U.S. stocks ended lower on Thursday, even as a strong revenue forecast for Nvidia fueled a surge in its shares, but that was overshadowed by economic data showing inflation was still a concern that could delay any Federal Reserve rate cuts.
Nvidia shares jumped 9.32% to close above the $1,000 per share mark for the first time after the AI chip company forecast quarterly revenue above estimates and announced a stock split.
Market Snapshot
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 605.78 points, or 1.53%, to 39,065.26, the S&P 500 fell 39.17 points, or 0.74%, to 5,267.84 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 65.51 points, or 0.39%, to 16,736.03.
Market Movers
Nvidia rose 9.3% after the leader in artificial-intelligence chips reported first-quarter adjusted earnings and revenue that beat analysts’ estimates, issued a better-than-expected second-quarter revenue forecast, and said it would split its stock 10-for-1, effective June 7. Revenue in the first quarter was a record $26 billion, up 262% from a year earlier, and better than Wall Street consensus of $24.6 billion. The company’s sales to cloud-computing data centers rose more than fivefold, to $22.6 billion, or about 87% of total revenue.
Tech stocks that provide AI infrastructure, such as Dell Technologies, also rose. Dell gained 3.9%. Evercore ISI analyst Amit Daryanani, who already has an Outperform rating and $165 price target on Dell, added the shares Thursday to a “Tactical Outperform” list, saying he expects favorable first-quarter earnings when Dell reports next week.
Live Nation fell 7.8% after the Justice Department and more than two dozen states sued the company, alleging the owner of Ticketmaster has used its ticketing monopoly to suppress competition and should be broken up. “We allege that Live Nation relies on unlawful, anticompetitive conduct to exercise its monopolistic control over the live events industry in the United States at the cost of fans, artists, smaller promoters, and venue operators,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “It is time to break up Live Nation.”
Snowflake raised its fiscal-year product revenue forecast. The cloud-computing company said it expects product revenue in fiscal 2025 of $3.3 billion, higher than its previous outlook of $3.25 billion. First-quarter adjusted earnings of 14 cents a share fell from 15 cents a year earlier and missed estimates of 18 cents but product revenue of $790 million topped analysts’ expectations of $751 million. The stock fell 5.4% after rising in premarket trading.
VF Corp., which owns clothing brands The North Face, Vans, and Timberland, reported an adjusted loss in its fiscal fourth quarter of 32 cents a share while analysts had been calling for a profit of 2 cents. Revenue fell 13% to $2.37 billion and missed analysts’ forecasts of $2.42 billion. Shares fell 2.9%.
E.l.f. Beauty, the cosmetics company, forecast fiscal-year sales of $1.23 billion to $1.25 billion, below estimates of $1.27 billion. The company also said it anticipates adjusted profit of $3.20 to $3.25 a share for the year ending in March 2025 versus Wall Street estimates of $3.56. The stock, however, was up 18.7% after the company said it expects sales gains in its current fiscal first quarter to outpace growth for the year.
Boeing fell 7.6%. The aerospace giant’s chief financial officer, a month after Boeing announced it burned through nearly $4 billion in the first quarter, warned investors the company was on track for a similar or worse hit during the current period, The Wall Street Journal reported. “We have frustrated and disappointed our customers because of some of the production and supply chain issues we are up against,” West said at a conference, the Journal reported. West said the company should begin generating cash in the second half of the year.
Ralph Lauren was up 3.3%. The luxury apparel company reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings but projected revenue for the current fiscal quarter would decline slightly from a year earlier, with unfavorable exchange rates presenting a drag on sales growth of about 1.6 percentage points.
Market News
US SEC Approves Exchange Applications to List Spot Ether ETFs
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday approved applications from Nasdaq, CBOE and NYSE to list exchange-traded funds (ETFs) tied to the price of ether, potentially paving the way for the products to begin trading later this year.
While the ETF issuers also have to get the green light before the products can launch, Thursday's approval is a major surprise win for those firms and the cryptocurrency industry, which until Monday had expected the SEC to reject the filings.
Tesla Omits Goal to Make 20 Million Cars by 2030 from New Report
Tesla Inc. omitted a previously stated goal to eventually sell 20 million vehicles a year from one of its yearly reports, adding to signs Elon Musk is prioritizing autonomy over its core car business.
The company still says in the 2023 impact report it wants “to displace fossil fuels by selling as many Tesla products as possible,” as it has in previous years. However, the carmaker deleted language that appeared in its 2021 and 2022 reports which quantifies how many cars it wants to make by the end of the decade.
Expect Higher-for-Longer Interest Rates, Fed's Bostic Says
Atlanta Federal Reserve President Raphael Bostic expects to hold interest rates steady for the long haul, noting that a return to the central bank's 2% annual inflation target could be a way off.
"We have to be a little more patient and be more certain that inflation is on its way to 2% before moving," Bostic said in remarks to an M.B.A. macroeconomics class at the Stanford Graduate School of Business on Thursday.