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Stocks fall again, but finish well off their lows

The S&P 500 gave back 0.2%, the Nasdaq 100 underperformed with a 0.6% drop, and the Russell 2000 dipped 0.3%.

8/20/25 3:29PM

What was shaping up to be a repeat of Tuesday’s AI momentum wreck seemingly turned on a dime into another buy-the-dip moment. Though major indexes all retreated on the session, they turned around sharply shortly before 11 a.m. ET to finish well off their lows. The S&P 500 gave back 0.2%, the Nasdaq 100 underperformed with a 0.6% drop, and the Russell 2000 dipped 0.3%.

Consumer discretionary, tech, and communication services — the sector ETFs home to the Magnificent 7 cohort — were the worst-performing S&P 500 groups on the day.

Analog Devices was the biggest gainer in the S&P 500, rising 6.3% after posting stronger-than-expected Q3 results. Intel led declines, falling 7% and reversing Tuesday’s gains on reports that the Trump administration may seek equity in chipmakers that receive federal grants under the Biden era CHIPS Act. Elsewhere...

Target sank 6.3% after the retailer topped Q2 estimates but reiterated expectations for a sales drop this year. The company also announced that longtime CEO Brian Cornell will step down.

Shares of Micron fell 4% after the Seoul Economic Daily said that Samsung Electronics’ new memory chip “passed reliability testing” from Nvidia and is poised to enter the preproduction stage.

Estée Lauder tumbled 3.6% after the MAC and Bobbi Brown parent matched Q4 estimates but painted a tougher profitability outlook over the coming year.

Airbus shares were down 2.2% as thousands of UK union workers plan to strike for 10 days in September amid a contract dispute.

CoreWeave fell 1.4% after filings showed top shareholder Magnetar Financial has sold over $147 million worth of shares since the company’s post-IPO lockup period expired.

Hertz rose 6% after the rental car giant announced it will begin selling some of its more than 540,000 used vehicles on Amazon. Conversely, Carvana and CarMax fell 1.6% and 2.6%, respectively, on the news.

TJX shares climbed 2.7% and hit an all-time high after the T.J. Maxx and HomeGoods parent topped Q2 estimates and raised its full-year forecast.

Luke Kawa

11m

Broadcom’s post-earnings romp continues on heavy volumes

As Broadcom enjoys a rush of new orders from a major new customer (reported to be OpenAI), it’s also reveling in a flood of traffic into the stock.

Volumes are running at 2.5 times their daily average through 1:20 p.m. ET as traders continue to bid up shares in response to the brighter outlook for 2026 revenues, which sent the stock up 9.4% on Friday.

The chip designer is basking in a flood of price target hikes from Wall Street, with Bank of America, JPMorgan, Argus Research, Citigroup, Bernstein, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Piper Sandler, Rosenblatt Securities, Wells Fargo, and Susquehanna upping their view on how high shares can go since the company reported earnings last week.

Separately, Taiwanese industry outlet DigiTimes is reporting that orders from several other leading tech companies for custom-made Broadcom chips (or ASICs) are “already in the pipeline.” This report has not been corroborated by our own or any other publication’s reporting to date.

Matt Phillips

45m

SpaceX spectrum deal sends would-be rivals lower

Shares of struggling satellite services company EchoStar soared Monday, after the company — which had recently tottered close to bankruptcy — announced the sale of some of its wireless spectrum licenses to Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s SpaceX for $17 million.

The sale provides a competitive advantage to Musk’s growing Starlink satellite services business, as the licenses it is acquiring from Echostar allows Starlink to operate ground based broadband and cellphone services, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Entities that stood to be hurt by the emergence of a Musk-led SpaceX Starlink service got hit hard on the news. AST SpaceMobile, which has plans to offer a similar satellite-to-consumer cellular service, tumbled.

So did wireless tower providers like Crown Castle and American Tower. Low cost cellular service provider T-Mobile, which had a deal with SpaceX, also slumped, as Luke noted earlier, along with other large wireless telecommunication services providers.

The wireless telecommunications industry grouping within the S&P 500 was down more than 2.5% shortly after noon, making it the worst performing industry within the S&P 500 on Monday.

SpaceX strikes $17B deal to buy EchoStar's spectrum for Starlink's direct-to-phone service | TechCrunch

The wireless telecommunications industry grouping within the S&P 500 was down more than 2.5% shortly after noon, making it the worst performing industry within the S&P 500 on Monday.

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Membership has its privileges.

Matt Phillips3h

J. Edward Moreno

Hims rises, Novo dips after FDA releases “green list” of GLP-1 raw material suppliers

Hims & Hers rose and Novo Nordisk slipped in early trading after the US Food and Drug Administration released a "green list" of foreign GLP-1 ingredient suppliers that it considers in compliance with agency standards.

Some telehealth companies like Hims sell copycat versions of Novo's and Eli Lilly’s blockbuster weight-loss drugs through compounding pharmacies, which take the active ingredients from FDA-approved medications and make adjusted, or "personalized,” versions of the drug for patients.

Novo and Lilly have fought against this, arguing that it infringes on their intellectual property. They've sued smaller telehealth providers, pharmacies, and clinics in lieu of any action against them from the FDA. Instead, the FDA gave compounders a list of suppliers it deems safe.

Recent developments in the cases filed by the drugmakers so far as well as the FDA's recent actions suggest telehealth companies may be in a less risky position than investors previously thought. As of Monday morning, prediction markets pegged the likelihood of a suit from Novo against Hims at 34%, down from about 70% earlier this month.

Luke Kawa

Gold is outperforming the Nasdaq 100 since the launch of ChatGPT

There’s a bull market in anti-humanity.