The S&P 500 ended lower on Wednesday, with investors spooked by Middle East tensions, while a tame inflation report calmed concerns around tariff-driven price pressures and traders awaited more details on China-U.S. trade talks.
Market Snapshot
The S&P 500 declined 0.27% to end the session at 6,022.24 points. The Nasdaq declined 0.50% to 19,615.88 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended essentially unchanged at 42,865.77 points.
Market Movers
Tesla was up slightly, bringing its winning streak to four sessions. Shares of the maker of electric vehicles jumped 5.7% in the previous session after a video revealed a driverless Tesla vehicle on the streets of Austin, Texas. CEO Elon Musk said Tesla expects to launch its robotaxi service tentatively on June 22, but the date could shift because Tesla is being "super paranoid about safety," Musk said in a post on X. He also expressed regret over some of his posts about Trump last week.
Voyager Technologies, Inc. , Wall Street's latest initial public offering, rocketed 82% into the stratosphere on Wednesday in its first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
Oracle logged double-digit revenue growth in its most recent quarter and set its sights on even bigger gains in the fiscal year ahead, pushing shares 7% higher after hours.
General Motors was up 1.9% after the auto maker said it would be spending $4 billion to manufacture more vehicles in the United States. In 2024, GM imported about 45% of the cars it sold domestically, according to Bloomberg, mainly from Mexico, Canada, and South Korea.
Nucor declined 6%, Cleveland-Cliffs fell 8.1%, and Steel Dynamics was down 2.8% after a Bloomberg report said the U.S. and Mexico were close to an agreement to reduce the 50% tariffs that Trump placed on steel imports.
Lockheed Martin fell 4.3% following a Bloomberg report that said the U.S. Air Force was asking for 24 F-35 fighter jets this year, down from 48 in 2024.
First-quarter earnings at GitLab beat analysts' expectations but the software company's guidance disappointed investors. The stock fell 11%. GitLab said it expects fiscal-year adjusted earnings of 74 cents to 75 cents a share, up from a previous outlook of 68 cents to 72 cents and higher than Wall Street estimates of 72 cents a share. GitLab anticipates fiscal-year revenue of $936 million to $942 million, compared with analysts' expectations of $939.7 million.
GameStop shares fell after the company said it plans to offer $1.75 billion worth of convertible notes. The stock slid 11% to $25.27 after the market closed on Wednesday, ending regular trade down 5%.
Chewy, Inc. declined 11%. The pet e-commerce company posted fiscal first-quarter adjusted earnings of 35 cents a share on net sales of $3.12 billion, surpassing Wall Street consensus for profit of 33 cents on sales of $3.08 billion.
SailPoint reported first-quarter adjusted earnings of 1 cent a share, better than analysts' estimates that called for a loss of 1 cent, and the cybersecurity company raised its fiscal 2026 earnings and revenue forecasts. The stock rose 15%.
Oklo surged 30%. The nuclear start-up said it had been conditionally selected to provide power to an Air Force base in Alaska after a nearly two-year delay.
Rigetti Computing rose 11%, $D-Wave Quantum(QBTS)$ was down 2.4%, IonQ slipped 0.1%, and Quantum Computing jumped 25%. Speaking at Nvidia GTC Paris on Wednesday, CEO Jensen Huang said quantum machines will be used to "solve some interesting problems in the coming years." His latest comments marked a tone shift from January, when Huang asserted that "very useful" quantum computers were decades away.
Dave & Buster's Entertainment reported first-quarter earnings of 62 cents a share, below analysts' estimates of 99 cents. Revenue at the arcade-restaurant operator fell 3.5% to $567.7 million but topped forecasts for $566.8 million. Same-store sales fell 8.3%, narrower than analysts' estimates that called for a decline of 9.3%. Shares were up 17%.
Market News
China Puts Six-Month Limit on Its Ease of Rare-Earth Export Licenses
China is putting a six-month limit on rare-earth export licenses for U.S. automakers and manufacturers, according to people familiar with the matter, giving Beijing leverage if trade tensions flare up again while adding to uncertainty for American industry.
Beijing’s agreement to temporarily restore rare-earth licenses was one of the key breakthroughs in the latest round of intense trade talks in London, but the six-month limit illustrated how each side is retaining the tools to easily escalate tensions again.
In exchange for the Chinese easing rare-earth curbs for now, the people said, U.S. negotiators agreed to relax some recent restrictions on the sale to China of products such as jet engines and related parts, as well as ethane, a byproduct of natural gas and oil drilling important in manufacturing plastics.
Trump Says Again He’ll Set Unilateral Tariffs in Two Weeks
President Donald Trump said he intended to send letters to trading partners in the next one to two weeks setting unilateral tariff rates, ahead of a July 9 deadline to reimpose higher duties on dozens of economies.
“We’re going to be sending letters out in about a week and a half, two weeks, to countries, telling them what the deal is,” Trump told reporters Wednesday at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington where he was attending a performance.
