The S&P 500 and Dow ended at record highs on Tuesday, shrugging off weak consumer confidence data, as mining stocks surged following China's announcement of a sweeping stimulus package.
Market Snapshot
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 83.57 points, or 0.20%, to 42,208.22, the S&P 500 gained 14.36 points, or 0.25%, to 5,732.93 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 100.25 points, or 0.56%, to 18,074.52.
Market Movers
Tesla Motors was up 1.7% after shares of the electric-vehicle maker rose 4.9% on Monday, ended the session as the S&P 500's best performer, and turned positive for the year. Driving the gains Monday was a bullish report from analysts at Barclays which estimated third-quarter deliveries at about 470,000 vehicles, higher-than-consensus forecasts of roughly 460,000. Tuesday's gains came on the back of strong sales in China.
Visa declined 5.5% after reports said the U.S. Justice Department's antitrust division could file a lawsuit as soon as Tuesday accusing the payments giant of illegally monopolizing the U.S. debit-card market. The government is expected to file the case in federal court, according to Bloomberg. The New York Times reported the Justice Department plans to argue that Visa penalizes its customers when they try to use competing services to process payments.
John Deere rose 0.5%. Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, said that if he were elected president the farm-equipment maker would face tariffs of 200% if it sold made-in-Mexico equipment previously made in the U.S. At a farming event in Pennsylvania, Trump said Deere was moving a majority of its production to Mexico, The Wall Street Journal reported. Deere said it wasn't "moving a lot of our manufacturing business to Mexico," adding that it remains "fully committed to our U.S. manufacturing footprint."
U.S.-listed American depositary receipts of Alibaba rose 7.9%, JD.com up 14% and PDD Holdings Inc rose 11% after China's central bank lowered interest rates and the government added stimulus designed to bolster the stock market.
Freeport-McMoRan was up 7.9% and was the S&P 500's top performer on Tuesday as copper prices rose on expectations of stronger demand from China following Beijing's stimulus measures.
Boeing fell 0.3% after the jet maker offered workers a 30% wage increase, up from a previous proposal of 25%, and sweetened certain other benefits to end a machinists strike that entered its second week on Friday. Boeing said workers have until Friday to ratify the deal. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 751 said the deal doesn't go for enough and the Friday deadline "does not give us enough time to present details to the membership or even secure all voting locations." The union said they would not be putting the proposal to a vote.
Snowflake fell 0.6% after the cloud-software company announced a proposed private placement of $2 billion of convertible senior notes.
Salesforce.com was up 2.4% to $270.44 after Piper Sandler upgraded shares of the software firm were upgraded to Overweight from Neutral, and lifted the price target to $325 from $268.
AutoZone fell 0.2% after the auto-parts retailer posted fiscal fourth-quarter earnings and sales that missed analysts' estimates.
Market News
Nvidia Trends up as Blackwell Release Date Nears
NVIDIA Corp shares ticked up 4% on Tuesday as the artificial intelligence leader prepares to begin shipping its highly anticipated Blackwell GPU during the fourth quarter.
"And here we are ramping Blackwell, and it's in full production," said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, during the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference. "We'll ship in Q4 and scale it -- start scaling in Q4 and into next year. And the demand on it is so great ... and so the intensity is really, really quite extraordinary."
Meta Spurns EU’s Voluntary AI Safety Pledge Ahead of New Law
Meta Platforms, Inc. is spurning the European Union’s voluntary artificial intelligence safety pledge that’s planned as a stopgap measure before the bloc’s AI Act rules take full force in 2027.
Meta could join the so-called AI Pact initiative at a later stage, a spokesperson for the company said by email on Tuesday. Meta added that it is “focusing on our compliance work under the AI Act at this time” and wants to prioritize that effort.
Boeing Gives Union Additional Time to Vote on Latest Offer
Boeing gave workers additional time to consider a revised contract offer after union officials blasted what they called an unrealistic and disrespectful proposal by the planemaker.
The aerospace giant has reached out to the union to extend an initial company-imposed deadline that sought ratification by the end of the day on Sept. 27. Union officials have said they had no plans to hold a vote within that time frame.
Microsoft to Spend $1.3 Bln in Mexico on Cloud, AI Tech
Tech giant Microsoft will invest $1.3 billion over the next three years to build up its infrastructure in Mexico for cloud computing and artificial intelligence, the company announced on Tuesday.
"We're doubling down on bringing more capacity to Mexico," Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella said at an event in Mexico City.
The investment will go toward improving connectivity and boosting the adoption of AI technology by small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), the firm said in a statement.