Markets
Luke Kawa
3/24/25

US stocks surge as White House signals softer touch on tariffs

US stocks surged as the White House signaled that tariffs planned to go into effect next week may not be as onerous as investors feared.

The S&P 500 rose 1.8%, the Nasdaq 100 gained 2.2%, and the Russell 2000 jumped 2.5%.

While most S&P 500 stocks advanced, momentum stocks were the big drivers of upside on Monday. Tesla posted a double-digit gain to lead all S&P 500 stocks, while AI infrastructure and energy plays like Monolithic Power Systems and Arista Networks were also near the top of the day’s leaderboard. Airline stocks, led by United Airlines, were also among the largest gainers amid this presumptive lighter touch on tariffs.

The consumer discretionary sector ETF had its best day since the session following the US election; tech, industrials, financials, and communication services also gained more than 1%. Utilities was the lone sector ETF to go negative on the day.

Shares of Robinhood made it four straight days in the green as Morgan Stanley highlighted a corporate event this week as a key catalyst for the company.

(Sherwood Media is an editorially independent subsidiary of Robinhood Markets Inc.)

IBM rose about 2% after being added to Wedbush’s Best Ideas list.

Mining giant Freeport-McMoRan jumped amid a flurry of bullish options bets targeting a significant near-term rally.

Pinterest was also the beneficiary of Wall Street’s enhanced confidence in the company as shares were upgraded by Guggenheim and named Bank of America’s top pick among mid-cap internet and e-commerce stocks.

GameStop also gained ahead of earnings tomorrow, with options positioning leaning very bullish due to a seeming dearth of bears.

Meanwhile, Lockheed Martin dipped as Bank of America took a hatchet to its price target and downgraded the shares after the defense firm was beat out by Boeing for an Air Force contract.

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Tesla jumps after Elon Musk discloses buying 2.57 million shares, worth more than $1 billion

Tesla soared in early trading on Monday after CEO Elon Musk disclosed a purchase of 2.57 million shares in the company, according to a new SEC filing.

Per the filing, the "Elon Musk Revocable Trust,” for which the Tesla and SpaceX chief is the trustee, reported acquiring 2.57 million shares, taking its total ownership to 413.36 million shares as of September 12, 2025. The block of equity was bought at prices ranging from $371.38 to $396.54.

Earlier this month, the board of directors proposed an eye-watering pay package that could award the tech billionaire up to $1 trillion, assuming that very ambitious market cap and fundamental milestones are met.

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Hims & Hers falls after FDA commissioner says its Super Bowl ad breached regulations

Hims & Hers is falling in premarket trading after its Super Bowl ad from February was singled out as the “most overt” example of “brazen” marketing tactics among online pharmacies by FDA Commissioner Marty Makary.

The claim, made in an opinion piece written by Makary and published in the JAMA Network on Friday, highlighted the agency’s stricter enforcement policies on pharmaceutical advertisements.

“Equally brazen, online pharmacies are advertising drugs with only upsides mentioned, contributing to America’s culture of overreliance on pharmaceuticals for health,” wrote Makary. “This breach of FDA regulation was most overt earlier this year when Hims & Hers ran a Super Bowl ad highlighting the benefits of glucagon-like peptide-1 drugs without any mention of side effects or disclaimers.”

Hims’ Super Bowl ad touted its direct-to-consumer weight loss medications as “life-changing,” “affordable,” and “doctor-trusted,” billing its approach as “the future of healthcare.”

Google searches for the company spiked after the ad appeared during The Big Game.

Last week, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to crack down on TV drug ads. It was initially unclear whether that order applied to telehealth companies.

Compounded drugs aren’t subject to the same regulatory burdens over their advertisements as branded, FDA-approved drugs made by pharmaceutical companies. For example, Hims can advertise generic Prozac for climax control (an off-label use) while the company that made the drug, Eli Lilly, cannot.

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Nvidia falls after Chinese regulator said it violated the country’s antitrust laws in 2020 deal

Nvidia dropped as much as 2.9% in early trading on Monday after China's State Administration for Market Regulation ruled that the chipmaker violated the country's antitrust laws after acquiring Mellanox Technologies, an Israeli-American network solutions supplier.

In 2020, Beijing approved Nvidia's ~$7 billion acquisition under the condition that the chipmaker would not discriminate against Chinese companies. Since then, Nvidia has had to redesign its chips to comply with the US government's regulations that temporarily banned the company from selling its advanced chips, including the H100.

Monday's preliminary finding from the SAMR comes amidst ongoing trade talks between US and Chinese officials in Madrid, with the tariff truce between the world's two largest economies set to expire in November.

As Sherwood’s Luke Kawa noted in August, China has appeared determined to “wean itself off of any dependence on Nvidia and US technology to develop its AI capabilities.”

According to Reuters, under Chinese antitrust law, companies can “face fines of between 1% and 10% of their annual sales from the previous year.” Nvidia’s sales in China generated $17.1 billion of revenue in its most recent fiscal year. Assuming the maximum penalty, the impact would be ~$1.7 billion, less than 1% of Wall Street’s forecast for Nvidia’s total revenue this fiscal year.

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Rocket lab soars to new record close amid rally for retail faves

Rocket Lab ripped by roughly 10% Friday to close at a new all-time high, riding an upturn of retail enthusiasm for a coterie of tech-themed favorites, even as the broader market was more or less flat on the day.

Goldman Sachs’ basket of “retail favorites” — its heaviest weights are Reddit, AppLovin, and Tempus AI — was the second-biggest gainer among the company’s flagship US equity baskets on Friday, rising about 1.6%. The S&P was almost dead flat.

It’s not Rocket Lab’s first retail rodeo, as the money-losing company has more than doubled this year and is up nearly 700% over the last 12 months.

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