S&P 500 dips as traders ditch high-flying stocks and go bargain hunting
The start of the third quarter was marked by a vibe shift: an intense rotation from the market’s winners into value stocks. Alas, since value stocks often get that title from underperformance, making them smaller members of a benchmark, this shift in allocations saw the S&P 500 end 0.1% lower despite advancers outnumbering decliners by 255. Until today, the S&P 500 hadn’t declined during a session in which this many of its constituents rose in all of 2025.
The Nasdaq 100 fell 0.9% while the Russell 2000 rose 0.9%.
Top performers in the S&P 500 included casino stocks Las Vegas Sands, Wynn Resorts, and MGM, which were all up over 7% on the back of strong June Macao gaming numbers. On the flip side, GE Vernova and Axon Enterprise fell 4.3% and 6.3%, respectively, leading the day’s declines.
Target shares rose 5% as bullish call option activity surged, part of the broader factor rotation where traders are pivoting from high-flyers to beaten-down names.
Ford and GM jumped 4.7% and 5.7%, respectively, after both posted solid Q2 vehicle sales. Ford’s sales rose over 14%, while GM’s climbed more than 7%.
Tesla slipped 5% after President Trump threatened to have “DOGE take a good, hard look” at EV-friendly government subsidies — a critical part of Elon Musk’s business.
AI trade names like Meta, Palantir, and Cloudflare, along with chipmakers Nvidia, AMD, and Broadcom, all declined in this factor rotation, also weighed down by Senate Republicans scrapping a bill provision that would have banned state-level AI regulation.
AMC sank 9% after the movie theater chain and meme stock favorite struck a debt-for-equity swap and settled litigation with creditors.
Rivian shares dipped 1.9% while Lucid’s fell 3.7% as the Senate worked to advance a version of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” which would slash a number of EV benefits and charger network budgets.
Warner Bros. Discovery dropped over 4% after the Newhouse family — longtime media moguls and Condé Nast owners — sold $1.1 billion worth of shares.
