S&P 500, Nasdaq Move Lower After Three Days of Gains as Investors Digest Latest Trade News, Inflation Data

Starbucks Stock Surges Amid Spate of Headlines

1 hr 9 min ago

Starbucks (SBUX) shares are climbing toward prices not seen since April, when newly enacted tariffs dragged down the market.

The coffee chain’s shares were recently up more than 4% to above $95, within range of the roughly $100 they last closed above in March before sinking below $80.

The shares rose amid the circulation of a few headlines—and as Citi analysts increased their price target for its shares in a morning research note. Citi brought its target from $84 to $95–roughly in line with where shares were trading by Wednesday afternoon.

The company announced Green Dot Assist, an AI assistant, will be rolled out to improve store operations, and help with tasks like reviewing beverage recipes and troubleshooting equipment. Efficiency—and serving customers within four minutes—is the centerpiece of a turnaround campaign Starbucks launched to lure back customers amid sluggish traffic. The company also hopes to lift sales by making cafes a more welcoming place to spend time and money.

Meanwhile, the company is exploring selling a minority stake in its struggling shops in China, and has received a “lot of interest” from potential partners, CEO Brian Niccol recently told The Financial Times.

Starbucks shares were leading S&P 500 gainers as of Wednesday afternoon.

-Sarina Trangle

Chewy Stock Slides as Profit Falls Short of Estimates

1 hr 32 min ago

Shares of Chewy (CHWY) fell sharply Wednesday as the online pet retailer’s first-quarter profit came in below analysts’ expectations.

Chewy reported GAAP net income of $62.4 million, or $0.15 per share. Analysts polled by Visible Alpha were looking for $68.9 million, or $0.16 per share.

The company reported adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.35 on net sales that increased 8.3% year-over-year to $3.12 billion, while analysts had expected $0.34 and $3.08 billion, respectively. Last quarter, Chewy had guided for $0.30 to $0.35 and $3.06 billion to $3.09 billion in Q1. Chewy’s active customer base grew 3.8% to nearly 20.8 million.

The company affirmed its full-year outlook of 6% to 7% sales growth to $12.30 billion to $12.45 billion. For the second quarter, Chewy forecast adjusted EPS of $0.30 to $0.35 and sales of $3.06 billion to $3.09 billion, while analysts currently expect $0.31 and $3.04 billion, respectively.

Chewy shares were down 12% in mid-afternoon trading but remain 20% higher in 2025.

-Aaron McDade

What to Know Ahead of AMD’s ‘Advancing AI’ Event Tomorrow

2 hr 55 min ago

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) CEO Lisa Su is set to take the stage tomorrow for a keynote presentation on the chipmaker’s latest developments in artificial intelligence.

Citi analysts said they anticipate AMD will use the event to launch its latest AI GPU, the MI355X, which the bank said could come with more high-bandwidth memory and at a lower price point than rival Nvidia’s (NVDA) B200 chip. The company could also offer updates on its upcoming MI400 model, which Citi expects to ramp in the second half of 2026. The keynote is set to begin Thursday at 12:30 p.m. ET. (You can watch the event here.)

AMD could reveal new high-profile customers as well, such as Amazon (AMZN) or potentially OpenAI, Citi said. The bank maintained a « neutral » rating for the stock, while raising its price target to $120 from $100. The mean target of the 11 analysts covering AMD tracked by Visible Alpha, including Citi, is about $121, suggesting little change from Wednesday’s intraday price. The stock has climbed less than 1% since the start of the year.

The event comes after AMD delivered quarterly results last month that beat Wall Street’s expectations on the strength of its data center sales. However, the company warned it could take a hit in the current quarter to the tune of $800 million related to tightening restrictions on sales of its chips to China. Rival Nvidia said it took a $4.5 billion charge in its fiscal first quarter associated with new export curbs. 

-Andrew Kessel

Tesla Stock Back to Where it Was Before Trump-Musk Feud

3 hr 15 min ago

The latest tempest around Tesla’s shares appears to have passed.

Tesla’s (TSLA) stock is rising for a fourth straight day and was recently right around the price at which it closed June 4. That was the session before a spat between CEO Elon Musk and President Donald Trump led to a remarkable series of social-media posts and statements that culminated in a one-day drop of about $150 billion in Tesla’s market value. Tesla’s market value is meanwhile back above $1 trillion, according to Visible Alpha data. 

Put another way, investors appear to have moved on, even if the degree to which Musk and Trump have—the former earlier today posted that he “went too far” in some of his comments regarding the president, though he didn’t say which ones—remains an open question. 

Tesla bulls would undoubtedly prefer it this way. Musk is seeking to reframe the perception of his business from a carmaker to a leader in robotics, AI and autonomous mobility; a Trump-Musk breakup was reasonably seen as creating a possible overhang, even as some observers thought that worry was overblown. 

Deepwater Asset Management called the Musk-Trump friction an “overreaction” in a Saturday note. “Long term, the White House will likely support autonomy given its central role in global AI leadership,” the firm’s note read. 

“Bottom line: a key component of our Tesla thesis has officially begun playing out,” Piper Sandler analysts wrote Tuesday, citing the rollout of driverless Teslas in Austin, Texas. “We expect the stock to sustain upward momentum in the coming weeks.”

Other factors are helping support stocks—including high-profile tech shares—lately. Today, for example, inflation data and the appearance of progress on the trade front gave investor sentiment a boost.

But it nevertheless appears that investors are moving beyond last week’s headlines and—as Shakespeare’s Prospero might have said—these latest revels are now ended.

-David Marino-Nachison

How Much Traders Expect Oracle Stock to Move After Earnings

4 hr 20 min ago

Software company Oracle (ORCL) is scheduled to report fiscal fourth-quarter earnings after the closing bell on Wednesday, and traders see potential for the stock to hit a record high on the results. 

Oracle shares are expected to move about 7.2% in either direction by the end of the week, according to options pricing data. That would put shares at about $190, their highest price this year and just 1% shy of a record, or about $164, which would erase the stock’s gains so far this month. 

Oracle stock has climbed steadily in recent weeks as investors have embraced the AI trade amid waning economic uncertainty. Shares are up about 45% since hitting a year-to-date low in mid-April, and about 7% since the start of the year. 

Oracle shares have moved an average of 8.6% the day after its four most recent earnings reports. Oracle has missed sales and adjusted earnings estimates in each of its last two reports, causing shares to fall 3.1% after earnings in March and 6.7% in December. Shares jumped double digits in the two prior quarters after announcing cloud computing deals with Amazon (AMZN),  Microsoft (MSFT), OpenAI, and Alphabet’s (GOOGL) Google. 

Wall Street is split on the outlook for Oracle stock. Of the 13 Oracle analysts tracked by Visible Alpha, 6 recommend buying the stock and 7 have assigned it a “hold” rating. The average price target of $174.42 is about 2% below the stock’s closing price on Tuesday. 

-Colin Laidley

Intel Stock Price Levels to Watch Amid Recent Volatility

4 hr 52 min ago

Intel (INTC) shares tumbled Wednesday after surging the previous session as chip stocks rallied amid hopes that curbs on exports to China could be eased.

The stock was down 5% at around $21 in recent trading, giving back much of the 8% it gained on Tuesday, when it paced S&P 500 advancers.

Intel shares are up about about 5% so far in 2025, slightly outpacing the gains of the S&P 500, but have lost nearly a third of their value over the past 12 months amid uncertainty over the chipmaker’s strategic direction and inability to capitalize on the booming AI chip market. CEO Lip-Bu Tan, who took over the top spot in mid-March, has launched a major restructuring effort.

Intel shares have remained rangebound since gapping sharply lower last August. More recently, the stock found buying interest around the lower levels of the trading range, with the price closing above both the 50- and 200-day moving averages on Tuesday.

Importantly, the move higher occurred on the highest daily volume since early April, indicating buying conviction from larger market participants. Moreover, the rally thrust the relative strength index back above its neutral threshold to signal accelerating price momentum.

Investors should watch crucial overhead areas on Intel’s chart around $23, $26 and $33, while also monitoring a major support level near $19.

Read the full technical analysis piece here.

-Timothy Smith

Quantum Computing Stocks Jump After Nvidia CEO Comments

6 hr 7 min ago

Quantum computing stocks jumped in early trading Wednesday after Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang said that the industry is “reaching an inflection point. »

Huang’s comments during his keynote speech at the chipmaker’s GTC Paris developer conference marked a more optimistic take by the Nvidia CEO, who said early this year that quantum computing technology is 15 to 30 years away. 

“Quantum computing is reaching an inflection point,” Huang said in the speech Wednesday. “We are within reach of being able to apply quantum computing, quantum classical computing, in areas that can solve some interesting problems in the coming years.”

Quantum computing involves qubits, which can exist in a multidimensional state, unlike a normal computer bit that can be in one state (either 0 or 1), making them capable of much more powerful computations than ordinary computers. 

Shares in Quantum Computing (QUBT) were up nearly 30% in recent trading, while Rigetti Computing (RGTI) surged 18% and D-Wave Quantum (QBTS) shares added 2%. Shares in quantum computing firm IonQ (IONQ), which announced the acquisition of a U.K. rival Monday and has a collaboration with Nvidia, were up 8%.

IBM (IBM) shares, which hit an all-time high Tuesday after it showcased a « viable path » to building the world’s first large-scale, « fault-tolerant » quantum computer by the end of the decade, are little changed in premarket trading. 

-Nisha Gopalan

Musk Sets Robotaxi Launch Date, Regrets Some Trump Posts

7 hr 48 min ago

Tesla (TSLA) shares are rising in premarket trading Wednesday after three straight sessions of gains following new social media posts from CEO Elon Musk.

On Tuesday evening, Musk responded to a user asking questions about the launch of Tesla’s robotaxi program, saying it will launch « tentatively, June 22. »

« We are being super paranoid about safety, so the date could shift, » Musk wrote. He added that the first Tesla that will drive itself from the factory directly to a customer’s door should be delivered about a week later, on June 28.

Last month, Bloomberg reported that Tesla was targeting a June 12 launch for the autonomous ridesharing service, while Musk had previously only said the program was on track to launch sometime this month. In its own posts hours before Musk’s, the Tesla X account posted a robot and car emoji, and responded to another user sharing video of what appeared to be a Tesla with no one in the driver’s seat being tested on the roads of Austin, Texas.

Musk has also said Tesla’s plans for a more affordable Tesla model are on track to launch this month as well, but details about that potential launch have yet to be released.

In another post early Wednesday, Musk said he regrets some of the posts he made during his public split with President Donald Trump last week, saying they « went too far. » In a few posts, which have since been deleted, Musk accused Trump of being in the « Epstein files, » referencing the late convicted sex trafficker, and agreed with another user who said Trump should be impeached so Vice President JD Vance could take over.

Musk spent days criticizing the budget reconciliation bill currently working its way through Congress for adding to the deficit and national debt. Trump last week said he was « disappointed » in Musk for his comments, and the pair continued to exchange comments and insults on their own social media platforms for hours afterward.

Tesla shares were up nearly 3% in recent premarket trading, putting the stock in position to recover all of the ground that was lost after the fracas between Musk and Trump.

-Aaron McDade

Major Index Futures Slightly Lower

8 hr 4 min ago

Futures tied to each of the major U.S. indexes were down 0.2% in recent trading.

Dow Jones Industrial Average

S&P 500

Nasdaq 100