U.S. stocks fell on Tuesday, with the benchmark S&P 500 ending six straight sessions of gains, under pressure from rising Treasury yields, with the U.S. sovereign debt profile in focus.
Market Snapshot
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 114.83 points, or 0.27%, to 42,677.24, the S&P 500 lost 23.14 points, or 0.39%, to 5,940.46 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 72.75 points, or 0.38%, to 19,142.72.
Market Movers
D-Wave Quantum jumped 26% as its sixth-generation quantum-computing system became available over the cloud. D-Wave management highlighted the technology's applications in tasks such as supply-chain optimization and resource allocation, outside the realm of what classical machines effectively can handle.
Moderna rose 6.1%. The Food and Drug Administration will stick to its existing process for updating Covid-19 shots for older adults and those at a high risk of severe illness. It's a softer approach than Trump officials had seemed poised to take, according to Barron's reporter Josh Nathan-Kazis.
Home Depot, the biggest home-improvement retailer, reported fiscal first-quarter adjusted earnings of $3.56 a share, missing analysts' estimates of $3.60. Revenue of $39.9 billion beat forecasts of $39.3 billion. The company said it plans to keep prices unchanged despite new tariffs. Home Depot shares were down 0.6%. Competitor Lowe's, which reports quarterly earnings Wednesday, fell 1.4%.
Tesla was up 0.5% after CEO Elon Musk told a conference in Qatar that he expects to still be chief executive in five years, The Wall Street Journal reported. Tesla shares have declined 15% this year but have jumped about 44% since the company reported first-quarter earnings on April 22. Tesla sold 11,150 cars in China the past week, according to industry data tracked by Citi analyst Jeff Chung, up from 3,040 sold the week before. But that is down about 16% from the comparable week in 2024.
Shares of Tesla supplier Contemporary Amperex Technology, the Chinese battery giant, soared 16% in their Hong Kong debut on Tuesday. CATL raised almost $4.6 billion in the world's largest equity offering this year.
UnitedHealth gained 1.8%. The shares rose 8.2% on Monday, ending the session at $315.89. It was the stock's largest daily percentage increase since Nov 4, 2020, when it rose more than 10%, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The stock declined 23.3% last week after UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty resigned and the company suspended its 2025 outlook.
Semiconductor supplier Wolfspeed is preparing to file for bankruptcy within weeks, as it struggles to address its debt pile, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing sources familiar with the matter. Shares of the company fell over 59% in extended trading.
Nvidia fell 0.9%. CEO Jensen Huang said Monday the company would be opening its artificial-intelligence server platform to rival chip makers but he also warned the U.S. government's move to limit chip exports to China could hit revenue by $15 billion.
Amer Sports rose 19% after the sporting goods and apparel company topped first-quarter adjusted earnings estimates and raised fiscal-year profit guidance.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise gained 1.5% to $17.72 after analysts at Evercore ISI upgraded shares of the technology company to Outperform from In Line and raised their price target to $22 from $17.
Viking Holdings, the expedition cruises company, reported a narrower-than-expected first-quarter loss on a revenue jump of 25% to $897.1 million. The company said it was seeing "sustained strength in demand." Shares, however, declined 5% as analysts questioned whether Viking will be able to sustain pricing growth as the year progresses. Cruise line peers also declined. Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings was off 3.9%, Carnival fell 2.1%, and Royal Caribbean was down 1.9%.
Market News
Oil Surges on Report That Israel Is Preparing to Strike Iran
Oil jumped after CNN reported that US intelligence suggests Israel is making preparations to possibly strike Iranian nuclear facilities.
West Texas Intermediate futures surged as much as 3.5% to $64.19 a barrel. It isn’t clear that Israeli leaders have made a final decision to carry out the strikes, CNN said, citing unnamed officials.
Oil prices have been volatile since last week on mixed headlines about the fate of Iran-US talks, which could pave the way for more barrels to return to a market that’s expected to be oversupplied later in the year. An attack by Israel would hinder any progress in those negotiations and add to volatility in the Middle East, which supplies about a third of the world’s oil.
Singapore Central Bank Chief Says US Dollar Assets Irreplaceable
Dollar-based assets have “enduring advantages” and remain virtually irreplaceable in the global financial system despite the US losing its top triple-A credit rating, according to Singapore’s central bank chief.
“They are the dominant, safe assets for use in the financial system, deeply embedded,” Monetary Authority of Singapore Managing Director Chia Der Jiun said at the Qatar Economic Forum on Tuesday. “The $28-trillion Treasury market is fundamental and systemic to the global financial system and there is no alternative for this point.”
Google I/O Conference: AI Upgrades, Subscriptions and Smart Glasses
Alphabet's Google said on Tuesday it would put artificial intelligence into the hands of more Web surfers while teasing a $249.99-a-month subscription for its AI power users, its latest effort to fend off growing competition from startups like OpenAI.
Google unveiled the plans amid a flurry of demos that included new smart glasses during its annual I/O conference in Mountain View, California, which has adopted a tone of increased urgency since the rise of generative AI challenged the tech company's longtime stronghold of organizing and retrieving information on the internet.