Markets
Nia Warfield, Luke Kawa

S&P 500 inches up, Nasdaq 100 gains to book record closing highs

The S&P 500 traded in positive territory all day and managed to eke out another record close, though the advance was nothing to write home about. The Nasdaq 100 gained 0.3% to close at a record along with the benchmark US stock index, while the Russell 2000 sank 1.4%.

Consumer discretionary was the worst-performing S&P 500 sector ETF, weighed down by Tesla, which fell 8% after CEO Elon Musk pondered the company’s challenges on its Q2 earnings call (including developing full self-driving software as well as tariff and supply chain headwinds). In fact, energy, tech, and communications services were the only sector ETFs with a positive showing on the session.

Gains were led by West Pharmaceutical, with shares up about 23% in its best day ever after the company, which makes tiny rubber components used for GLP-1 pens, crushed Wall Street estimates thanks to soaring weight-loss drug demand. LKQ Corp. led declines, falling nearly 18% after the automotive scrapyard owner reported Q2 profits that fell short of Wall Street expectations and revised its full-year profit guidance lower. Elsewhere...

T-Mobile shares jumped about 6% as Wall Street digested the wireless giant’s better-than-expected Q2 earnings results after the bell Wednesday, along with a fresh upgrade to its full-year forecast.

ServiceNow shares rose 4% after the cloud software company posted strong Q2 results and its CEO said the company would slow hiring for its “soul-crushing” roles.

Chipotle shares tumbled 13% after the burrito biggie posted its second straight quarter of same-store sales declines, also missing the Street’s estimates.

American Airlines’ tumble neared double digits after the company slashed its full-year earnings outlook, projecting an up to $0.20 loss for the year — worse than the Street’s expectations and American’s previous outlook.

Southwest plunged 11% after posting disappointing Q2 results Wednesday and despite the airline’s projections of earning over $350 million in bag fee revenue for the full year.

IBM shares dropped nearly 8% after the company reported Q2 earnings that beat on the top and bottom lines, but posted weaker-than-expected growth in its important software division.

Mattel shares sank over 16% after the toy maker posted mixed second-quarter results, as demand picked up overseas but wasn’t enough to completely offset declines in North America. 

Outside of earnings...

American Eagle shares rose 4%, finishing way off its premarket highs after a new campaign starring actress Sydney Sweeney sparked fresh retail buzz, landing the stock on r/WallStreetBets’ trending list.

UnitedHealth shares dipped almost 5% after the insurance giant said it was responding to requests from the Department of Justice regarding its Medicare Advantage business practices.

Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern were down 4.5% and less than 1%, respectively, as the two rail giants confirmed that they have, in fact, been involved in talks about combining their companies.

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markets
Matt Phillips

Intel soars amid retail engagement, analyst chatter

Intel ripped toward a new 52-week high Wednesday, amid a flurry of activity in the options market and a couple of positive analyst assessments ahead of its earnings report due tomorrow.

Shortly after 11 a.m. ET, call options activity was roughly equivalent to the full-day average over the past 10 sessions. Bets on stock swings using call options have become a highly popular retail trade, suggesting that retail investors are getting interested in the shares ahead of the report from the partially nationalized American chip icon.

(That interpretation is buttressed by what we’re seeing on social sentiment-monitoring sites like SwaggyStocks, which at about 11:30 a.m. listed Intel as the fifth-most-mentioned stock on Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets forum over the past 24 hours.)

Wall Street analysts are also chattering about the stock, with RBC and Bernstein Research both writing about it in the last 24 hours.

RBC — which has a “sector perform” (or neutral) rating on Intel — said it expects a “slight beat and largely inline outlook” when the company reports after the close Thursday.

Bernstein’s Intel watchers — who have a “market perform” (also neutral) rating on the stock — seemed a bit more cautious, writing, “Overall numbers going forward still looking high to us. Fundamentals and valuation keep us sidelined.”

“If there is no memory, there’s no AI.”

FLASH FORWARD

ByMattPhillips

WedJan 212026

markets
Matt Phillips

BNP upgrades Seagate on more durable cycle

Seagate Technology Holdings was up in early trading after analysts at BNP Paribas upgraded the shares to “outperform” from “neutral” and lifted their price target to $380 a share, implying a gain of almost 15% from where the stock is currently trading.

The maker of the somewhat stodgy technology known as hard disk drives — or HDDs in tech lingo — was one of the top stocks in the S&P 500 for much of last year as it was swept up in the AI data center trade.

Data centers need tons of storage capacity, and demand from hyperscalers has driven up prices and created shortages for disk drives, an industry that is dominated by a duopoly of Seagate and Western Digital. (BNP also maintained its “outperform” rating on WDC in a note Wednesday.)

The analysts at BNP say they pushed by the buy button on the stock after becoming more convinced that the upswing in sales was durable, writing:

“We have witnessed a structural shift happening in HDD industry, toward 1) an effective duopoly, 2) higher mix toward data centers, and 3) disciplined capex investments. These have supported our expectations of long-term, through-cycle profitability for the HDD industry. We are now upgrading Seagate from Neutral to Outperform as we are gaining greater conviction that robust data center storage demand could drive an upcycle longer than we initially expected. We think a secular re-rating of Seagate (as well as Western Digital) to over 20x is justified.”

“We have witnessed a structural shift happening in HDD industry, toward 1) an effective duopoly, 2) higher mix toward data centers, and 3) disciplined capex investments. These have supported our expectations of long-term, through-cycle profitability for the HDD industry. We are now upgrading Seagate from Neutral to Outperform as we are gaining greater conviction that robust data center storage demand could drive an upcycle longer than we initially expected. We think a secular re-rating of Seagate (as well as Western Digital) to over 20x is justified.”

markets
Nate Becker

Stocks jump as Trump backs off European tariff threats, says “I won’t use force” to acquire Greenland

US President Donald Trump said he wouldn’t slap tariffs on several European countries after reaching what he called “the framework of a future deal” on Greenland with NATO’s secretary general.

Stocks extended their gains for the day on the news, having already been up earlier in the day when Trump said in a Davos, Switzerland, speech that he wouldn’t use force to acquire Greenland.

“Based upon this understanding, I will not be imposing the Tariffs that were scheduled to go into effect on February 1st,” Trump wrote on Truth social Wednesday afternoon. “Additional discussions are being held concerning The Golden Dome as it pertains to Greenland. Further information will be made available as discussions progress.”

Trump’s threats to acquire Greenland had put markets on edge in recent days, including a sharp drop on Tuesday.

Trump told a Davos crowd earlier Wednesday: “We probably won't get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force, where we would be frankly unstoppable, but I won’t do that... People thought I would use force. I don’t have to use force. I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.” 

He seemed to indicate that Denmark, which owns Greenland, could rebuff the US’s overtures to acquire the country without military retaliation.

“They have a choice. You can say yes and we will be very appreciative. Or you can say no and we will remember,” he said. Throughout his speech, Trump constantly reiterated his desire for the US to own Greenland.

The S&P 500 was up 1.5% while the Nasdaq 100 was up 1.7% as of 2:50 p.m. ET.

markets
J. Edward Moreno

J&J slips despite cheery 2026 guidance

Johnson & Johnson reported fourth-quarter sales that beat expectations and gave rosy guidance for 2026.

The company said it expects to bring in between $100 billion and $101 billion in revenue this year, compared to the $98.9 billion analysts polled by FactSet were expecting. The drugmaker also expects to report between $11.43 and $11.63 in annual adjusted earnings per share, compared to the $11.48 that Wall Street was expecting.

Despite beating expectations, J&J, the first major drugmaker to report earnings results this year, fell by more than 2% in premarket trading.

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