Aberdeen Angus bull (Getty Images)

Two tech titans singlehandedly drag S&P 500 higher

Alphabet and Apple put the stock market on their broad, multitrillion-dollar shoulders.

9/3/25 3:58PM

The S&P 500 rose 0.5% and the Nasdaq 100 gained 0.8% while the Russell 2000 dipped 0.1% on Wednesday.

More than all of the daily returns in the SPDR S&P 500 ETF were attributable to just two companies: Alphabet and Apple.

Google was the day’s top performer, up 9.1% after the tech giant avoided some of the worst-case antitrust scenarios tied to its dominant position in search. The court decision helped Apple a ton, too: shares rose 3.8% after Bank of America boosted its price target, saying the company will keep pulling in about $20 billion a year from Google to preload its apps as the default setting on iPhones. Near the close, Bloomberg reported that Apple is developing an AI web search tool for the new Siri and reached an agreement with Google to test using its Gemini model to provide the underlying technology. Meanwhile, Dollar Tree led declines after the retailer handily beat Q2 expectations, but fresh sales guidance suggested weakening momentum in the second half of the year.

Macy’s shares soared 20.6% after the department store chain posted knockout Q2 results and raised its full-year guidance.

Hims & Hers spiked 7.2% after a judge dismissed a lawsuit from Eli Lilly against another rival telehealth firm selling knockoff versions of its GLP-1 drugs.

Campbell’s stock climbed 7.2% after the soup maker ladled out solid Q4 results as more cash-strapped consumers cooked at home, but warned that higher costs would weigh on margins.

Plug Power jumped in the premarket amid a surge of trading volume in the hydrogen fuel cell company before closing up 1.4%.

Oscar Health rose after it reiterated its annual guidance and offered positive commentary on cost trends at the Wells Fargo Healthcare Conference.

Oil names including ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66, APA Corporation, Diamondback Energy, Devon Energy, Halliburton, and EOG Resources all dipped after reports that OPEC+ is weighing another output hike of 1.65 million barrels per day.

Canopy Growth shares fell another 6.7%, extending Tuesday’s losses after the cannabis company filed for a $200 million equity raise on Friday.

Toby Bochan

Market Wrap

Markets cheer surprise gift of cooler CPI amid renewed AI optimism to finish higher

The S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 surged on Thursday — perhaps we’ll have a Santa rally after all!

CAMARILLO, CA FEBRUARY 09: A cannabis farm worker de-leafs cann

Trump signs executive order expediting reclassification of marijuana as a less dangerous drug

Rescheduling would lift regulatory pressures that have been weighing on US cannabis operators’ margins. Shares of weed companies, many of which don’t sell cannabis in the US, tumbled an hour before the executive order was signed.

J. Edward Moreno4h

Max Knoblauch5h

Rivian climbs as it rolls out a “universal hands-free” update and scores an upgrade from Baird

Shares of EV maker Rivian are on pace for their 10th best day of 2025 on Thursday, following an upgrade from Baird to “buy” from “hold” and the rollout of its new hands-free driving update.

Baird raised its price target on Rivian nearly 79% to $25, writing that “2026 is the year of R2.”

Meanwhile, Rivian says its new hands-free feature will allow drivers to take their hands off the wheel across 3.5 million miles of US and Canadian roads.

Despite referring to it as “universal hands-free” driving, the EV maker says the feature will not stop or slow for traffic lights or stop signs, follow navigation systems, or make turns, and will function only on roads with visible lane lines.

Rivian revealed the update at its AI Day last week, when it also hinted at a robotaxi plan.

Rivian rolls out new 'Universal Hands-Free' driving feature | TechCrunch

Meanwhile, Rivian says its new hands-free feature will allow drivers to take their hands off the wheel across 3.5 million miles of US and Canadian roads.

Rivian revealed the update at its AI Day last week, when it also hinted at a robotaxi plan.

Matt Phillips6h

The stock market loves your rising electricity bill

Utilities with a footprint in the massive PJM Interconnection, the country’s largest power grid, were up Thursday after prices set in a key auction hit a record high of $333.44 per megawatt-day.

Such power providers, including Talen Energy, Constellation Energy, and Vistra, saw tidy gains shortly before midday.

“This auction leaves no doubt that data centers’ demand for electricity continues to far outstrip new supply, and the solution will require concerted action involving PJM, its stakeholders, state and federal partners, and the data center industry itself,” Stu Bresler, set to become PJM’s chief operating officer next month, told Reuters.

As I’ve previously mused, political pushback from high power prices, partially created by the AI boom, could become a constraint on development of such sites. Democrats in the US Senate are now calling for hearings on the issue.

It’s fertile political soil. This morning’s US CPI report for November showed electricity prices up nearly 7% year over year, the highest since the tail end of the postpandemic inflation in April 2023.

Costs on Key US Grid Hit New Record, Testing Affordability

Luke Kawa7h

Micron’s earnings, soft inflation, and OpenAI valuation chatter revive speculative AI trade

The three biggest news events since markets closed yesterday are all helping spur a big bounce-back for the more speculative companies tied to AI:

Micron’s eye-popping Q2 guidance reaffirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt how hot AI demand continues to run in the near term.
While the data is undoubtedly messy, core CPI inflation decelerated by much more than anticipated in November. Lower rates are a clear positive for more marginal companies levered to the AI theme, whose stocks trade with a higher embedded risk of default and whose bonds have also been suggesting more credit risk as of late.
OpenAI reportedly getting its hands on more money (and commanding a higher valuation in the process) provides some semblance of valuation support for these firms and also a better fundamental foundation as well: more cash in CEO Sam Altman’s pockets means more cash he has to make good on commitments to OpenAI’s many suppliers.

Put together, the key news items since Wednesday’s close are producing massive gains for the likes of Bloom Energy, Cipher Mining, POET Technologies, CoreWeave, IREN, and Nebius.