Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq Fall; Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Coinbase, Tesla, More Movers; Trump Tariff Deadline Looms for China
Stocks slipped lower as the market headed toward a close.
The market’s main index, S&P 500, was down 0.1%. Dow was down 188 points, or 0.4%, while the Nasdaq was down 0.1%. All three indexes were trending higher for most of the day.
There was no apparent trigger for the move lower–this is just the trading range the S&P has formed. The index is currently at 6384.88, and has moved as low as 6381.27 and as high as 6407.25 today. If the S&P closes higher even by 0.1%, it would take the index to a record.
On TruthSocial, President Donald Trump said that “Gold will not be Tariffed!,”
The online platform gets monitored closely by Wall Street. The note on gold is unlikely to have pressured stocks, but it has led to a small pickup in gold prices.
The S&P 500 hasn’t hit a record in August–the last high was reached July 28–but a record is in sight this week.
One tailwind comes from the second-quarter earnings, which have been much better than anticipated.
“Earnings had been expected to increase by just 2.8%, but are now estimated to have increased by 10.5%, above the historical average surprise going back to 2010,” wrote William Blair’s macro analyst Richard de Chazal. Earnings for 2025 as a whole have been revised higher, too.
No big economic release is on the table today but we have the inflation report along with the Monthly Treasury Statement (MTS) tomorrow.
Fed Governor Michelle Bowman and others have doubled down on their preference for rate cuts sooner rather than later. If inflation comes in weaker than expected tomorrow, market expectations of a rate cut will pick up as investors will see the FOMC putting more emphasis on a weak labor market rather than inflation come September.
MTS will offer investors an updated view into the amount of money coming in from tariffs and the state of the nation’s deficit.
