Wall Street split as Tesla and tech drop and other stocks climb

Los Angeles Times

7 hours ago

A mixed day of trading left the U.S. stock market split on Tuesday as Wall Street's momentum slowed after setting record highs in each of the last two days.
The S&P 500 dipped 0.1% for its first loss in four days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 400 points, or 0.9%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.8%.
Tesla tugged on the market as the relationship between its CEO, Elon Musk, and President Donald Trump soured even further. Once allies, the two have clashed recently, and Trump suggested there's potentially 'BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED' by scrutinizing subsidies, contracts or other government spending going to Musk's companies.
Tesla fell 5.3% and was one of the heaviest weights on the S&P 500. It has lost just over a quarter of its value so far this year, 25.5%, in large part because of Musk's and Trump's feud.
Drops for several darlings of the artificial-intelligence frenzy also weighed on the market. Nvidia's decline of 3% was the heaviest weight on the S&P 500.
But more stocks within the index rose than fell, led by several casino companies. They rallied following a report showing better-than-expected growth in overall gaming revenue in Macao, China's casino hub. Las Vegas Sands gained 8.9%, Wynn Resorts climbed 8.8% and MGM Resorts International rose 7.3%.
Automakers outside of Tesla were also strong, with General Motors up 5.7% and Ford Motor up 4.6%.
All told, the S&P 500 slipped 6.94 points to 6,198.01. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 400.17 to 44,494.94, and the Nasdaq composite fell 166.84 to 20,202.89.
The overall U.S. stock market has made a stunning recovery from its springtime sell-off of roughly 20%. But challenges still lie ahead for Wall Street, with one of the largest being the continued threat of Trump's tariffs.
Many of Trump's stiff proposed taxes on imports are currently on pause, and they're scheduled to kick into effect in about a week. Depending on how big they are, they could hurt the economy and worsen inflation.
Washington is also making progress on proposed cuts to tax rates and other measures that could send the U.S. government's debt spiraling higher, which could raise inflation. That in turn could mean higher interest rates, which would hurt prices for bonds, stocks and other investments.
Despite such challenges, strategists at Barclays say they see signals of euphoria among some investors. The strategists say a measure that tries to show how much 'excess optimism' is in the market is not far from the peaks seen during the 'meme stock' craze that sent GameStop to market-bending heights or to the dot-com bubble at the turn of the millennium.
Other signals include demand for what are known as 'blank-check companies,' which are essentially piles of cash that hunt for privately held companies to buy. When too much optimism is in the market, it can inflate stock prices to too-high levels in what's called a 'bubble.'
Of course, 'market bubbles are infamously difficult to predict and can endure far longer than anticipated before correcting,' according to the Barclays strategists led by Stefano Pascale and Anshul Gupta.
In the bond market, Treasury yields swiveled following some mixed reports on the U.S. economy.
One said U.S. employers were advertising more job openings at the end of May than the month before and than economists expected. That could be an encouraging signal for a job market that had been appearing to settle into a low-hire, low-fire state.
Separate reports on U.S. manufacturing were more mixed. One from the Institute for Supply Management said U.S. manufacturing activity shrank again in June, though not by as much as the month before.
'Customers do not want to make commitments in the wake of massive tariff uncertainty,' one survey respondent in the fabricated metal products industry said.
A separate report from S&P Global suggested manufacturing production returned to growth in June after three months of declines.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury held at 4.24%, where it was late Monday, after bouncing from a modest loss to a modest gain earlier in the day.
The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for what the Federal Reserve will do with its main interest rate, rose more sharply to 3.77% from 3.72%. Better-than-expected data on the economy could push the Fed to stay on pause with interest rates, after it halted its cuts to rates at the start of this year.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell said again on Tuesday that he wants to wait for more evidence about how Trump's tariffs will affect the economy and inflation before resuming cuts to interest rates. That's despite Trump's angry insistences lately that Powell and the Fed act more quickly to give the economy a boost through lower rates.
Choe writes for the Associated Press.