The S&P 500 and Nasdaq notched record-high closes on Monday as investors awaited fresh inflation data, commentary from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and the start of quarterly earnings season.
Market Snapshot
The S&P 500 climbed 0.10% to end the session at 5,572.85 points. The Nasdaq gained 0.28% to 18,403.74 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.08% to 39,344.79 points.
Market Movers
Tesla - Tesla rose 0.6% to $252.94 after falling earlier in the session. The close higher for shares of the electric-vehicle maker markedthe ninth-straight session of gains. The stock turned positive for the year last week and is now up 1.8% in 2024. Al Root of Barron’s noted thatrecent gains for the shareshave them trading about 28% higher than analysts’ average price target of under $200.
Lucid - Lucid was up 7.9% aftersecond-quarter deliveriesrose to 2,394 vehicles, up 71% from a year earlier. Production in the period fell to 2,110 vehicles from 2,173.
Corning - Corning rose 12%. The specialty glassmakerraised its second-quarter financial guidanceahead of its earnings report later this month. Corning now expects core sales of about $3.6 billion, higher than previous guidance of roughly $3.4 billion, with core earnings at the “high end of or slightly above management’s guided range” of 42 cents to 46 cents a share, the company said.
Morphic Holding, Eli Lilly - Morphic Holding surged 75.1% to $55.74 after Eli Lilly agreed to buy the biopharmaceutical company in a cash deal valued at about $3.2 billion. Eli Lilly will pay $57 a share for Morphic, which closed Friday at $31.84. Lilly shares rose 0.4%.
Intel - Shares of Intel jumped 6.2% to $33.99. The stock has risen six out of the past seven sessions. An analyst at Melius Research said Intel, as well as Apple and AMD, could shine in the second half of the yearas investors rotate into tech names that have yet to see large bounces from the attention around artificial intelligence.
TSMC - Shares of TSMC rose more than 1% on Monday to a record high, and have soared nearly 80% this year. The value of Taiwan Semiconductor’s American depositary receipts that trade in the U.S. did briefly hit $1 trillion Monday due to the ratio of ADRs to ordinary shares listed in Taiwan.
Nvidia rose nearly 2%, and AMD added 4%, lifting the Philadelphia semiconductor index 1.9%.
Boeing - Boeing was up 0.6% on expectations that the aerospace company willplead guiltyto a criminal fraud charge related to the crashes in 2018 and 2019 of two 737 MAX jets that killed 346 people. The Wall Street Journal noted thatcompanies with felony convictionscan be suspended or barred as defense contractors. It said Boeing is expected to seek a waiver.
Paramount Global - Paramount Global was down 5.3% after the entertainment companyagreed to a deal to merge with Skydance Media. Skydance and investor RedBird Capital Partners agreed to spend more than $8 billion to acquire National Amusements, Paramount’s controlling shareholder, and invest in the new Paramount.
ServiceNow - ServiceNow fell 5% to $766.20 after shares of the digital workflow software company weredowngraded to Sell from Neutralat Guggenheim with a price target of $640. The analysts said that while they believe the company’s second-quarter report will be fine, they think the second half of the year “presents risk” to consensus subscription estimates, which could hurt the stock.
SolarEdge - SolarEdge rose 9.3% to $27.37. Shares of the company, which produces technology for solar-panel installations, were upgraded to Neutral from Underperform with a price target of $29. The stock has fallen 70% this year.
Greenbrier - Greenbrier Cos., the railcar maker, declined 9.1% after its fiscal third-quarter earnings missed analysts’ estimates.
Market News
Boeing to Plead Guilty to Fraud in US Probe of Fatal 737 MAX Crashes
Boeing has agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge to resolve a U.S. Justice Department investigation linked to two 737 MAX fatal crashes, the government said in court filing late on Sunday.
The plea, which requires a federal judge's approval, would brand the planemaker a convicted felon. Boeing will also pay a criminal fine of $243.6 million, the Justice Department (DOJ) said in a document filed in federal court in Texas that provided an overview of the agreement in principle.
The charge relates to two 737 MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia over a five-month period in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people and prompted the families of the victims to demand that Boeing face prosecution.
Public Policy Favors $7 Billion Fee Award in Musk Pay Case, Tesla Shareholder's Lawyer Says
A record $7 billion in attorneys' fees for three firms that successfully challenged Elon Musk's $56 billion Tesla pay package provides an incentive for lawyers to hold corporate boards accountable, an attorney for a company shareholder told a Delaware judge on Monday.
For more than six hours, legal teams for the company and a shareholder sparred over how much to award to three law firms which represented Richard Tornetta, who owned nine shares of Tesla when he sued over Musk's pay package in 2018.
The fee Tornetta has asked for on behalf of the firms equals around $7.3 billion at Tesla's Monday stock price and amounts to a rate of roughly $370,000 for every hour worked by the 37 lawyers, associates and paralegals, court documents submitted by Tornetta's lawyers showed.