Angeles-based Leonard Green to sell Topgolf in a deal that would value its high-tech driving ranges unit at about $1 billion. In a press release Tuesday, Topgolf Callaway said the deal—which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2026—values Topgolf at approximately $1.1 billion, and that it expects to receive approximately $770 million in net proceeds.

Just over a year ago, Topgolf Callaway—which has a market cap of roughly $2 billion—said it intended to split back into two companies, with Callaway focused on making golf clubs.

“As we considered various alternatives to separate Topgolf, including a potential spin-off transaction, we received interest from a number of parties,” Topgolf Callaway Brands CEO Chip Brewer said. “After a robust process and a thorough evaluation of a range of alternatives, we believe this sale is the best outcome for our shareholders, as well as our employees and other stakeholders. This transaction is highly attractive in that it provides the Company with both significant proceeds and substantial upside in the continued growth of Topgolf.”

Upon closing, Topgolf Callaway plans to change its name to “Callaway Golf Company” and change its ticker symbol to “CALY.” Shares would continue to trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

Shares slipped 1% before the bell but entered the session up 38% this year. Still, they are down about 60% since the company formed in March 2021.

Stock Futures Slip After Major Indexes Slide

16 hr 54 min ago

Futures contracts tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.5%.

S&P 500 futures were down 0.4%.

Nasdaq 100 futures declined 0.4%.