Wall Street's benchmark S&P 500 index rose on Wednesday and a rally in tech stocks lifted the Nasdaq above the 20,000-point milestone for the first time, after a U.S. inflation report boosted expectations of a Federal Reserve interest rate cut.
Market Snapshot
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 99.27 points, or 0.22%, to 44,148.56, the S&P 500 rose 49.28 points, or 0.82%, to 6,084.19 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 347.65 points, or 1.77%, to 20,034.90.
Market Movers
Tesla rose 5.9% to $424.77, which is its highest close on record. Tesla marked a sixth-straight session of gains. It eclipsed its prior closing high of $409.97, which was reached on Nov. 4, 2021. Expectations that CEO Elon Musk's relationship with President-elect Donald Trump will benefit Tesla have helped push the stock sharply higher since the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 5.
Nvidia and other megacap growth stocks, including Alphabet and Amazon , also finished higher, adding between 1.2% and 5.5%. Apple edged down 0.5%.
GameStop, the videogame retailer, reported a surprise third-quarter profit, and the stock was up 7.7% even as sales in the period dropped 20% from a year earlier to $860 million. GameStop earned 6 cents a share on an adjusted basis in the quarter. GameStop also said it completed a previously disclosed "at-the-market" equity offering program in the quarter by selling 20 million common shares for about $400 million. The company said it doesn't anticipate any more offerings of its stock during the current fiscal year.
Super Micro Computer declined 5.6%. The server maker's CEO, Charles Liang, said he was " confident" the stock wouldn't be delisted from the Nasdaq 100 index. Liang, on the sidelines of the Reuters NEXT conference in New York on Tuesday, said Super Micro would file its delayed financial reports by a deadline of Feb. 25, 2025. Shares fell 8.2% on Tuesday on worries the stock might be removed from the Nasdaq 100 at its annual reconstitution later this week.
Macy's fell 0.9% after the retailer cut its financial outlook in its delayed quarterly report. Macy's said it expects fiscal-year adjusted earnings of $2.25 to $2.50 a share, lower than previous guidance of $2.55 to $2.90.
Stitch Fix rose 44% after the online personal styling company posted a narrower-than-anticipated loss in the fiscal first quarter. Revenue of $319 million beat consensus and exceeded the company's guidance range. Stitch Fix said it expects fiscal-year revenue of between $1.14 billion and $1.18 billion, up from prior guidance of between $1.11 billion and $1.16 billion.
Figs jumped 22% to $6.24 after the medical-apparel maker received a takeover offer from private-equity firm Story3 Capital Partners that values the company at more than $1 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported. Story3 offered $6 a share for the common shares outstanding of Figs that it doesn't already own, according to a letter seen by the Journal.
Albertsons was down 1.6% after saying it would terminate its merger agreement with Kroger. A federal judge blocked the merger Tuesday on antitrust grounds. Albertson also filed a lawsuit against Kroger accusing the grocer of failing to exercise "best efforts" to secure regulatory approval for the deal, valued at more than $20 billion. Kroger rose 1%.
GE Vernova said its board initiated a quarterly dividend payout of 25 cents a share and launched a $6 billion stock buyback program. The stock rose 5% after the company, a provider of equipment and services to power plants and wind farms, raised its outlook for both fiscal 2024 and 2025 as well as for the longer term.
Market News
Inflation Gives Fed Green Light for December, Yellow for 2025
Fresh inflation figures are likely to make the Federal Reserve more cautious about the pace of interest-rate cuts — but not quite yet.
Investors still widely expect the US central bank to cut borrowing costs by a quarter percentage point next week after a new report showed inflation rose in November in line with expectations. But persistent price pressures have also underscored concerns that progress toward the US central bank’s 2% target may be stalling.
Those concerns could prompt officials to rein in the number of rate cuts they anticipate in 2025 as they wait for more confirmation that inflation is on track to reach their goal. Policymakers will release new forecasts and rate projections at the conclusion of their Dec. 17-18 meeting in Washington.
Elon Musk’s Net Worth Tops $400 Billion, a Historic First
Elon Musk, whose wealth has been turbocharged since President-elect Donald Trump’s win last month, became the first person to reach $400 billion in net worth, the latest milestone for the world’s richest individual.
The most recent catalyst was an insider share sale of his privately held SpaceX, which boosted Musk’s net worth by roughly $50 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Tesla Inc. shares also rallied to an all-time high Wednesday, pushing Musk’s fortune to $447 billion.
Musk’s one-day wealth jump of $62.8 billion is the largest on record, and helped propel the combined fortunes of the world’s richest 500 people above $10 trillion, also for the first time, according to the index. The group’s net worths are similar in size to last year’s combined gross domestic products of Germany, Japan and Australia, according to data compiled by the World Bank.
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