Stocks go nowhere on laziest trading day since July 4 holiday
If you skipped this one, you weren’t alone.
The start of the week was a relative snoozer, with the amount of money changing hands across US exchanges the lowest since the holiday-shortened session on July 3.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 each closed less than 0.1% away from where they ended last week, while the Russell 2000 rose 0.3%.
Consumer discretionary posted the largest advance among S&P 500 sector ETFs with a 0.4% gain, while real estate was at the bottom of the leaderboard with a 0.9% drop.
Gains on the day were led by Dayforce, which soared almost 26% after Bloomberg reported that private equity giant Thoma Bravo is in advanced talks to acquire the HR software provider. Declines were led by EQT Corp. and Intel, which fell 4.4% and 3.7%, respectively.
Elsewhere...
Meta shares fell 2.3% after the social media behemoth cut the starting price of its upcoming smart glasses with a display to about $800, down from a price of over $1,000. The company is also facing two government probes over its AI chatbots.
Shares of Duolingo jumped nearly 13% after the company’s CEO defended its use of AI amid customer backlash. KeyBanc analysts also upgraded the stock to “overweight.”
First Solar shares jumped 9.7% after UBS named the solar panel maker a top pick, pointing to fresh IRS guidance that largely preserved 2030 tax credits for the industry.
Novo Nordisk rose 2.6% after the pharma giant cut prices for its weight-loss shots, Ozempic and Wegovy, while the latter was also approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat a liver condition.
TeraWulf jumped 4.6% after the bitcoin mining company said AI cloud platform Fluidstack exercised its option to expand at the company’s Lake Mariner, New York, data center campus.
