Wall St cools after Microsoft's $4 trillion moment; tech results awaited
Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab jumped 5% after a blowout earnings report and briefly crossed $4 trillion in market cap, becoming only the second publicly traded company to ever touch the milestone after Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab.
Meta Platforms (META.O), opens new tab rose 12.1% to a record high as AI-driven growth in its core ad business powered a bullish revenue forecast, while Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab also climbed more than 1%.
"The earnings that we got from them fell very much in line with what we were expecting," said Mark Malek, chief investment officer of Siebert Financial.
"We're bullish on the entire AI infrastructure" and it's very critical that these companies come out with "superior" earnings announcements, he added.
The tech rally sent the S&P technology (.SPLRCT), opens new tab and communication services (.SPLRCL), opens new tab indexes to new record peaks.
The Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC), opens new tab jumped as much as 1.2% in its strongest intraday rally in nearly a month, before paring gains to 0.8%, while the S&P 500 (.SPX), opens new tab advanced 0.45%.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI), opens new tab, meanwhile, slipped into negative territory and then became flat as UnitedHealth (UNH.N), opens new tab tumbled to a two-month low.
Investors weighed a Commerce Department report showing inflation picked up in June, with new tariffs pushing prices higher and stoking expectations that price pressures could intensify in the coming months.
"Inflation remains sticky and justifies the Fed's decision to keep interest rates unchanged," said Clark Bellin, president and chief investment officer, Bellwether Wealth.
Attention now turns to Friday's non-farm payrolls report and a looming tariff deadline, with President Donald Trump refusing to extend trade talks for lagging partners.
Separately, weekly jobless claims increased marginally last week, suggesting the labor market remained stable.
Easing global trade war fears, signs of U.S. economic resilience, and renewed AI optimism have set Wall Street on course for monthly gains.
The S&P 500 (.SPX), opens new tab and blue-chip Dow (.DJI), opens new tab are set for a third straight monthly gain - their longest winning streak in nearly a year - while the Nasdaq was on track for its best monthly run since March 2024.
Meanwhile, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell cooled hopes for a September rate cut after the central bank held rates steady. Traders now expect a 58.8% chance the Fed will stay pat in September as well, according to CME's FedWatch tool.
The "hold" verdict prompted another jibe on Powell by Trump, while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he expected an announcement on Powell's successor by year-end.
EU officials said European liquor could face 15% tariffs from August 1 until a different agreement is reached, with talks set to continue in the fall.
Trump's deal with South Korea on Wednesday cut the country's import tariff to 15% from the previously threatened 25%.
Meanwhile, U.S. appeals court judges sharply questioned whether Trump's tariffs were justified by the president's emergency powers.
Among other stocks, Applied Digital (APLD.O), opens new tab soared 32% after the data center operator surpassed estimates for quarterly revenue.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.08-to-1 ratio on the NYSE, and by a 1.2-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P 500 posted 27 new 52-week highs and 25 new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 61 new highs and 103 new lows.
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Scottish Sun
14 minutes ago
- Scottish Sun
Marks & Spencer announces exact date it will close 100-year-old flagship store after ‘never recovering from Covid'
Another M&S store is soon to reopen after an exciting revamp END OF AN ERA Marks & Spencer announces exact date it will close 100-year-old flagship store after 'never recovering from Covid' Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) MARKS & Spencer has confirmed its historic flagship store will close in a matter of weeks, after failing to recover from Covid. The popular supermarket has been serving Wolverhampton shoppers since 1929, however it will soon be closing its doors for good. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 2 M&S has announced the closing date of one of its flagship stores Credit: Google Maps The store is located on Dudley Street, Wolverhampton and will stop trading on September 27. M&S regional manager, Calum Telford, said: "I would like to say a massive thanks to all our customers who have shopped with us over the years and our colleagues, past and present, who have contributed to the store. "We have a proud history in Wolverhampton and are working with the city council to find a suitable alternative food location. "This is part of our wider investment into the Black Country, including modernising our Merry Hill store, and we will keep the local community updated." Mr Telford added: "In the meantime, conversations are continuing with our store colleagues and we will offer them alternative roles at M&S wherever possible." Staff at the Dudley store have also been informed that it has been confirmed by bosses that the business hopes to find a suitable alternative city location to open a new dedicated food store. M&S first announced the store's closure last month after sharing that it had been performing "less well for a long period of time." According to bosses, this is a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, from which the shop "never fully recovered." In a statement made at the time, Mr Telford said: ""Our UK-wide store rotation programme is all about reshaping for growth and making sure every M&S store delivers the best possible shopping experience for our customers. "That's why we have made the tough decision to propose the closure of our Dudley Street store. M&S launches first-of-its-kind store "Sadly, the store has been performing less well for a long period of time and has never fully recovered from the Covid pandemic." This comes after M&S announced in 2022 than it intended to reduce its number of traditional department store openings from 247 to 180, while also opening an additional 100 new food halls by April 2026. Also, earlier this summer company chairman Archie Norman said the firm was looking to exit "struggling town centres" as part of a £500 million plan to update its retail store portfolio nationwide. Meanwhile, Wolverhampton Council has stressed that it has been working alongside M&S to try and find a new location for a food hall in the city. A council spokesperson said: 'It will be sad to see M&S leave the Dudley Street store at the end of September - but they remain committed to Wolverhampton and we are working with them to identify suitable locations that fit their new business model. 'We appreciate how unsettling this is for staff, and the council's Wolves at Work employment support team is connected with M&S to support workers and their families. "We are also keen to see the privately-owned Dudley Street site brought back into use quickly. 'As everyone knows town and city centres across the country are changing and we fully understand M&S's difficult decision was driven by wider, changing market conditions and customer behaviour." In brighter news, M&S is set to launch its revamped food hall at Merry Hill shopping centre this Friday. Wolverhampton Council have said despite the sad news about the department store closure, there are lots of regeneration projects set to create new homes and jobs to look forward to. A spokesperson added: ""The transformation of the city centre includes thousands of new city centre homes at Smithgate and Canalside; better connectivity and safer public spaces; a world-class entertainment venue at the University of Wolverhampton at The Halls; a new independent cinema at the Chubb Building; a growing commercial district at the Interchange and a new £61million City Learning Quarter which opens this autumn and will bring thousands of new visitors to our city centre every week.' Why are retailers closing stores? RETAILERS have been feeling the squeeze since the pandemic, while shoppers are cutting back on spending due to the soaring cost of living crisis. High energy costs and a move to shopping online after the pandemic are also taking a toll, and many high street shops have struggled to keep going. However, additional costs have added further pain to an already struggling sector. The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury's hike to employer NICs from April will cost the retail sector £2.3billion. At the same time, the minimum wage will rise to £12.21 an hour from April, and the minimum wage for people aged 18-20 will rise to £10 an hour, an increase of £1.40. The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) has also warned that around 17,350 retail sites are expected to shut down this year. It comes on the back of a tough 2024 when 13,000 shops closed their doors for good, already a 28% increase on the previous year. Professor Joshua Bamfield, director of the CRR said: "The results for 2024 show that although the outcomes for store closures overall were not as poor as in either 2020 or 2022, they are still disconcerting, with worse set to come in 2025." It comes after almost 170,000 retail workers lost their jobs in 2024. End-of-year figures compiled by the Centre for Retail Research showed the number of job losses spiked amid the collapse of major chains such as Homebase and Ted Baker. It said its latest analysis showed that a total of 169,395 retail jobs were lost in the 2024 calendar year to date. This was up 49,990 – an increase of 41.9% – compared with 2023. It is the highest annual reading since more than 200,000 jobs were lost in 2020 in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced retailers to shut their stores during lockdowns. The centre said 38 major retailers went into administration in 2024, including household names such as Lloyds Pharmacy, Homebase, The Body Shop, Carpetright and Ted Baker. Around a third of all retail job losses in 2024, 33% or 55,914 in total, resulted from administrations. Experts have said small high street shops could face a particularly challenging 2025 because of Budget tax and wage changes. Professor Bamfield has warned of a bleak outlook for 2025, predicting that as many as 202,000 jobs could be lost in the sector. "By increasing both the costs of running stores and the costs on each consumer's household it is highly likely that we will see retail job losses eclipse the height of the pandemic in 2020.
Daily Mail
15 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Top Democrat eats his words as he makes staggering admission about Trump's tariffs
Senator John Fetterman broke with the Democrat party over President Donald Trump 's tariffs to admit the policy is 'going well'. Since winning his seat in 2023, the Pennsylvanian has become a loud voice on Capitol Hill. In March, he previously disagreed with Trump's policy, telling The Hill he didn't understand why the US leader was 'picking all of these kind of tariffs with our allies', especially with the US and Mexico. 'There might be issues like fentanyl or some of those, but that doesn't mean we have to punch them in the mouth, because that's not making America great.' But now he has praised the president's sweeping tariffs, as well as liberal comedian Bill Maher who also recently came to the same conclusion. 'I'm a huge fan of Bill Maher, and I mean, I think he's really one of the oracles for my party, and he acknowledged it. It's like, hey, he thought that the tariffs were going to tank the economy, and then he acknowledged that it didn't,' Fetterman told Fox News Digital. 'So, for me, it seems like the EU thing has been going well, and I guess we'll see how it happens with China.' Maher, a comedian and host of HBO Real Time, acknowledged he jumped the gun in his most recent episode of his Club Random podcast, where he cited his own estimation that the tariffs would have destroyed the US economy 'by July'. 'I remember I, along with probably most people, were saying at the beginning, "Oh, you know, by the 4th of July",' Maher recalled. 'The economy was going to be tanked by then. 'But that didn't happen,' Maher, who met Trump at the White House in April, said. Many Democrats, including Elizabeth Warren, have balked at Trump's tariff policy and many said it would lead to increased consumer prices. Fetterman's comments came as Trump signed an executive order Thursday that would have new tariffs on dozens of US trading partners to go into effect in seven days. Trump imposed a 35 percent tariff on all Canadian goods not covered by the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement. Trump's 35 percent tariff was announced amidst a string of surprise modifications to his reciprocal tariffs on Thursday. His executive order was issued shortly after 7pm. It came after a flurry of tariff-related activity in recent days, as the White House announced agreements with various nations and blocs ahead of Trump's self-imposed Aug. 1 deadline. Trump had already secured about a dozen deals, with a mix between formal signed agreements and announced frameworks. Fetterman's comments as Trump signed an executive order Thursday that would have new tariffs on dozens of US trading partners to go into effect in seven days But it was still far short of the '90 deals in 90 days' touted by Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro back in April. He has been using changing deadlines – and the threats of high US tariffs he has announced publicly – to try to leverage the opening of foreign markets while bringing down the tariffs paid on imports. To sell the push to Americans, he has been touting new tariff revenues, with $150 billion collected in July, while floating new rebate checks. As per the new levies, Switzerland has been hit with a 39 percent tariff, Syria was lobbed a 41 percent tariff, Laos and Myanmar each received a 40 percent tariff and Iraq and Serbia joined Canada with a 35 percent tariff. Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Libya and South Africa all were handed 30 percent tariffs.
The Guardian
15 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Columbia Sportswear sues Columbia University for trademark infringement
Outerwear retailer Columbia Sportswear has sued Columbia University over alleged trademark infringement and a breach of contract, saying that the university's merchandise looks too similar to its own offerings and can confuse shoppers. In a lawsuit filed on 23 July in federal court in Oregon, Columbia Sportswear, whose roots date back to 1938, alleges that the Ivy League university in New York City intentionally violated an agreement the parties signed on 13 June 2023. That agreement dictated how the university could use the word 'Columbia' on its own apparel and accessories. As part of the pact, the university could feature 'Columbia' on its merchandise provided that the name included a recognizable school insignia or its mascot, the word 'university', the name of the academic department, or the founding year of the university – 1754 – or a combination. Columbia Sportswear clothing is sold at more than 800 retail locations including more than 150 of its branded stores, as well as its website and third-party marketplaces. But Columbia Sportswear alleges the university breached the agreement a little more than a year later, with the company based in Portland, Oregon, noticing several garments without any of the school logos being sold at the Columbia University online store. Many of the garments feature a bright blue color that is 'confusingly similar' to the blue color that has long been associated with Columbia Sportswear, the suit alleged. The lawsuit offered photos of some of the Columbia University items that say only 'Columbia'. 'The likelihood of deception, confusion, and mistake engendered by the university's misappropriation and misuse of the Columbia name is causing irreparable harm to the brand and goodwill symbolized by Columbia Sportswear's registered mark Columbia and the reputation for quality it embodies,' the lawsuit alleged. The lawsuit comes at a time when Columbia University has been threatened with the potential loss of billions of dollars in government support. Columbia University recently reached a deal with the Trump administration to pay more than $220m to the federal government to restore federal research money that was canceled in the name of combating antisemitism on campus. Under the agreement, the Ivy League school will pay a $200m over three years, the university said. Columbia Sportswear aims to stop all sales of clothing that violate the agreement, recall any products already sold and donate any remaining merchandise to charity. Columbia Sportswear is also seeking three times the amount of actual damages determined by a jury. Neither Columbia Sportswear nor Columbia University could be immediately reached for comment.
