The Nasdaq and S&P 500 rallied to record high closes on Wednesday, fueled by gains in Nvidia and other Wall Street heavyweights ahead of inflation data and quarterly earnings reports due this week. The S&P 500 closed above 5,600 for the first time.
Market Snapshot
The S&P 500 climbed 1.02% to end the session at 5,633.91 points. The Nasdaq gained 1.18% to 18,647.45 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.09% to 39,721.36 points.
Market Movers
Apple - Apple was up 1.9% to $232.98. Needham analystsraised their price target on Apple stockto $260 from $220 and reiterated a Buy rating on the shares. In addition, a report from Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, said Apple was aiming to ship at least 90 million iPhone 16 devices in the latter half of 2024, hoping its artificial-intelligence strategy will drive demand. The tech giant closed Tuesday with a market capitalization of $3.507 trillion, making the company the first to close with a market value of $3.5 trillion or more.
Tesla - Tesla rose 0.4% to $263.26. Shares of the electric-vehicle maker got their 11th-straight gain. Analysts at Goldman Sachsboosted their price targetto $248 from $175 and maintained a Hold rating on the stock.
AMD - AMD rose 3.9% after the chip company announced it was acquiring Silo AI, the largest private artificial-intelligence lab in Europe, in an all-cash transaction valued at about $665 million.
TSMC - TSMC reported a 33% jump in sales during Juneand said second-quarter sales surged 40% to NT$673.50 billion, topping analysts’ forecasts, as the company benefited from the boom in artificial intelligence. U.S.-listed shares of Taiwan Semiconductor, the chip-manufacturing giant and supplier to Apple and Nvidia, rose 3.5%.
Super Micro Computer - Super Micro Computer was up 0.5% to $899.98 after trading lower earlier in the session. Shares of the server maker weredowngraded to Neutral from Buyat Nomura with the price target unchanged at $930. Super Micro has gained 216% this year.
Intuit - Intuit fell 2.6% after the financial software company said it wascutting 1,800 jobs, or about 10% of its workforce, and hiring the same number of people in engineering, product, and customer-facing roles as it accelerates a move to initiatives based on generative artificial intelligence.
Carvana, CarMax - Carvana rose 4.2% to $130.97. Shares of the online car seller were upgraded to Buy from Hold at Needham with a price target of $160. The company also announced the launch of new featuresfor buying all-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. Used-car retailer CarMax gained 6.5%.
Aehr Test - Aehr Test Systems jumped 24% after the maker of test systems for sensors and semiconductors said it expects fiscal fourth-quarter net income of about $23.8 million, which includes a tax benefit of about $20.8 million on revenue of roughly $16.6 million.
Smart Global Holdings - Smart Global Holdings swung toa profit in its fiscal third quartereven as revenue fell 13% from a year earlier to $300.6 million. Smart Global said it expects sales in the fourth quarter of $300 million to $350 million compared with analysts’ expectation of $325 million. Shares of the computing and memory company rose 26.3%.
LegalZoom.com, Inc - LegalZoom.com dropped 25.4% after cutting its full-year revenue outlook and expectations for free cash flow, and announcing that Chief Executive Officer Dan Wernikoff would be leaving the legal services company. Bank of America Securities cut its rating on the stock from Buy to Underperform and reduced its price target to $6 from $13.
Market News
Powell Says Fed Will Cut Rates When Ready, Regardless of Political Calendar
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said on Wednesday the U.S. central bank will make interest rate decisions "when and as" they are needed, pushing back on a suggestion that a September rate cut could be seen as a political act ahead of the fall presidential election.
"Our undertaking is to make decisions when and as they need to be made, based on the data, the incoming data, the evolving outlook and the balance of risks, and not in consideration of other factors, and that would include political factors," Powell said in a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee. "We have a long history of doing that, including during election years...Anything we do will be very well grounded. It's just not appropriate for us to get into the business of thinking about election cycles at all, one way or the other."
Powell was responding to a question during a committee hearing from U.S. Representative Mike Lawler, Republican of New York, about whether a September rate cut, currently given a roughly 70% probability by investors, could be seen as trying to tilt the playing field ahead of the Nov. 5 elections.
Apple Aims to Ship 10% More New iPhones This Year After Bumpy 2023
Apple Inc. aims to ship at least 90 million iPhone 16 devices in the latter half of this year, counting on AI services to fuel demand for its new lineup after a rocky 2023.
The company told suppliers and partners that it’s targeting about 10% growth in shipments of new iPhones compared with their predecessors, a person familiar with the matter said, after shipping about 81 million iPhone 15s in the second half of 2023.
The company has grown confident that the addition of some Apple Intelligence features with the iPhone 16 will help boost demand when the model goes on sale late this year, said people with knowledge of the situation, who asked not to be identified because the projections are private.