The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 closed lower on Monday, retreating from Friday's record high closes and six straight weekly gains as Treasury yields rose and investors wary of high valuations awaited earnings from major companies.
Market Snapshot
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 344.31 points, or 0.80%, to 42,931.60, the S&P 500 lost 10.69 points, or 0.18%, to 5,853.98. The Nasdaq Composite gained 50.45 points, or 0.27%, to 18,540.01, boosted by the chip heavyweight Nvidia, which rose 4.14% to close at a record high of $143.71.
Market Movers
Boeing and the leaders of its striking machinists union reached a new tentative agreement that could end a strike that has halted production of the aerospace company's 737 MAX and 777 planes. Boeing's latest proposal includes a wage increase of 35% over four years, up from its original offer of 25% that was rejected Sept. 12. The strike, by about 33,000 workers in the Pacific Northwest, began the next day. Workers will vote Wednesday on the new offer. Boeing shares rose 3.1%.
Walt Disney shares dipped 0.7% after the entertainment company said it expects to announce the successor to CEO Bob Iger in early 2026. The company also said its board named James P. Gorman, the current executive chairman at Morgan Stanley, as chairman, effective Jan. 2, 2025.
Struggling carrier Spirit Airlines received a debt-refinancing extension, sending the stock up 53% to $2.25. Spirit was facing a deadline of Monday to refinance more than $1.1 billion in debt. That deadline has been pushed back to late December, the company said in a securities filing. Spirit also said it has borrowed all $300 million available under a credit line.
Cigna has renewed its pursuit of a merger with smaller rival Humana after talks fell apart late last year, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The two health insurance companies have held informal discussions recently about a potential deal. The talks were described at being in the early stages. Humana stock fell 2.5%, while Cigna declined 4.7%.
Kenvue rose 5.5% after The Wall Street Journal reported activist investor Starboard Value has taken a sizable stake in the maker of Tylenol and Listerine. Starboard wants Kenvue, which was spun out of Johnson & Johnson last year, to make changes to boost its share price, people familiar with the matter told the Journal. Kenvue shares have risen about 6% this year.
United Parcel Service declined 3.4% to $131.33. Analysts at Barclays downgraded shares of the package delivery giant to Underweight from Equal Weight and left their target price unchanged at $120. The analysts cited long-term pressures from competitors FedEx and Amazon.com.
Tesla was down 0.8% ahead of third-quarter earnings Wednesday from the electric-vehicle maker. A focus for investors this time around will be profit margins, which Wall Street expects at about 8% compared with 7.6% a year earlier.
Earnings reports were expected later Monday from SAP, Nucor, and Logitech International.
Reports are expected later in the week from Tesla, Boeing, GE Aerospace, Verizon Communications, United Parcel Service, Texas Instruments, Lockheed Martin, 3M, Coca-Cola, Philip Morris, Spotify Technology, General Motors, AT&T, T-Mobile, International Business Machines, Whirlpool, ServiceNow, Honeywell International, Colgate-Palmolive, and Centene.
Market News
Elon Musk's $1 million election giveaway tests limits of election law
Elon Musk’s $1 million giveaway for voters who sign his free-speech and gun-rights petition falls into a gray area of election law, and legal experts are divided about whether the billionaire supporter of Donald Trump could be running afoul of prohibitions on paying people to register to vote.
The Tesla CEO is promising to give $1 million each day to a randomly selected person who signs his online petition pledging to support the First and Second amendments of the U.S. Constitution, which protect the rights to free speech and gun ownership.
Qualcomm revamps mobile phone chips for AI, signs Samsung and others
Qualcomm said on Monday it is bringing technology first developed for its laptop chips to its mobile phone chips, aiming to make them more powerful for generative AI tasks.
The San Diego-based company is the world's biggest seller of mobile phone chips. In an effort to expand its business, the company in 2021 hired a group of ex-Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab engineers to help it design laptop chips, which went on sale this year and are helping power AI features in Microsoft's (MSFT.O), opens new tab Windows.
