Markets
Nia Warfield, Luke Kawa
6/3/25

Chip stocks lead widespread rally

A big rally in chip stocks amid continued optimism on the AI boom coupled with smaller advances in most stocks made for another strong session on Wall Street.

The S&P 500 rose 0.6%, the Nasdaq 100 ended up 0.8%, and the Russell 2000 led the way with a 1.6% gain on Tuesday.

Tech was the best-performing S&P 500 sector ETF, but unlike Monday, gains were more widespread, with advancers in the S&P 500 outnumbering decliners by 218. Real estate, communication services, and consumer staples were the lone sectors to end negative.

The day’s gains were led by discount retailer Dollar General, which soared nearly 16% after crushing Q1 estimates and upping its forecast as more shoppers go bargain hunting. Rival Dollar Tree was also a standout performer, benefiting from its competitor’s solid showing and outlook. Declines were led by Neutrogena parent Kenvue, which sank 6% after the consumer health giant said seasonal demand is off to a slow start.

Elsewhere…

Broadcom set an intraday and closing record high after announcing that it’s started to ship some new AI hardware.

Shares of Nvidia-backed CoreWeave surged surged 25% in a strong follow-through to the already warm reception to its data center deal with Applied Digital on Monday.

Rocket Lab soared as much as 5% after the commercial space company (and retail favorite) received a pair of price target hikes: one from Deutsche Bank, to $27 from $24, and another from KeyBanc Capital Markets, which raised its target by a buck to $29. It then pared those gains to finish up just 0.5%

Similarly, Constellation Energy was up double digits in the premarket after striking a deal to sell power to Meta, but finished marginally in the red.

Bumble shares slid 6% after JPMorgan downgraded the women-first dating app to underweight (or a “sell” rating) as the platform faces slowing growth and hotter competition.

Pinterest shares climbed about 4% after JPMorgan upgraded the stock to “overweight” (buy) and lifted its price target to $40, citing deeper user engagement and momentum in its ad business.

Hims & Hers fell 3.5%, giving up all its gains after rising more than 17% in early trading following its announcement that it would acquire a European peer, Zava.

Nio finished modestly higher even as the Chinese luxury EV maker missed Wall Street’s Q1 revenue estimates and posted a much larger loss per share than analysts had forecast.

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Matt Phillips
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Nia Warfield, Luke Kawa
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S&P 500, Nasdaq 100 post record closing highs as nearly everything rallies

The benchmark US stock index ended up 0.9%, the Nasdaq 100 rose 0.6%, and the Russell 2000 outperformed with a 1.8% gain.

Bull charging across sand creating dust cloud
markets
Nia Warfield
18h

Warner Bros. Discovery jumps after Wells Fargo ups price target on dealmaking buzz

Warner Bros. Discovery shares popped 7% Tuesday after Wells Fargo raised its price target on the media giant to $14 from $13 while keeping an equal-weight rating.

The bank’s optimism stemmed largely from the media giant’s potential for dealmaking. In June, WBD announced that it would split its operations into two companies, with the Streaming & Studios division (home to Warner Bros. Television, DC Studios, HBO, and Max) standing alone from the networks side (CNN, TNT Sports, and Discovery).

That separation could make the Streaming & Studios unit more attractive to buyers, the analysts said. They valued the segment at about $65 billion, which could translate to a takeover price north of $21 a share. Potential suitors range from Amazon and Apple to Sony and Comcast, though analysts flagged Netflix as the “most compelling” option despite its limited acquisition track record:

“While NFLX has historically not been acquisitive, [streaming and studios’] $12bn in annual content spend + library + 100+ acre studio lot offers a lot. It kickstarts a theatrical IP strategy, quickly scales video games and most importantly provides premium content to members.”

At Goldman Sachs’ Communacopia + Technology Conference this week, CEO David Zaslav also highlighted growing traction at HBO Max and hinted at future crackdowns on password sharing.

WBD shares are up 26% year to date, and up more than 93% over the past 12 months.

markets
Matt Phillips
18h

Duolingo up on bullish note, hopes for a user rebound

Duolingo rose by the most in nearly a month after an analyst note painted a more bullish picture of the gamified language-learning company despite a dearth of news otherwise.

A quick check-in with analysts covering the stock on Wall Street found most of them otherwise flummoxed on the reason behind the uptick Thursday.

Some, however, suggested the rise may reflect optimism that the company has been able to reverse a monthslong downturn in daily active user metrics — a slump that set in after a social media backlash to a somewhat artless LinkedIn post from the company about its AI first strategy.

The bullish analyst note, published Thursday by Citizens JMP, suggested Duolingo could be a big beneficiary from a change to Apple’s rules governing its App Store driven by a ruling on a federal antitrust case against the company. The analysts wrote:

Given “Apple’s recent changes to U.S. App Store rules that allow developers to steer payments to the web where fees are similar to typical credit card fees rather than Apple’s 30% fee for in-app purchases and 30% fee on subscriptions for the first year and 15% thereafter, we expect mobile app companies including Duolingo, Life360, and Grindr Inc. to unlock meaningful cost benefits.”

At any rate, the next big event on the company’s calendar is its Duocon 2025 conference on Tuesday, where analysts are hoping to hear more hard information on all of the above topics.

markets
Max Knoblauch
19h

Jeep maker Stellantis surges as CEO says the automaker is in productive tariff talks with the US

Shares of Jeep and Dodge maker Stellantis are up more than 8% in Thursday afternoon trading, following comments from the automaker’s new CEO, Antonio Filosa, at a European auto conference.

On tariffs, Filosa said that Stellantis has had a “very productive exchange of ideas” with the Trump administration on the company’s manufacturing footprint and that the environment around the levies is “getting clearer and clearer.”

The US is Stellantis’ top priority, according to Filosa, and the company has taken efforts to turn things around in the market, where it’s struggled with sales in recent years. To fuel the turnaround, Stellantis is bringing back its popular Jeep Cherokee, which it discontinued in 2023.

As of 12:45 p.m. ET, Stellantis’ trading volume was at more than 140% of its average over the past 30 days.

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