S&P 500, Nasdaq Hit New Highs, Dow Drops Amid Earnings Barrage; Alphabet Stock Rises, Tesla Plunges After Results

Biggest S&P 500 Movers on Thursday

10 hr 46 min ago

Advancers

West Pharmaceutical Services (WST) shares skyrocketed 23%, the most of any stock in the S&P 500, after the healthcare products provider beat sales and profit estimates for the second quarter and raised its full-year guidance. The company, which specializes in packaging solutions and delivery systems for injectable drugs, highlighted a strong contribution from its high-value products segment, which includes its proprietary self-injection systems, stoppers, seals, and plungers.
Second-quarter sales and profits from United Rentals (URI) also came in ahead of analysts’ forecasts, and shares of the construction and industrial equipment rental firm jumped 9%. In addition, United Rentals boosted its sales forecast for the full year, expanded its 2025 share buyback program by $400 million, and announced a quarterly dividend. Analysts at Bank of America raised their price target on United Rentals stock following the upbeat results.
Healthcare diagnostics company Labcorp Holdings (LH) followed suit with a “beat-and-raise” earnings report. Labcorp’s second-quarter revenue and adjusted earnings per share exceeded estimates, driven by growth across its diagnostics and biopharma segments, and the company raised its full-year outlook. Shares of Labcorp gained 6.9% on Thursday.

Decliners

LKQ Corp. (LKQ), a provider of replacement auto parts, cut its 2025 forecasts for revenue, adjusted EPS, free cash flow, and operating cash flow, citing persistent headwinds in the car repair market and a challenging economic backdrop in Europe. Baird analysts cut their price target on LKQ stock in the wake of the earnings release, citing softness across the company’s major markets. LKQ shares plummeted 18% on Thursday, logging the S&P 500’s weakest daily performance.
Shares of Dow Inc. (DOW) plunged 17.5% after the chemical company posted a wider-than-expected quarterly loss and halved its dividend, citing the need for financial flexibility as it navigates prolonged earnings pressure. Dow experienced year-over-year sales declines across all its operating segments, particularly in its packaging and specialty plastics business. Volumes were also down from a year ago, reflecting decreases in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and India, despite gains in the U.S. and Canada.
Molina Healthcare (MOH) cut its full-year profit guidance for the second time this month, pointing to higher medical costs across its business and especially elevated spending related to its Affordable Care Act plans. Although the insurer’s second-quarter revenue came in ahead of estimates, profit for the period fell short of expectations. The company’s medical cost ratio, a key measure of the amount of premium revenue paid out by an insurer for medical expenses, increased from a year ago. Molina shares tumbled 17% Thursday, putting the stock down more than 46% over the past month.

-Michael Bromberg

Blackstone Jumps on Strong Earnings, Boosted Dividend

11 hr 40 min ago

Blackstone (BX) shares rose Thursday after the investment management firm posted better-than-expected results and raised its dividend as fees and assets under management (AUM) took off.

The largest alternative asset manager reported second-quarter distributable earnings per share of $1.21, with revenue soaring 32.7% to $3.71 billion. Both exceeded analysts’ estimates.

Fee-related performance revenues skyrocketed 167% to $472.1 million. Private equity fee-related earnings jumped 87% to $519.4 million, and real estate fee-related earnings were up 13% to $543.6 million.

AUM grew 12.5% to $1.21 trillion, which CEO Stephen Schwarzman called “a new industry record.” 

Schwarzman said the performance was “reflective of the broader underlying expansion of the firm’s business and earnings power, particularly in private wealth, credit and insurance, and infrastructure.”

The company also announced it increased its quarterly dividend by $0.10 to $1.03 to be paid Aug. 11 to shareholders of record on Aug. 4.

Blackstone shares gained 3.6% on Thursday.

-Bill McColl

UnitedHealth Slides as Insurer Confirms DOJ Probe

12 hr 32 min ago

UnitedHealth Group (UNH) on Thursday confirmed several reports in recent months that the Department of Justice is probing aspects of its business.

The company said it recently “proactively reached out to the Department of Justice after reviewing media reports about investigations into certain aspects of the Company’s participation in the Medicare program,” and is now “complying with formal criminal and civil requests from the Department.”]

The health insurer’s stock has been battered by a number of reports this year that authorities are investigating UnitedHealth’s Medicare Advantage program. The company has denied claims that it has pressured physicians to bill for certain conditions that could get it larger payouts from the government.

UnitedHealth stock also fell this year after its first-quarter results came in short of estimates and the insurer lowered its profit forecast, and after its CEO departed in May. UnitedHealth is scheduled to report earnings before the market opens next Tuesday.

The health insurer’s stock closed nearly 5% lower on Thursday and has lost 45% of its value since the start of 2025.

-Aaron McDade

ServiceNow Jumps on Strong Results Amid Growing AI Demand

13 hr 29 min ago

ServiceNow (NOW) shares surged Thursday after the company reported better-than-anticipated results and boosted its guidance on increasing demand for its AI business platform.

The software maker posted second-quarter earnings per share of $4.09, $0.52 more than analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha were looking for. Revenue soared 22.5% year-over-year to $3.22 billion, above forecasts as well.

Subscription revenue also rose 22.5% to $3.11 billion, and the number of customers with more than $20 million in annual recurring revenue grew 30%.   

CEO Bill McDermott said the performance reflected the importance of the ServiceNow AI Platform. “Every business process in every industry is being refactored for agentic AI, he said. “ServiceNow has never been more differentiated as a full stack agentic operating system for the enterprise.”

The company lifted its full-year subscription revenue outlook to a range of $12.775 billion to $12.795 billion from the previous expectation of $12.640 billion to $12.680 billion.

ServiceNow shares were up 4% in recent trading but remain in negative territory for 2025.

-Bill McColl

Chipotle Shares Plummet on Weak Sales Outlook

13 hr 59 min ago

Investors are souring on Chipotle. We don’t mean its sour cream.

Chipotle’s (CMG) stock was recently down about 14%, bringing its year-to-date decline to roughly 25%.

The reason for today’s pullback seems straightforward: The burrito, bowl, salad and taco company, which earlier this year thought full-year same-store sales might manage double-digit growth, now says it’s more likely that they come in flat.

Executives don’t expect it to last forever. “We are confident in getting back to mid-single-digit comps and surpassing $4 million in [average unit volumes] longer term,” CEO Scott Boatwright said on yesterday’s conference call with analysts, according to a transcript provided by AlphaSense.

Wall Street analysts don’t seem to be cutting back much. Bank of America maintained a “buy” rating, along with a $64 price target that is among Wall Street’s higher numbers, according to Visible Alpha data, after the results. Oppenheimer, which has a $63 target, did the same. (That wasn’t a unanimous response: JPMorgan, for example, cut its target by a couple of bucks, to $52.)

Morgan Stanley, one of a few banks with a Street-high $65 target, also held firm. “Nothing is broken here, and growth should pick up, but patience may be needed,” its analysts wrote.

-David Marino-Nachison

How Much Traders Expect Intel to Move After Earnings

14 hr 13 min ago

Intel (INTC) is scheduled to report earnings after the closing bell today, with traders anticipating a sizable move from the struggling chipmaker’s stock.

Options pricing suggests traders expect Intel’s stock could move more than 7% from its recent level by the end of Friday’s trading session.

Intel’s stock has registered an average post-earnings move of 11% over the past four quarters, falling in three of those instances. In April, shares fell 7% the day after earnings as the chipmaker issued a quarterly forecast below analysts’ expectations. 

Heading into Thursday’s report, all 11 brokers covering Intel tracked by Visible Alpha have a neutral rating for the stock, with an average price target near $23. 

Analysts on average expect Intel’s quarterly revenue and profits to have declined year-over-year, with attention squarely on how new CEO Lip-Bu Tan will manage—or sell off—the chipmaker’s struggling foundry business. Tan is reportedly considering changing what manufacturing process the foundry business focuses on, a move that would cost the company hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, but could help win major customers like Nvidia (NVDA) and Apple (AAPL).

Intel’s stock had added about 14% in 2025 so far, but has still lost more than one-quarter of its value from this time last year. 

-Andrew Kessel

American Airlines Stock Drops as Outlook Disappoints

15 hr 39 min ago

American Airlines (AAL) shares tumbled Thursday after the carrier’s restored earnings projection for 2025 lagged its earlier forecasts and Wall Street analyst estimates.

Shares in the Fort Worth, Texas-based air carrier were down 9% in afternoon trading and have now lost about a third of their value so far this year. Tariffs and economic uncertainty have weighed on consumer appetite for domestic travel in recent months, affecting the outlook for airlines, although international travel has held up.

American said Thursday it expects a 2025 adjusted per-share loss of as much as 20 cents or earnings per share (EPS) of as much as 80 cents, with the midpoint lagging the Visible Alpha analyst EPS forecast of 71 cents.

The forecast was also well below the company’s projection in January of adjusted EPS of between $1.70 and $2.70 for the full year. Like rivals Delta Air Lines (DAL) and Southwest Airlines (LUV), American had withdrawn its 2025 guidance in April citing an uncertain outlook amid tariffs. Delta and Southwest both restored their guidance for the year this month. 

American’s third-quarter earnings projections also disappointed. The carrier forecast an adjusted third-quarter per share loss of between 10 cents and 60 cents, well below analysts’ estimates.

American posted second-quarter results Thursday that were better than expectations. It reported adjusted EPS of $0.95 on record operating revenue of $14.39 billion. Analysts polled by Visible Alpha had expected an adjusted EPS of $0.79 on revenue of $14.30 billion.

-Nisha Gopalan

IBM Stock Slides on Weak Software Sales

17 hr 2 min ago

IBM (IBM) shares sank in intraday trading Thursday, as slightly weaker-than-expected software revenue growth tempered optimism about a second-quarter earnings report that largely topped estimates.

After the closing bell Wednesday, IBM said it posted revenue of $16.98 billion, up 8% year-over-year, along with adjusted earnings per share of $2.80, each better than estimates compiled by Visible Alpha. IBM’s software revenue, however, came in at $7.39 billion, narrowly below the $7.43 billion analyst consensus.

Shares were down more than 8% in recent trading to around $258, leading decliners in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. With Thursday’s move, the stock’s year-to-date gain has been trimmed to 18%.

UBS analysts noted that IBM’s organic software revenue growth slowed to 5% in the quarter, compared to 6% and 8% growth, respectively, in the company’s previous two quarters. The analysts kept their “sell” rating on the stock, but lifted their price target to $200 from $195.

Bank of America analysts cut their price target to $310 from $320, while maintaining their “buy” rating, saying that they “remain bullish on overall company trajectory” even as the lackluster growth of IBM’s software segment “has turned into a show me story” for the second half of this year.

Analysts from Wedbush said they “believe that IBM is well-positioned to capitalize on the current demand shift for hybrid and AI applications with more enterprises looking to implement AI for productivity gains and drive long-term profitable growth,” and added they they “would be buyers of any knee-jerk weakness” in the stock on Thursday.

-Aaron McDade

Citi Boosts Alphabet Price Target After Earnings

18 hr 18 min ago

Some analysts turned more positive on Alphabet shares after the company’s better-than-expected results.

Citi analysts raised their price target to $225 from $203—Wall Street’s average is above $216, according to Visible Alpha—citing the company’s “improving Search monetization trends.” Investors have been concerned that Google’s search business, a core revenue generator, was under threat from the rise of AI. 

“To be clear, the broader search market continues to evolve and remains among the most competitive ever as debate on the future of Search continues,” the Citi analysts wrote.

The analysts named a list of things they said impressed them from Alphabet’s results, including consumers’ increasing adoption of Google’s large language model Gemini and the expansion of AI Mode, which integrates an AI chatbot tool into search. CEO Sundar Pichai said on the earnings call late Wednesday that AI Mode had reached 100 million monthly active users in the U.S. and India since it was launched in May.

The analysts also said they liked the company’s “faster product cycle,” accelerating revenue from cloud operations and the growing demand for its products that led to its plan to spend $85 billion on developing AI this year, up from an earlier target.

Alphabet shares were up more than 1% at around $193 in recent trading. The stock is up about 2% in 2025.

Tesla Stock Price Levels to Watch Amid Post-Earnings Slump

19 hr 5 min ago

Tesla (TSLA) shares dropped in early trading Thursday after the EV maker’s quarterly results fell short of Wall Street’s expectations.

During the company’s earnings call, the shares continued to lose ground after CEO Elon Musk warned analysts of a “few rough quarters” ahead as federal incentives for EV manufacturers dry up.  Earlier this month, President Donald Trump called for a review of subsidies awarded to Musk’s companies, including Tesla, raising concerns that the carmaker could face tougher regulatory scrutiny.

Through Wednesday’s close, Tesla shares traded 55% above their April low but had fallen 18% since the start of the year, driven down in part by a public feud between Musk and Trump over the president’s now-passed “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” which included a provision to eliminate the Biden-era $7,500 new EV tax credit.

After setting their May high, Tesla shares have consolidated within a symmetrical triangle on declining trading volume. More recently, the price encountered resistance near the pattern’s upper trendline ahead of the EV maker’s quarterly report.

Tesla shares fell below both the closely watched 50- and 200-day moving averages this morning. The stock was down nearly 8% at $306 in recent trading.

Investors should watch crucial support levels on Tesla’s chart around $292, $265 and $225, while also monitoring an overhead area near $365.

Read the full technical analysis piece here.

-Timothy Smith

Futures Point to Mixed Open for Major Indexes

20 hr 8 min ago

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down 0.6%.

S&P 500 futures rose fractionally.

Nasdaq 100 futures added 0.2%.