Wall Street's three major indexes closed down around 1% on Monday while Treasury yields rose, as traders tamped down bets for Federal Reserve interest-rate easing and worried about the Middle East conflict's impact on oil prices.
Market Snapshot
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 398.51 points, or 0.94%, to 41,954.24, the S&P 500 lost 55.13 points, or 0.96%, to 5,695.94 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 213.94 points, or 1.18%, to 17,923.90.
Market Movers
Tesla - Shares of Tesla were down 3.7%. The electric-vehicle maker’s Robotaxi Day is Thursday, and it could be the company’s last chance to convince investors that Tesla remains tops in car innovation, according to Al Root’s cover story in the weekend issue ofBarron’s. Coming into Monday, the stock has risen 0.6% in 2024.
Apple - Apple was down 2.3% to $221.69. Jefferies downgraded the iPhone maker to Hold from Buy but boosted its price target on the shares to $212.92 from $205. The analysts like Apple Intelligence but said in a research note that expectations for the iPhone 16 and iPhone 17 were too high.
Amazon - Amazon.com declined 3.1% to $180.80 following a downgrade to Equal Weight from Overweight at Wells Fargo. The stock’s price target was reduced to $183 from $225. The analysts said “positive estimate revision story faces multiple headwinds” and added that strength in Amazon Web Services alone wasn’t enough to buoy the stock.
Alphabet - Alphabet shares dropped 2.4%. A U.S. judge on Monday ordered Alphabet's Google to overhaul its mobile app business to give Android users more options to download apps and to pay for transactions within them, following a jury verdict last year for “Fortnite” maker Epic Games.
Super Micro Computer - Super Micro Computer jumped 15.6% after the server company said itrecently deployed more than 100,000 GPUs with liquid cooling for some of the largest artificial-intelligence factories ever built. Barron’s estimated that amounts to multiple billions of dollars in orders.
Netflix - Netflix fell 2.5% to $701.92. Barclays downgraded shares of the streaming company to Underweight from Equal Weight, saying the company’s “present valuation appears out of sync with probable growth path.” The stock price target was left unchanged at $550. Analysts at Piper Sandler, meanwhile, upgraded Netflix to Overweight from Neutral. The analysts called Netflix “a clear leader in streaming.”
Pfizer - Pfizer rose 2.2% after The Wall Street Journal reported activist investor Starboard Value has taken a $1 billion stake in the drugmaker. Starboard wants Pfizer to make changes to turn its performance around, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Starboard has approached former CEO Ian Read and former Chief Financial Officer Frank D’Amelio to aid in its efforts and they have expressed interest in helping, the people familiar with the matter told the Journal.
Generac - Generac Holdings, the generator maker, was up 8.5% as Hurricane Miltonintensi fied into a Category 5 stormand was on course to hit a battered Florida this week.
Arcadium Lithium - Arcadium Lithium surged 35.4% after the mining company Rio Tinto expressed interest in buying the lithium producer. Both companies confirmed that Rio Tinto approached Arcadium Lithium about apotential acquisition.
“The approach is non-binding and there is no certainty that any transaction will be agreed to or will proceed. Arcadium Lithium will not comment further unless and until there is news to share,” the company said in a statement. Arcadium Lithium’s market capitalization as of the close of trading Friday was $3.31 billion.
DuPont - DuPont was down 1.8% to $85.94 after shares of the chemicals company were downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Barclays. The bank also cut its target for the stock price to $84 from $88. “After recent bullishness has lifted shares to multi-year highs, we think the next few quarters offer more uncertainty and limited buyback support against full valuation, driving underperformance,” analysts wrote in a research report.
The Duckhorn Portfolio - Shares of Duckhorn Portfolio rose 102.8% after the luxury wine company announced it was being acquired by private-equity firm Butterfly Equity in an all-cash deal valued at about $1.95 billion.
Air Products & Chemicals - Air Products & Chemicals was up 9.5%. Activist investor Mantle Ridge has built a more than $1 billion stake in the company and plans to push for improvements, according to The Wall Street Journal, which cited people familiar with the matter.
Market News
US Judge Orders Google to Open up App Store to Competition
A U.S. judge on Monday ordered Alphabet's Google to overhaul its mobile app business to give Android users more options to download apps and to pay for transactions within them, following a jury verdict last year for “Fortnite” maker Epic Games.
The injunction by U.S. District Judge James Donato in San Francisco outlined the changes Google must undertake to open up its lucrative app store, Play, to greater competition, including making Android apps available from rival sources.
Donato's order said that for three years Google cannot prohibit the use of in-app payment methods and must allow users to download competing third-party Android app platforms or stores.
The order restricts Google from making payments to device makers to preinstall its app store and from sharing revenue generated from the Play store with other app distributors.
Goldman Sachs Lifts S&P 500 Index Target for Year-End, Next 12 Months
Goldman Sachs has raised its target for the benchmark S&P 500 index for the year-end and the next 12 months on expectations of higher margin growth for corporate companies and a steady macroeconomic outlook through 2025.
The Wall Street brokerage on Friday lifted the index target for the next twelve months to 6,300 from 6,000 and raised the current year-end target to 6,000 from 5,600.
Goldman's year-end target implies an upside of 4.32% from the index's last close of 5,751.07 on Friday.
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