Markets
Luke Kawa
5/16/25

S&P 500 caps a perfect week of gains

The recovery train keeps on chugging.

The S&P 500 rose all five sessions this week with a 0.7% gain on Friday, while the Nasdaq 100 advanced 0.4% and the Russell 2000 outperformed with a 0.9% rise.

The Financial Times said that the US and Europe have exchanged negotiating documents on trade, helping buoy hopes that the recent trend toward dialing down tariffs will continue.

Friday had the best parts of Wednesday and Thursday combined: the S&P 500’s advance-decline line was sharply positive, with risers outnumbering fallers by 391, and megacap tech stocks largely participated in these widespread gains.

Every S&P 500 sector ETF aside from energy moved higher, with healthcare stocks outperforming and utilities, real estate, industrials, consumer staples, and materials all up more than 1%.

Beaten-down shares of UnitedHealth bounced on Friday, with that stock and Moderna (another company that’s been trending lower) topping the S&P 500’s leaderboard.

Outside of the benchmark index, shares of CoreWeave popped more than 20% after an SEC filing revealed Nvidia had accumulated a $900 million stake in the company as of March. Though we already knew the chip designer anchored in the recent IPO, the magnitude of its stake seemingly encouraged the traders who’ve been flocking to buy call options in the cloud computing company.

That same filing also showed Nvidia continued to hold Applied Digital, sending those shares skyward.

Charter Communications rose after announcing a deal to acquire Cox Communications, a pact that would create the largest cable and broadband provider by subscribers upon its successful completion.

From mergers to breakups: Novo Nordisk announced that it’s replacing its CEO in light of the near halving of its stock price over the past year as competition in the weight-loss drug space heats up.

Take-Two fell after cutting its guidance to account for the delayed release of “GTA 6.”

Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital enjoyed its debut on the Nasdaq with a solid advance.

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Nia Warfield, Luke Kawa
4h
S&P 500 goes nowhere, Nasdaq 100 hits another record, small-caps tumble

Warner Bros. Discovery led gains for the second day in a row, and only three S&P 500 sector ETFs finished in the green.

Horse Ranch In Zhangye
markets
Matt Phillips
5h

Rocket lab soars to new record close amid rally for retail faves

Rocket Lab ripped by roughly 10% Friday to close at a new all-time high, riding an upturn of retail enthusiasm for a coterie of tech-themed favorites, even as the broader market was more or less flat on the day.

Goldman Sachs’ basket of “retail favorites” — its heaviest weights are Reddit, AppLovin, and Tempus AI — was the second-biggest gainer among the company’s flagship US equity baskets on Friday, rising about 1.6%. The S&P was almost dead flat.

It’s not Rocket Lab’s first retail rodeo, as the money-losing company has more than doubled this year and is up nearly 700% over the last 12 months.

Oracle Wall Street Revisions

Analysts revise up anything and everything they thought about Oracle

After the company’s bombshell earnings this week, Wall Street thinks Oracle’s trajectory has changed.

Matt Phillips6h
markets
Nia Warfield
8h

Six Flags pops after reiterating its guidance as theme park attendance rebounds

Six Flags shares rose more than 7% today after the company reported a rebound in attendance and early season pass sales heading into the fall. The nine-week period ended August 31 saw 17.8 million guests, up about 2% from the same stretch last year, with stronger momentum in the final four weeks. 

More importantly, Six Flags reaffirmed its full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance of $860 million to $910 million, showing confidence that its cost and operations strategy can stay strong for the duration of the year. Riding that wave, Six Flags also said early 2026 season pass unit sales are pacing ahead of last year, and average season pass prices are up about 3%.

The good vibes come despite a drop in in-park per-capita spending, especially from admissions, where promotions and changes to attendance mix (which parks or days guests visit) have weighed. Earlier this week, the amusement giant signed a new agreement that extended its position as the exclusive amusement park partner for Peanuts™ in North America through 2030.

Despite the rally, Six Flags shares are down about 52% year to date.

markets
Max Knoblauch
9h

Rivian turns red on the year, squeezed by a recall and the looming end of the EV tax credit

Shares of EV maker Rivian are down more than 5% on Friday following the company’s recall of 24,214 vehicles due to a software issue. The stock move erases Rivian’s year-to-date gain and turns the company negative on the year.

Rivian’s 2025 model year R1S and R1T are affected by the defect, which was identified after a vehicle’s hands-free highway assist software failed to identify another vehicle on the road, causing a low-speed collision. Rivian said it’s released an over-the-air update to fix the issue.

The recall marks Rivian’s fifth this year, affecting nearly 70,000 of its vehicles.

Rivian’s shares are down more than 20% from their 2025 high, which came prior to the passage of President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” Through the legislation, the $7,500 EV tax credit is set to expire at the end of the month.

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