U.S. stocks ended higher on Monday, with sharp gains for Tesla and Apple leading the way, as investors looked toward what the Federal Reserve would say about the interest rate outlook after its policy meeting this week.
Market Snapshot
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 146.43 points, or 0.38%, to 38,386.09, the S&P 500 gained 16.21 points, or 0.32%, to 5,116.17 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 55.18 points, or 0.35%, to 15,983.08.
Market Movers
Tesla (TSLA), Baidu (BIDU) - Tesla jumped 15.3% after CEO Elon Musk made a surprise visit over the weekend to China, where he pushed to unlock new driver-assistance technology for Chinese Tesla owners. Chinese officials told Tesla that Beijing tentatively has approved the company’s plan to launch its Full Self-Driving, or FSD, software feature in the country, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Tesla will deploy its autonomous-driving technology based on mapping and navigation functions provided by China’s Baidu, the people told the Journal. U.S.-listed shares of Baidu rose 5.6%.
Apple (AAPL) - Apple was up 2.5% to $173.50 after analysts at Bernstein upgraded shares of the iPhone maker to Outperform from Market Perform and left the price target unchanged at $195.
Alphabet (GOOGL) - Alphabet was down 3.4% to $166.15. The parent company of Google rose 10% Friday and closed with a market cap of $2.13 trillion, the first time it has closed with a valuation above $2 trillion. Alphabet became only the fourth U.S. company in history to hit the milestone. Spurring the gains were better-than-expected earnings and a well-received new capital allocation plan, including the company’s first dividend.
SoFi Technologies (SOFI) - SoFi Technologies reported its second straight quarter of profitability, topped revenue estimates, and boosted its fiscal-year guidance. Shares of the financial-technology company, however, fell 10.5% after SoFi said it expects second-quarter net revenue of $555 million to $565 million, below analysts’ forecasts of $581 million.
Paramount Global (PARA) - Paramount Global rose 2.9%. After the market closed, Paramount announced that CEO Bob Bakish was stepping down. Three individual executives will form an Office of the CEO, including George Cheeks, president and CEO of CBS; Chris McCarthy, president and CEO, Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks; and Brian Robbins, president and CEO of Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon. Paramount was also scheduled to report quarterly earnings Monday.
AMC Entertainment (AMC) - AMC Entertainment fell 11.1% after the movie-theater chain said Friday it expects to report a first-quarter loss of 62 cents a share, narrower than a year-earlier loss of $1.71 a share and analysts’ expectations for a loss of 79 cents a share. “As predicted, the box office in the first quarter was adversely impacted by the 2023 Hollywood writers and actors strikes,” said CEO Adam Aron in a statement.
Fulton Financial (FULT) - The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Fulton Financial subsidiary, Fulton Bank, would assume the deposits of struggling lender Republic First Bancorp, which operated 32 bank branches in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York under the name Republic Bank. Fulton, which rose 7.6%, bought Republic First Bancorp through an auction run by the FDIC after Pennsylvania state banking regulators seized the troubled regional bank. Republic First Bancorp is the first U.S. bank failure this year.
Domino’s Pizza (DPZ) - Domino’s Pizza rose 5.6% after the pizza chain reported first-quarter earnings and revenue that beat Wall Street forecasts.
ON Semiconductor (ON) - ON Semiconductor reported first-quarter adjusted earnings of $1.08 a share, beating estimates of $1.04. Revenue of $1.86 billion also beat Wall Street forecasts. Earnings guidance for the second quarter, however, came in below expectations. The stock was rising 4.1%.
Deciphera Pharmaceuticals (DCPH) - Deciphera Pharmaceuticals rose 72.6% to $25.28 after reaching an agreement to be acquired by Japan’s ONO Pharmaceutical in a deal with an equity value of $2.4 billion.
Market News
In China, Elon Musk Scores Wins on the Path to Self-Driving Cars
Elon Musk made progress towards rolling out Tesla's advanced driver-assistance package in China on a whirlwind weekend trip to Beijing, sending the company's shares soaring more than 15% on Monday.
The leap in Tesla's stock added $90 billion to the company's market value, a major vote of confidence from Wall Street for the electric-vehicle maker as it struggles with soft demand and increased competition.
Key questions remain, however, on whether Tesla can secure government approvals to transfer data overseas that could prove pivotal in its development of autonomous vehicles.
Apple Shares Rise After Bernstein Analyst Takes Bullish Stance
Shares in Apple Inc closed up 2.5% on Monday after a well-known analyst at Bernstein Societe Generale Group upgraded the stock to an "outperform" rating, pointing to the prospects for phone replacement phone sales with help from generative artificial intelligence updates.
Apple registered its biggest one-day percentage gain in more than two weeks after the upgrade, which marked the stock's first "buy" equivalent rating from Bernstein's Toni Sacconaghi since early 2018.
Sacconaghi upgraded the stock from "market perform" and wrote that Apple had been hurt by a weak iPhone 15 cycle as well as fears its China business is structurally impaired.
But the analyst argued that China weakness is "more cyclical than structural" and that its business there has "exhibited much higher volatility" than Apple's overall business.