S&P 500, Nasdaq Hit Closing Highs, Dow Falls Ahead of Key Inflation Data

Biggest S&P 500 Movers on Wednesday

2 hr 20 min ago

Advancers

Oracle (ORCL) shares skyrocketed 36%, securing the S&P 500’s top daily performance. Although its fiscal first-quarter sales and profits results came in below consensus forecasts, Oracle boosted its guidance for its cloud infrastructure business, pointing to booming AI demand and expectations for several major customer additions in the coming months. The surge in Oracle stock lifted the net worth of chair and co-founder Larry Ellison above that of Elon Musk, according to Bloomberg, making Ellison the richest person in the world.
Other AI-exposed stocks moved higher in the wake of Oracle’s outlook. Broadcom (AVGO) shares jumped 9.8% as the chipmaker said it has approved a long-term equity award for CEO Hock Tan that links his compensation to the company’s success in the AI space. The award provides Tan with performance stock units that will vest only if Broadcom clears ambitious AI revenue milestones.
Another part of the AI story has been the opportunity related to surging energy demand from power-hungry data centers. Shares of Vistra (VST) and Constellation Energy (CEG), two utilities that have been looking to leverage their nuclear facilities and other generation capabilities to capitalize on the AI data center boom, were up 8% and 6.4%, respectively, on Wednesday.

Decliners

Synopsys (SNPS) shares plummeted 36%, posting the steepest decline of any S&P 500 stock, after the provider of semiconductor design software missed quarterly sales and adjusted profit estimates. Synopsys also provided lower-than-expected guidance for adjusted earnings per share in the current quarter and trimmed its full-year forecast.
Shares of advertising technology company The Trade Desk (TTD) lost 12% after Morgan Stanley downgraded the stock to “equal weight” from “overweight” and reduced its price target. Analysts cited challenges for The Trade Desk’s connected TV business, noting slower growth in video ad billings.
A price target cut from Morgan Stanley also weighed on shares of software engineering firm Epam Systems (EPAM), which sank 7.2%. In addition to expressing concerns about trends in demand and return on capital in the industry, analysts pointed to pending legislation aimed at discouraging U.S. firms from outsourcing work, which could represent a challenge to IT services providers like EPAM.

-Michael Bromberg

Analysts Say Oracle Stock Has More Room to Run

2 hr 43 min ago

Oracle’s (ORCL) blistering stock gain amid strong AI demand has Wall Street analysts racing to raise their price targets—with most expecting its record run isn’t over yet. 

The shares soared 36% on Wednesday to a record high of about $328, a day after the computing giant reported what Deutsche Bank analysts called “truly awesome results” that “underscored its position as the leader in AI infrastructure.” With Wednesday’s gains, the stock has nearly doubled in value since the start of this year.

“In our near 20 years covering Oracle and for that matter the entire Software industry, there are few quarterly results that match F1Q both in terms of magnitude of revision and clarity of the moment,” the Deutsche Bank analysts said, pointing to Oracle’s $455 billion backlog, which more than quadrupled from a year ago. 

That blowout backlog came as Oracle said it added four multibillion-dollar contracts in its fiscal first quarter, with CEO Safra Catz telling investors that the company expects to gain several more in the next few months. 

One of those customers could be OpenAI, according to the Wall Street Journal, which reported Wednesday that the ChatGPT maker struck a deal to spend a whopping $300 billion for computing power over five years, starting in 2027.

Deutsche Bank said that Oracle’s performance yesterday underscored how the strengths of the computing giant’s underlying infrastructure and range of offerings could help it sustain a competitive advantage in the AI era, and boosted their price target for the stock to $335 from $240, a level it could top soon if it can sustain just some of Wednesday’s momentum.

Other analysts were even more bullish, with Jefferies raising its target to $360 from $270. Bank of America boosted its to $368, calling Oracle a “key AI enabler,” while Citi moved its target up to a new Street high of $410.

Citi analysts said they now view Oracle as a “unique megacap AI winner,” after “one of the strongest quarterly contract signings we’ve come across in all of software.” They added they’ll be watching closely for more details from the company next month at its AI event, where the company plans to unveil a new AI service, co-founder and CTO Larry Ellison said.

-Kara Greenberg

The AI Trade Gets a Boost From Oracle

3 hr 41 min ago

The artificial intelligence trade got a shot of adrenaline on Wednesday after results from database software and cloud provider Oracle suggested the AI spending bonanza has ample room to run. 

Oracle (ORCL) on Tuesday reported its backlog swelled to $455 billion, a 359% year-over-year increase, after it signed four multibillion-dollar cloud deals in the first quarter of its 2026 fiscal year. Executives said the backlog is expected to surpass half a trillion as Oracle inks more big deals in the coming months.

Oracle also forecast cloud revenue would grow from an estimated $18 billion this fiscal year to $144 billion in 2030, about $50 billion more than Wall Street had forecast. Oracle said most of that revenue forecast was already reflected in its backlog, giving some investors greater confidence in the numbers. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Oracle had signed a five-year contract worth $300 billion with ChatGPT creator OpenAI.

Oracle’s projections completely overshadowed lackluster first-quarter results, and sent its shares soaring 36% on Wednesday. The rising tide of robust AI spending was lifting plenty of boats on Wednesday. Shares of AI chip giants Nvidia (NVDA) and Broadcom (AVGO) gained 4% and 10%, respectively, while chip design company Arm Holdings (ARM) surged more than 9%. Data center infrastructure provider Vertiv Holdings (VRT) jumped 9%, while power generators Vistra (VST) and Constellation Energy (CEG) advanced 8% and 6%, respectively.

Wall Street’s ebullience over the results was first visible on Oracle’s earnings call Tuesday night. 

“Even I’m sort of blown away by what this looks like going forward,” said Guggenheim analyst John DiFucci at the top of the question and answer portion of the call. “I tell my team, ‘Pay attention to this’—even those that are not working on Oracle—‘because this is a career event happening right now,” DiFucci added.

“There’s no better evidence of a seismic shift happening in computing than these results that you just put up,” said Deutsche Bank analyst Brad Zelnick. Others called the quarter “momentous” and the backlog growth “truly historic.”

AI investments have been driven by what many have characterized as insatiable demand for training and inference, and Oracle’s results appeared to support that assessment. 

On Oracle’s earnings call, co-founder and chair Larry Ellison said an unnamed company had requested all of Oracle’s available inferencing capacity. “I’d never gotten a call like that,” Ellison said. 

Big Tech’s investment in capacity to meet that demand is expected to remain robust in the coming years, supported by healthy cash flows at the biggest cloud providers and supportive tax incentives.

Read the full article here.

-Colin Laidley

Chewy Stock Sinks as Q2 Profit Plunges

5 hr 53 min ago

Shares of Chewy dropped 18% in recent trading after the online pet products retailer reported second-quarter profit that fell sharply from a year earlier.

Chewy reported GAAP earnings per share of $0.14 per share, down from $0.68 per share last year, although it was in line with estimates of analysts polled by Visible Alpha. Adjusted EPS of $0.33 increased from $0.24 a year ago and also was in line with expectations.

Sales rose nearly 9% to $3.1 billion, slightly above projections.

How Larry Ellison Snagged the Title of World’s Richest Person From Elon Musk

6 hr 56 min ago

Oracle’s transformation into an AI infrastructure powerhouse has catapulted Larry Ellison ahead of Musk to take the title of the world’s richest person.

The 81-year-old database pioneer’s net worth surged by more than $100 billion following the company’s earnings report Tuesday, according to calculations published Wednesday by Bloomberg, which called the move “the biggest one-day increase ever recorded” by its Billionaire’s Index.

Ellison owns about 1.16 billion shares, or about 41% of the company. As of Tuesday’s close, those shares were worth around $280 billion. If Oracle’s stock price holds near current levels, Ellison’s stake in Oracle would propel his net worth to $393 billion, surpassing Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, whose net worth is $385 billion.

The staggering wealth increase came after Oracle announced what CEO Safra Catz called an “excellent” quarter, signing four multi-billion-dollar contracts and booking $455 billion in future cloud infrastructure revenue. Oracle’s market capitalization spiked to about $950 billion in intraday trading on Wednesday, up more than $270 billion in a single day.

-Peter Gratton

Robinhood’s New Service Is the Latest Bid to Power Up Social-Minded Retail Traders

7 hr 35 min ago

Retail investors think they can beat the market if they work together. Companies increasingly want to help them do it.

Chronically online digital natives are living their financial lives out in the open—and they believe doing so can boost their portfolios. Traders accustomed to public Venmo ledgers are flexing paper gains on TikTok and swapping stock picks on Reddit and X, investing tactics far more socialized than those of the moneyed folks of the past.

Fintech apps and trading platforms are increasingly catering to that group, integrating the social experience into customer experiences with tools that seek to quantify how people feel about stocks or track where attention is flowing. The latest rollout: Robinhood (HOOD) Social, announced at an event last night, which the company said will let traders discuss strategy and follow each others’ transactions in real time.

“Oftentimes a finely-tuned machine can make all the difference,” Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said at the event. “And that’s the role that we feel Robinhood plays for our active traders.”

Read the full article here.

-Crystal Kim

Is AI to Blame for The Lousy Job Market?

8 hours ago

Jobs are disappearing just as companies incorporate more artificial intelligence into their businesses, raising the question: Is work going to chatbots instead of people?

There’s no doubt the job market is slowing down. The last three months of job growth have been one of the worst stretches for the labor market since the pandemic hit, leading some experts, including Moody’s Chief Economist Mark Zandi, to declare the U.S. has entered a “jobs recession.”

Many analysts have blamed President Donald Trump’s economic policies, especially his controversial tariffs, for the slowdown in the job market. However, recent analyses have found some evidence that AI is also contributing to the slowdown.

At least two federal reserve bank surveys indicate businesses are hiring fewer people because the work is being done by AI.

Among service firms that use the technology, 12% said they had hired fewer workers in the past six months due to its use, and almost 25% of those that plan to use AI expect to hire fewer workers because of it, according to a New York Fed survey released last week.

Separately, a survey by the Dallas Fed found 10% of businesses said AI decreased their need for workers.

There was some good news for workers: Some firms in the survey said they were retraining staff to use AI, and others even said they were increasing hiring.

Read the rest of the article here.

-Diccon Hyatt

GameStop Stock Rises as Earnings Top Estimates, Company Buys Bitcoin

8 hr 20 min ago

GameStop (GME) shares rose after the video game retailer posted better-than-expected results and announced it now held more than half a billion dollars worth of bitcoin.

The company late Tuesday reported second-quarter adjusted earnings per share of $0.25, which was $0.06 more than analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha were looking for. Revenue jumped 22% to $972 million, also above estimates.

GameStop said sales of hardware and accessories increased 31% to $592 million, while collectibles sales soared 63% to $228 million. However, sales of software dropped 27% to $152.5 million.

GameStop also noted that it had purchased 4,710 bitcoin in the quarter, with a value of $528.6 million as of Aug. 2, when the quarter ended.

In addition, the company announced a special dividend distributed to investors in the form of warrants. Shareholders of record on Oct. 3 will receive 1 warrant for every 10 shares they own. GameStop expects to hand out about 59 million warrants on or around Oct. 7.

GameStop shares were up 6% in midday trading. Despite today’s rise, the stock, perhaps best-known as one of the original meme stocks, has lost a fifth of its value so far this year.

-Bill McColl

Gemini’s Raised IPO Range Indicates Strong Demand for New Crypto Stocks

8 hr 33 min ago

The crypto exchange founded by twin brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss looks poised to be the next hot crypto IPO.

Gemini Space Station on Wednesday raised the range at which it expects its initial public offering to $24 to $26; it still plans to offer some 16.7 million shares, indicating a market capitalization over $3 billion at the high end. The boosted price suggests strong demand from investors for the shares and follows a string of successful public debuts that includes industry peers like stablecoin operator Circle (CRCL) and institution-focused digital assets platform Bullish (BLSH).

The original range was estimated at $17 to $19 per share. Gemini Space Station is expected to list on the Nasdaq exchange under the ticker symbol “GEMI.”

Earlier this week, Gemini secured a $50 million private investment from another exchange operator, Nasdaq (NDAQ), a regulatory filling shows.

Nasdaq agreed to pay a per share price equal to the IPO for Class A stock, less underwriting costs and commissions.

The Winklevoss twins, famous for their role in the social media network once called Facebook, now known as Meta (META), are also earmarking a set of shares for retail investors. The company expects as much as 30% of Class A shares will be offered to individual investors via brokerages including Robinhood (HOOD) and SoFi (SOFI).

Gemini operates one of the better-known crypto exchanges in the U.S. and also has a credit card business. While its trading volume is a fraction of the much larger Coinbase Global (COIN), the company said tokenization and card payments represent “immense untapped potential” for its future growth.

-Crystal Kim

Chip Design Software Provider Synopsys’ Stock Drops 35%

9 hr 10 min ago

Synopsys (SNPS) shares plunged Wednesday, after the semiconductor design software maker posted quarterly earnings that missed analysts’ expectations and lowered its full-year outlook as demand for its design intellectual property slumped.

The stock was down about 35% in recent trading, dragging it into negative territory for the year.

Synopsys reported adjusted earnings per share of $3.39 for the fiscal third quarter, well below the average estimate of analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha. Revenue rose 14% year-over-year to $1.74 billion, but also missed projections.

Sales of its design intellectual property dropped 8% to $427.6 million, and fell from 30.4% of overall revenue to 24.6%. Design automation sales gained 23% to $1.31 billion. 

CEO Sassine Ghazi called it a “transformational quarter,” as the company faced “a challenging geo-political backdrop.” CFO Shelagh Glaser added that Synopsys was “taking a more conservative view of Q4.”

The company said it anticipates current-quarter adjusted earnings of $2.76 to $2.80, below the analyst consensus. It now sees full-year adjusted earnings in the range of $12.76 to $12.80, down from its previous outlook of $15.11 to $15.19.

-Bill McColl

Novo Nordisk Cuts Around 9,000 Jobs

9 hr 26 min ago

Novo Nordisk (NVO) is making big job cuts as the weight-loss drugmaker faces growing competition.

The pharmaceutical firm said it is slashing about 9,000 positions or 11.5% of its workforce. 5,000 of the cuts will be made in its home country of Denmark. 

The company said the layoffs are part of a “transformation” designed to simplify Novo Nordisk’s organization, speed up decision-making, and shift resources to help grow its diabetes and obesity business medicines. 

CEO Mike Doustdar said, “our markets are evolving, particularly in obesity, as it has become more competitive and consumer-driven.” He added the company “must evolve as well,” which means instilling “an increased performance-based culture, deploying our resources ever more effectively, and prioritizing investment where it will have the most impact—behind our leading therapy areas.”

Novo Nordisk said it expects the headcount drop will result in annualized savings of about 8 billion Danish Krone ($1.25 billion) by the end of 2026. However, it also anticipates the cuts will result in a restructuring cost of 8 billion Danish Krone this year, and is now projecting operating profit will grow 4% to 10%, down from a forecast of 10% to 16% previously.

U.S.-listed shares of Novo Nordisk were up about 2% in recent trading. They’ve lost about a third of their value this year, as rivals such as Eli Lilly (LLY) have expanded their market share in diabetes and weight-loss treatments.

-Bill McColl

Mortgage Demand Soars to the Highest Application Levels Since 2022

9 hr 49 min ago

Mortgage rates hit their lowest levels since last October and people took notice—applications for home loans surged last week.

According to Mortgage Bankers Association data, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate declined for a second week, falling to 6.49% in the week ending Sept. 5. The decline sent signals to borrowers, who applied for 9% more mortgages than the previous week.

“The downward rate movement spurred the strongest week of borrower demand since 2022, with both purchase and refinance applications moving higher,” said Joel Kan, MBA deputy chief economist.

The housing market may be beginning to thaw after elevated mortgage rates and high-priced housing have helped to freeze sales. Mortgage application volumes have been at historically low levels as interest rates have hovered above 6.5% for most of the year. 

The recent decline in rates has motivated some borrowers, as buyers and homeowners chase cheaper borrowing costs.

Read the full article here.

-Terry Lane

Lisa Cook Retains Fed Role as Judge Temporarily Halts Trump’s Move to Fire Her

10 hr 9 min ago

A federal judge has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump from removing Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, allowing her to continue serving at the central bank while her lawsuit contesting her firing proceeds.

The move means that Cook, who Trump had fired for allegedly falsifying her mortgage documents, will remain on the seven-member board of the central bank, which is part of the 12-member committee that is responsible for setting interest rates in the U.S. The committee is scheduled to meet next Tuesday and Wednesday, and is widely expected to cut the Fed’s benchmark rate.

Trump has repeatedly scolded Fed Chair Jerome Powell for not cutting interest rates this year, and the move to dismiss Cook raised concerns that the central bank’s independence could be compromised. Trump said after announcing Cook’s firing that he’d soon have a majority on the Fed board, leading some experts to worry that future Fed decisions could be influenced by political considerations.

Judge Jia Cobb in Washington, D.C., granted Cook’s request for a temporary court order so she could keep her seat on the Fed’s board for now. The judge ruled that Trump couldn’t fire Cook, partly because her alleged actions took place before she was Fed governor.

Read the full article here.

-Nisha Gopalan

Oracle’s Market Cap Approaches $1 Trillion

10 hr 23 min ago

With today’s stock surge, Oracle’s market capitalization is approaching $1 trillion, surpassing the likes of JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Walmart (WMT).

Oracle’s market cap recently stood at about $950 billion, making it the 10th-largest publicly traded American company and 12th-largest firm on the planet, according to CompaniesMarketCap.com.

Nvidia tops the list with a market cap of about $4.34 trillion.

Oracle Levels to Watch as Stock Rockets Higher

10 hr 58 min ago

Oracle (ORCL) shares soared 40% Wednesday morning after the computing giant raised its outlook for cloud infrastructure sales and said it added several large new customers amid booming AI demand.

The company, which has struck deals with big tech customers including Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOGL) and Microsoft (MSFT), said it now sees cloud infrastructure sales jumping 77% to $18 billion this fiscal year, above its June forecast of 70% growth. CEO Safra Catz told investors that the company expects to sign-up several additional multi-billion-dollar customers in coming months to push its booked cloud orders over half a billion dollars.

Leading into the company’s earnings release, Oracle shares had gained 45% so far in 2025, handily outpacing the S&P 500’s return over the same period, boosted by robust demand for its cloud infrastructure services and AI database integration tools.

After setting their all-time high in late July, Oracle shares consolidated in a flag pattern ahead of the company’s quarterly results, laying the groundwork for a continuation of the longer-term uptrend. Indeed, the stock looks set to gap to a fresh record high on Wednesday.

It’s worth noting that the shares have already registered their highest volume this week since mid July, suggesting that some larger market participants rebalanced portfolios leading into the report.

Read the full technical analysis piece here.

-Timothy Smith

Big-Name Buy Now, Pay Later Company Klarna Set to Go Public Today

11 hr 15 min ago

Klarna, a leading buy now, pay later firm, is poised to make its stock-market debut today.

The company overnight said it sold 34.3 million shares at $40 apiece, above the range it had earlier indicated they might sell for in the closely watched fintech initial public offering.

Of those, 5 million were sold by the company, suggesting proceeds of $200 million. The total sharecount suggests a market value approaching $14 billion.Trading is expected to begin the New York Stock Exchange later today with the company using the ticker symbol “KLAR.”

Klarna helped pioneer buy now, pay later financing, in which a purchase is broken up into interest-free payments that are automatically deducted from a user’s bank account. The payment method has skyrocketed in popularity in the two decades since Klarna launched, evolving from a way to splurge to a tool many now use to pay for groceries. BNPL transactions are so ubiquitous that Fair Isaac Corp. (FICO) recently said it will incorporate them in its credit scoring frameworks. 

Read the rest of the story here.

-Sarina Trangle

Major Index Futures Point to Mixed Open

13 hr 27 min ago

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down 0.1%.

S&P 500 futures rose 0.3%.

Nasdaq 100 futures added 0.2%.