Wall Street's main indexes ended higher on Monday, with the small-cap Russell 2000 index hitting an all-time high after Scott Bessent's nomination as U.S. Treasury secretary helped push bond yields lower.
Focus also turned to talks of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Lebanon, which pushed oil prices lower, dragging the Energy index (.SPNY) 2% lower.
Market Snapshot
According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 gained 17.81 points, or 0.30%, to end at 5,987.15 points, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 51.50 points, or 0.27%, to 19,055.15. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 439.02 points, or 0.99%, to 44,735.53.
Market Movers
SUPER MICRO COMPUTER INC rose 16%, with the server maker coming off last week's surge of 78%, the stock's largest weekly gain on record. Super Micro's submission of plans to remain listed on the Nasdaq and the naming of a new auditor helped lift shares. Its stock remains roughly 70% off the record closing high set in March but was on pace for its best month since February, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
Snowflake rose 2.4% to $171.42 after shares of the software company were upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Wedbush with a new price target of $190. Elastic, the data analytics company, also received an upgrade at Wedbush to Outperform from Neutral and a new price target of $135. The stock gained 3.2% to $111.48. Analysts at the firm said the upgrades reflect their "increased bullishness on the next phase of this AI Revolution in the software sector into 2025."
Wedbush also raised its price targets on Palantir Technologies Inc. to $75 from $57, and Salesforce to $375 from $325. On Palantir, the analysts said the boost to the price target reflected their increased confidence in Palantir's "game-changing" artificial-intelligence-platform strategy as use cases take hold over the next 18 months. Palantir was up 0.5% to $64.65, and Salesforce was down 0.9% at $339.11.
Shares of MicroStrategy were down 4.4%. The largest corporate holder of Bitcoin purchased 55,500 Bitcoin for about $5.4 billion at an average price of $97,862, including fees and other expenses. It now owns 386,700 bitcoin worth $21.9 billion that were purchased at an average price of $56,761. The company closed a $3 billion convertible bond sale on Friday and used the proceeds to buy more of the cryptocurrency.
Brokerage Robinhood Markets was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley and the price target was raised to $55 from $24. Robinhood shares gained 3% to $37.75. Needham analysts last week raised their recommendation on Robinhood to Buy from Hold, saying the company stands to benefit from a change in leadership at the Securities and Exchange Commission following Trump's election victory.
Quantum Computing Inc. jumped 26% and D-Wave Systems Inc. rose before dropping 1.4% after Amazon Web Services launched Quantum Embark, a new advisory program for customers. "Quantum Embark aims to help customers get ready for quantum computing by providing an expert-led approach, as they embark on their journey. With Embark, there are no long-term commitments, and customers can get started in as little as a few weeks," said a blog from AWS.
Bath & Body Works Inc. surged 17% after third-quarter earnings and sales at the beauty and home fragrance company topped analysts' estimates and fiscal-year guidance was raised. Bath & Body Works said it expects fiscal-year sales to be down 2.5% to down 1.7%, compared with prior guidance for a decline of 4% to 2%.
Macy's was down 2.2% after the retailer delayed the release of its third-quarter earnings, which were scheduled for Tuesday, to Dec. 11 to complete an investigation into an employee who made inaccurate accounting entries. Macy's did disclose, however, that net sales in the period decreased 2.4% to $4.742 billion from a year earlier.
Cassava Sciences Inc plunged 84% after the biotech company said a trial of a novel Alzheimer's drug missed key milestones during a Phase 3 trial. The treatment, Simufilam, didn't show a significant reduction in cognitive or functional decline compared with a placebo during the 52nd week of the study, the company reported. All patients included in the trial suffered from mild to moderate Alzheimer's.
Market News
It’s Reasonable to Consider Rate Cut Next Month, Fed’s Kashkari Says
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari said it is still appropriate to consider another interest-rate cut at the central bank’s December meeting.
“It’s still a reasonable consideration,” Kashkari said Monday on Bloomberg Television in response to a question about whether policymakers should reduce borrowing costs by a quarter point at their last meeting of the year. “Right now, knowing what I know today, still considering a 25-basis-point cut in December — it’s a reasonable debate for us to have.”
Nvidia Shows AI Model That Can Modify Voices, Generate Novel Sounds
NVIDIA Corp on Monday showed a new artificial intelligence model for generating music and audio that can modify voices and generate novel sounds - technology aimed at the producers of music, films and video games.
Nvidia, the world's biggest supplier of chips and software used to create AI systems, said it does not have immediate plans to publicly release the technology, which it calls Fugatto, short for Foundational Generative Audio Transformer Opus 1.
Zoom Gives In-Line Sales Forecast While Investors Seek More
Zoom gave a sales forecast for the current quarter that failed to impress investors who were expecting a bigger boost from the company’s expanded suite of products.
Revenue will be about $1.18 billion in the period ending in January, Zoom said Monday in a statement. Profit, excluding some items, will be $1.29 to $1.30 a share. Analysts, on average, projected adjusted earnings of $1.28 a share on sales of $1.17 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The shares declined about 4.3% in extended trading after closing at $89.03 in New York. While Zoom’s outlook met estimates, the stock had gained about 48% since the company’s last earnings report in August on optimism about the new products.
