Markets
Nia Warfield
8/7/25

Stocks end mixed as investors digest weak 30-year bond auction and new tariffs

Stocks were mixed Thursday, under some pressure after a weak 30-year Treasury auction and fresh trade noise as President Trump announced plans for new chip tariffs, which included exemptions for companies building in the US.

The S&P 500 slipped 0.08%, but closed well off session lows. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq 100 reversed off lows of the day to finish 0.32% up. The Russell 2000 fell 0.30%.

Utilities and consumer staples led S&P 500 sector ETFs, while financials and healthcare lagged — dragged down by names like Eli Lilly, which reported disappointing trial results for its next-gen weight-loss pill despite crushing earnings expectations.

Gains on the day were led by AppLovin, which jumped 12% after the ad tech firm initially failed to impress traders with earnings after the bell yesterday. Declines were led in part by Airbnb, which fell 8% after the home-share giant topped Q2 estimates on Wednesday but warned of a slower back half of the year. 

Elsewhere…

Joby Aviation shares fell another 9% after the air taxi company reported a worse-than-expected loss for the second quarter on Wednesday.

Duolingo shares rallied 13% after the language-learning company soundly beat Q2 estimates and raised both its full-year and third-quarter sales guidance.

Sunrun skyrocketed 32% after the energy storage and solar panel provider reported a surprise second-quarter profit and record customer demand for its energy storage systems.

Celsius shares popped 17% after the energy drink maker reported Q2 revenue of $739 million, blowing past analysts’ expectations of $652 million as its market share picks up.

Peloton jumped as much as 22% premarket before closing flat after the connected fitness company topped Q4 estimates and announced a cost restructuring plan to save at least $100 million in run-rate savings.

Apple shares jumped 3% after President Trump said “companies like Apple,” including other firms that build in the US, will avoid 100% chip tariffs.

NRG shares rose 3% after the power producer and energy trader’s adjusted earnings fell short of Wall Street estimates, while GAAP results swung to a surprise loss.

Hertz soared 7.7% after the car rental company reported a better-than-expected adjusted loss for the second quarter and its first positive adjusted corporate EBITDA in seven quarters.

Sony shares traded 4.5% higher after the company raised its full-year operating profit forecast, thanks to a smaller-than-expected tariff hit and strong performance in its gaming division.

DoorDash shares rose 5% after the food delivery giant topped Q2 estimates and posted its fourth consecutive profitable quarter.

Crocs shares sank 29% after the funky foam clog maker beat second-quarter estimates but offered a murky outlook as demand cools in North America, its key market.

Bumble shares fell 15% after the dating company reported a surprise loss in the second quarter after the bell Wednesday and has struggled to spark sales growth in recent years.

D-Wave Quantum dropped 2.3% after the Palo Alto-based quantum computing firm reported mixed second-quarter results, driven by a $142 million rise in the fair value of its warrant liabilities.

Intel fell 3% after President Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, that CEO Lip-Bu Tan “is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately.”

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markets
Matt Phillips
16m

Robinhood rides index inclusion rally to record close

Robinhood Markets notched a new closing high Tuesday, as the crypto, stock and options brokerage continued to ride a rally set off by the announcement that it would be added to the S&P 500.

(Robinhood Markets, Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company subject to certain legal and regulatory restrictions.)

Robinhood appears to be benefiting from the so-called inclusion effect, a market phenomenon where companies that are added to major market indices can see a price move as index funds — whose holdings must mirror the membership of the index — rush to buy the stock.

And for what it’s worth, it seems like Robinhood will upon entry — effective prior to the market open on Sept. 22 — be the top-performing member of the index. As, its roughly 220% gain in 2025 is more or less double that of the current leader, Seagate Technology Holdings.

markets
Luke Kawa
16m

GameStop posts impressive Q2 results with big sales beat

Don’t call it a comeback!

GameStop is jumping aftermarket as the video games and collectibles retailer posted an impressive set of second-quarter results.

Net sales: $972 million (estimate $823 million)

Adjusted diluted earnings per share: $0.25 (estimate $0.16)

Note: these consensus estimates, compiled by Bloomberg, are from only two analysts.

The sales beat is particularly noteworthy, as the company had already done an exemplary job of expense control to help protect its bottom line. Revenues were up more than 20% versus the year-ago quarter, the biggest annual jump in sales since the company (and the world) was emerging from the pandemic in 2021.

The options market implies a move of +/- about 9.4% on earnings.

For a while, GameStop’s ability to generate positive net income was purely a function of the interest earnings on its substantial cash hoard. That’s still the case, but this is what a fundamental turnaround looks like:

GameStop has now strung together five consecutive quarters of positive operating cash flows for the first time in its history!

This was the quarter in which the company began to act upon its bitcoin treasury strategy, raising money through the sale of convertible notes and using some proceeds to purchase the crypto asset.

Because of how much market value has been ascribed to potential for GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen to use its significant cash holdings to transform the company, the prospect of converting cash into bitcoin initially did not sit too well with investors following the announcement of this new strategic push in March.

Shares of the once-upon-a-time meme stock really didn’t get too much love during retail frenzies earlier in the summer, and were down about 25% year to date heading into this release.

As of the close of the quarter, its bitcoin holdings were valued at $528.6 million.

Western Digital Seagate Technology Rise to top of S&P 500

Data storage is so hot right now

A rapid turnaround in profitability helps explain how Seagate Technology and Western Digital have clawed to the top of S&P 500 this year.

Matt Phillips2h
markets
Luke Kawa
4h

Why Apple usually falls on a new iPhone launch

You can only shock the world so many times, and a thinner phone with a better camera isn’t always going to cut it.

That, in short, is why Apple has tended to go down on days when it’s introduced a new iPhone to the world, as this great chart from Bespoke Investment Group shows:

Bespoke iPhone announcement Apple performance
Source: Bespoke Investment Group

On average, the tech giant falls 0.4% on the release date and is negative more than 70% of the time, perhaps a useful tidbit on this, the day of the iPhone 17 launch.

One more thing....

A potentially complicating factor to the aforementioned data is that Apple has often done quite well in the six months leading up to a new iPhone announcement, roughly 5 percentage points better than its typical six-month return, as shown above. That’s not the case this time, with Apple shares up about 5% over the past six months compared to a typical near 20% advance in the prelude to a new iPhone drop.

So it’s not like expectations about how big of a catalyst this can be for the company are sky-high and due for a sharp retrenchment, especially given Apple’s relatively lackluster progress in developing AI capabilities relative to its megacap tech peers. But a seemingly low bar to clear hasn’t necessarily been a boon for the company on the big day, either.

In any event, staring too closely at the minutiae of all this may be missing the forest for the trees.

“While this info may be helpful to traders, we doubt it’s something that long-term shareholders are too worried about given the huge compounding returns the stock has provided during the iPhone era,” Bespoke wrote.

Luke Kawa
5h
Negative US payroll revisions as bad as 2009 add to fears of consumer spending slowdown

Reconciling the spending versus jobs trends is the key question for US economic analysts.

Yellow traffic light against an office building

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