The dip (Steve Russell/Getty Images)

Musk-Trump feud triggers wave of retail dip-buying

A wide range of retail favorites and meme-ish stocks soared Friday, as traders saw no reason for the dust-up between Elon Musk and Donald Trump to dissuade them from their favorite strategy.

Matt Phillips

6/6/25 1:48PM

Some of the most speculative parts of the stock market soared on Friday, as retail traders swamped the market in search of favorites beaten down by Thursday’s dust-up between Elon Musk and President Trump.

Unprofitable tech firms, crypto-adjacent stocks, retail faves, and meme standbys all outperformed broader indexes as everyman traders appeared to embrace a strategy they first adopted during the Covid market collapse of 2020.

Buy the dip!

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— Sandy Parker (@sandyparker.bsky.social) June 5, 2025 at 5:26 PM

Goldman Sachs’ themed “retail favorites” basket was up 2.1% shortly after 2 p.m. ET, outperforming the S&P and the Nasdaq. Large constituents like Tesla, Palantir, and Robinhood Markets posted impressive gains, but more speculative retail playthings like Rocket Lab, SoundHound AI, and IonQ did even better. (Sherwood News is an editorially independent subsidiary of Robinhood.)

Of course, it’s hard to say with absolute certainty that these gains are being driven solely by individual investors. Professional investors are also trading today.

But it would be consistent with the recent behavior of individual investors, who swallowed hard and snapped up shares of top stocks like Nvidia amid the market’s plunge in April, helping to both put a floor under prices and improve their lagging performance against the market.

For the record, despite their dedication to dip-buying, retail investors are still underperforming the market indexes, JPMorgan analysts say. In a note earlier this week, they estimated that retail portfolios were down 2.6% in 2025 through the end of May, while the S&P 500 had a gain of about 1% over that period.

Matt Phillips

42m

Tempus AI jumps on FDA clearance of AI-enabled tool to analyze cardiac MRIs

Tempus AI, a midcap medical diagnostics company that’s highlighted a push to incorporate AI technology into its products, surged on Thursday after announcing the FDA had issued a “510(k) clearance” of a new AI-enabled tool to analyze cardiac imagery from MRIs.

A 510(k) clearance — used for devices that are considered relatively low risk — essentially allows a product to be sold in the US.

While the company has never turned a profit, even on an adjusted basis, its sales are growing rapidly and the stock has had a great year, rising more than 160% in 2025.

For more on the company, check out our interview with its CEO, Eric Lefkofsky.

Tempus Receives U.S. FDA Special 510(k) Clearance for Updated Tempus Pixel Device

While the company has never turned a profit, even on an adjusted basis, its sales are growing rapidly and the stock has had a great year, rising more than 160% in 2025.

For more on the company, check out our interview with its CEO, Eric Lefkofsky.

Luke Kawa

Micron surges as Citi boosts price target to $175

Micron is on the move this morning, gapping higher and continuing to trade up double digits after Citi boosted its view on how much the shares can run.

Analyst Christopher Danely raised his price target on the memory chipmaking specialist to $175 from $150, while maintaining a “buy” rating. The average analyst price target of $151 has now been shattered by Micron’s rise today, and the stock is trading at its highest level since June 2024.

This continues Micron’s advance as OpenAI’s dogged determination to burn through cash to enhance its AI capabilities provides a broad lift to the space, punctuated by Oracle’s massive gain on Wednesday.

Call demand is running hot: just 13 minutes into the session, volumes are running at 106,157 compared to a 20-day average of 88,888.

Micron is slated to report quarterly results on September 23.

J. Edward Moreno

Centene rises after affirming full-year guidance

Centene soared in early trading after affirming its full-year guidance ahead of the Deutsche Bank 2025 Healthcare Summit on Thursday.

The company reiterated its expectation for adjusted diluted earnings per share to be approximately $1.75. At the conference, Centene executives also said they expect a higher percentage of its Medicare enrollees to be on more lucrative, top-rated plans next year, according to Bloomberg.

Earlier this week, UnitedHealth also reiterated its guidance and said it expects to have more top-rated plans in the coming year. The government rates insurance companies offering Medicare Advantage plans, and higher-rated plans are eligible for bonuses that can significantly increase a plan’s revenue.

Insurance companies that sell government-sponsored plans took a dive earlier this year amid unexpected rising costs. The recent announcements from both Centene and UnitedHealth may be a sign that the worst is behind them.

Max Knoblauch

Delta boosts its third-quarter sales outlook on improved travel demand

Delta Air Lines reaffirmed its full-year earnings outlook on Thursday, seeing US travel demand hold strong for the rest of the year.

Citing “improved demand trends,” the airline also elevated its sales forecast for the third quarter to an increase of between 2% and 4%. In July, it guided for 0% to 4% growth.

The move marks a turnaround from just five months ago, when Delta and many of its rivals pulled their full-year earnings outlooks as growth stalled on “broad economic uncertainty.” At the beginning of the year, Delta said 2025 had the chance to be its best fiscal year in a century.

After plunging earlier this year, Delta’s shares are essentially flat in 2025.

Hyunsoo Rim

Oracle’s rally briefly made cofounder Larry Ellison the world’s richest person, ahead of Elon Musk

Oracle pulled off one of the biggest rallies in its stock market history, as shares soared 36% on Wednesday after the company laid out a cloud business growth forecast that left analysts “blown away.”

What also went vertical, alongside the stock, was cofounder Larry Ellison’s fortune.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Ellison’s net worth jumped by a record $89 billion to $383 billion, the biggest single-day gain ever, briefly overtaking Elon Musk’s fortune and making him, for a moment, the world’s richest person. Musk reclaimed the top spot by the end of Wednesday.

Yesterday’s remarkable gain means that Larry Ellison has now seen his estimated wealth increase by $191 billion year to date. That’s the equivalent of making $752 million a day, more than $522 thousand a minute, or $8,703 per second.