Nia Warfield, Luke Kawa

6/4/25

S&P 500 goes nowhere in listless trading day

A relatively calm day of trading saw the S&P 500 up no more than 0.3% and down not even as much as 0.1% over the course of the session, with the benchmark index giving up modest gains in the last couple hours of trading to finish flat. The 40-basis-point difference between the day’s high and low was its slimmest range since Valentine’s Day, and total volumes across US exchanges were the lowest in roughly a month.

The Nasdaq 100 managed a 0.3% gain while the Russell 2000 dipped 0.2%.

Most S&P 500 sector ETFs declined, with energy and utilities faring the worst. Communication services was the best-performing pocket of the market on the day.

Dollar Tree was at the bottom of the S&P 500 leaderboard after the discount retailer beat Q1 estimates but warned that tariffs could slash its profit in half this quarter. The day’s gains were led by On Semiconductor and NXP Semiconductors, up 6.1% and 5.6%, respectively, as the chip sector’s broader rally rolls on. Meanwhile…

CrowdStrike fell 5.8% after the cybersecurity company issued weaker-than-expected revenue guidance for the current quarter, as it continues to deal with fallout from its July IT outage.

Tesla shares dipped nearly 3.6% after its EV sales dipped in Europe, including in Italy, Germany, and the United Kingdom — Tesla’s biggest market on the continent.

Reddit shares popped 6.6% after the social media platform filed a lawsuit against AI startup Anthropic, alleging it stole personal user data to train its language learning models.

Meta shares jumped 3.2% amid reports that the company is in talks with Hollywood giants, including Disney and film studio A24, to make content for its newest VR headset.

Airbus ADRs climbed 2.1% on reports that China is narrowing in on a massive deal with the European plane maker that could result in 200 to 500 new aircraft orders.

Chinese firm Webus, which specializes in “customizable chauffeur services worldwide,” soared nearly 15% after a filing showed the company is planning to raise $300 million for its XRP treasury.

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Nia Warfield, Luke Kawa

S&P 500, Nasdaq 100 post record closing highs as nearly everything rallies

The benchmark US stock index ended up 0.9%, the Nasdaq 100 rose 0.6%, and the Russell 2000 outperformed with a 1.8% gain.

Bull charging across sand creating dust cloud

markets

18h

Warner Bros. Discovery jumps after Wells Fargo ups price target on dealmaking buzz

Warner Bros. Discovery shares popped 7% Tuesday after Wells Fargo raised its price target on the media giant to $14 from $13 while keeping an equal-weight rating.

The bank’s optimism stemmed largely from the media giant’s potential for dealmaking. In June, WBD announced that it would split its operations into two companies, with the Streaming & Studios division (home to Warner Bros. Television, DC Studios, HBO, and Max) standing alone from the networks side (CNN, TNT Sports, and Discovery).

That separation could make the Streaming & Studios unit more attractive to buyers, the analysts said. They valued the segment at about $65 billion, which could translate to a takeover price north of $21 a share. Potential suitors range from Amazon and Apple to Sony and Comcast, though analysts flagged Netflix as the “most compelling” option despite its limited acquisition track record:

“While NFLX has historically not been acquisitive, [streaming and studios’] $12bn in annual content spend + library + 100+ acre studio lot offers a lot. It kickstarts a theatrical IP strategy, quickly scales video games and most importantly provides premium content to members.”

At Goldman Sachs’ Communacopia + Technology Conference this week, CEO David Zaslav also highlighted growing traction at HBO Max and hinted at future crackdowns on password sharing.

WBD shares are up 26% year to date, and up more than 93% over the past 12 months.

markets

18h

Duolingo up on bullish note, hopes for a user rebound

Duolingo rose by the most in nearly a month after an analyst note painted a more bullish picture of the gamified language-learning company despite a dearth of news otherwise.

A quick check-in with analysts covering the stock on Wall Street found most of them otherwise flummoxed on the reason behind the uptick Thursday.

Some, however, suggested the rise may reflect optimism that the company has been able to reverse a monthslong downturn in daily active user metrics — a slump that set in after a social media backlash to a somewhat artless LinkedIn post from the company about its AI first strategy.

The bullish analyst note, published Thursday by Citizens JMP, suggested Duolingo could be a big beneficiary from a change to Apple’s rules governing its App Store driven by a ruling on a federal antitrust case against the company. The analysts wrote:

Given “Apple’s recent changes to U.S. App Store rules that allow developers to steer payments to the web where fees are similar to typical credit card fees rather than Apple’s 30% fee for in-app purchases and 30% fee on subscriptions for the first year and 15% thereafter, we expect mobile app companies including Duolingo, Life360, and Grindr Inc. to unlock meaningful cost benefits.”

At any rate, the next big event on the company’s calendar is its Duocon 2025 conference on Tuesday, where analysts are hoping to hear more hard information on all of the above topics.

markets

19h

Jeep maker Stellantis surges as CEO says the automaker is in productive tariff talks with the US

Shares of Jeep and Dodge maker Stellantis are up more than 8% in Thursday afternoon trading, following comments from the automaker’s new CEO, Antonio Filosa, at a European auto conference.

On tariffs, Filosa said that Stellantis has had a “very productive exchange of ideas” with the Trump administration on the company’s manufacturing footprint and that the environment around the levies is “getting clearer and clearer.”

The US is Stellantis’ top priority, according to Filosa, and the company has taken efforts to turn things around in the market, where it’s struggled with sales in recent years. To fuel the turnaround, Stellantis is bringing back its popular Jeep Cherokee, which it discontinued in 2023.

As of 12:45 p.m. ET, Stellantis’ trading volume was at more than 140% of its average over the past 30 days.

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