The Charging Bull sculpture in New York City’s Financial District symbolizes a rising stock market

Stocks cruise higher in another widespread rally

The S&P 500’s advance-decline line was above 300 for back-to-back sessions for the first time since mid-April.

8/13/25 3:43PM

The S&P 500 barely spent a minute in the red all day, rising 0.3% to secure another record closing high. The Nasdaq 100 lagged, barely breaking even, while small-caps surged as the Russell 2000 advanced 2%.

It’s the first time the S&P 500’s advance-decline line has ended above 300 for back-to-back sessions since mid-April, when global stocks were shaking off their tariff-induced drubbing.

Every S&P 500 sector ETF finished in the green with the exception of consumer staples, which closed flat. The biggest advancers included commodity-linked stocks in the energy and materials sectors as well as healthcare.

Gains on the day were led by Warner Bros. Discovery, which saw its shares jump 7.4% after unveiling a new streaming deal with HBO Max and Viu, a leading streamer in the South Asian market. Meanwhile, DoorDash led declines, falling 3.8% after Amazon said it would now offer same-day delivery on thousands of perishable groceries nationwide. Shares of rival Instacart as well as grocers including Walmart, Albertsons, and Kroger also fell on the news.

Gildan Activewear and Hanesbrands jumped 12% and 3.8%, respectively, after Gildan said it would buy Hanes in a $2.2 billion deal. Including Hanes’ debt, the transaction is valued at $4.4 billion.

Capri Holdings leapt 12% after JPMorgan upgraded shares of the Michael Kors parent company, citing its push to ditch discounts, streamline stores, and sharpen the brand’s luxury appeal.

Rigetti Computing shares were up 6.4%, even as the quantum computing company delivered lower-than-expected Q2 revenue after the bell Tuesday.

Brinker shares popped as much as 5% in early trading before closing up 1.5% after the Chili’s and Maggiano’s parent posted strong Q4 results and a tasty full-year outlook.

CoreWeave shares sank 21% after Bank of America cut its price target on the stock to $168 from $185 after the supplier of surge capacity for AI computers reported Q3 results on Tuesday.

Cava shares slid another 17% after the fast-casual Mediterranean chain reported sales that missed Wall Street expectations on Tuesday and slashed its outlook.

Matt Phillips1h

Intel jumps on report of customer talks with AMD for foundry division

Intel shares popped in afternoon trading Wednesday after Semafor reported that Intel is in preliminary talks with AMD to come aboard as a customer for Intel’s troubled contract chip manufacturing division, known as a foundry.

Shares were recently up 5.7%.

Semafor stressed that sources said “it’s unclear how much of their manufacturing would shift to Intel if the two companies reach a deal, or whether it would come with a direct investment by AMD, similar to the deals cut by other companies. It is possible that no agreement will be reached, the people said.”

The addition of AMD — which competes with Intel in the CPU space — as a customer would be another big win for the US chipmaker following its partnership with Nvidia announced in mid-September.

TSMC, the primary manufacturer of AMD chips, was only briefly rattled by the news, and remains well in the green on the day.

Intel in early talks to add AMD as foundry customer

The addition of AMD — which competes with Intel in the CPU space — as a customer would be another big win for the US chipmaker following its partnership with Nvidia announced in mid-September.

TSMC, the primary manufacturer of AMD chips, was only briefly rattled by the news, and remains well in the green on the day.

Jon Keegan2h

ChargePoint jumps as EV sales soar

Riding along with some other EV stocks, shares of ChargePoint jumped 4.1% in recent trading. The last rush to take advantage of Biden-era federal EV incentives has put a bunch of new EVs on the road, sending ChargePoint up, along with Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid.

Ford said earlier Wednesday that its EV sales hit a quarterly record, and it and other EV makers have been exploring unorthodox ways to replicate the EV tax credits for consumers through year end.

Still, ChargePoint is down over 47% for the year, and narrowly escaped NYSE delisting with a 20-1 reverse stock split back in July. And it’s not hard to see why: The company has never had a profitable quarter.

J. Edward Moreno2h

Trump admin reportedly backs off on pharma tariffs

The Trump Administration will not be imposing tariffs on pharmaceutical companies by the deadline it had initially given them, a White House official told STAT.

Last week, President Trump announced on Truth Social that starting on October 1 there will be a 100% tariff on patented, branded pharmaceuticals “unless a Company IS BUILDING their Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plant in America." As of October 1, those tariffs have not gone into effect and its unclear when they will, according to STAT.

Trump administration backs off 100% pharma tariffs threatened to start today

Matt Phillips3h

GE Vernova declines after analyst downgrade of top AI energy trade

Power turbine maker GE Vernova is down midday after RBC analysts cut their rating on the stock from “outperform” (essentially a “buy”) to “sector perform” (essentially a “hold”), suggesting that long-term earnings expectations for the company might have gotten too optimistic.

RBC’s Christopher Dendrinos wrote:

“Our longer-term expectations are more conservative than consensus expectations which we think could be over appreciating the cadence of revenue growth in the power segment in 2029-2030. We believe investors are already fully valuing the company on the longer-term 2030 outlook and there could be more limited opportunity for positive rate of change in current expectations.”

Dendrinos argues that the Street’s expectations for when the river of payments will materialize from the service contracts GE sells to maintain the newly installed turbines is too soon. He wrote that it will take a much longer cycle:

“Mgmt sees an opportunity to double the installed base of baseload power over the next 10 years which should support significant rev growth and stronger margins (we estimate gas service margins over 30%).

However, the first major service cycle typically occurs ~3-4 years after installation so the benefit of service price increases and new LTSAs are unlikely to begin to benefit the income statement until later in the decade and will be a gradual increase.”

Earlier in the year, GE Vernova was a top performer as the AI data center trade boomed. It was up roughly 100% for the year in late July, making it the third-best gainer in the S&P 500 for the year.

It has stalled since then, though it remains up more than 80% in 2025.

Matt Phillips3h

GEO Group rises on ICE contract announcement

Federal immigration and prison operator GEO Group popped after announcing late Tuesday that it has won a new contract from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to continue in its role as a vendor of electronic monitoring, case management, and supervision services under the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program.

(That’s a program that keeps track of people as they undergo the immigration review process.)

Since the election, GEO Group has been one of a number of stocks whose business — or leadership — is seen as closely tied to the Trump administration, or set to benefit from White House policy changes.

GEO Group is up 150% since President Trump was elected last November.