Stocks Drop, Oil Surges as Israel-Iran Conflict Escalates; Fed Decision on Interest Rates Comes Wednesday

Biggest S&P 500 Movers on Tuesday

7 hr 6 min ago

Decliners

Shares of renewable energy companies plunged as a Senate budget proposal maintained the House reconciliation bill’s elimination of clean-energy tax credits. A draft Senate bill stipulates a phase-out of solar and wind energy tax credits by 2028 but extends incentives for hydro, nuclear, and geothermal power until 2036. Shares of solar microinverter maker Enphase Energy (ENPH) plummeted 24%, losing the most of any S&P 500 stock, while shares of panel manufacturer First Solar (FSLR) fell 18%. Shares of power utility AES Corp. (AES), which garners a majority of its renewable energy revenue from wind and solar, sank 8.1%.

Airline stocks ran into some turbulence after the CEO of JetBlue (JBLU) said the carrier would be dropping unprofitable routes, among other cost-cutting measures, in response to soft travel demand. JetBlue shares lost 7.9%, while shares of rivals United Airlines (UAL) and Delta Air Lines (DAL) were down 6.2% and 4.3%, respectively. Rising oil prices also weighed on airline shares.
T-Mobile US (TMUS) shares slid 4.1% following reports that Japanese investment firm SoftBank (SFTBY) sold a major portion of its stake in the telecommunications giant. According to Bloomberg, SoftBank unloaded 21.5 million T-Mobile shares at a discount to the stock’s Monday closing price. The Tokyo-based conglomerate could use the $4.8 billion it raised to fund investments in the artificial intelligence space.

Advancers

Shares of circuit board maker Jabil (JBL) surged 8.9%, reaching a record high and securing the day’s top performance in the S&P 500. The company posted better-than-expected sales and profits for its fiscal third quarter and lifted its full-year guidance. Jabil highlighted its Intelligent Infrastructure segment, which is benefitting from strong AI-related demand, as a growth driver, despite some softness in its electric vehicle, renewables, and 5G markets.
Crude oil futures pushed higher as concerns about the fighting in the Middle East regained intensity. The uptick helped left stocks across the oil and gas industry. Shares of Valero Energy (VLO), the world’s largest independent oil refiner, advanced 2.9%.
CrowdStrike Holdings (CRWD) shares added 2.6% after the new incident response service for Amazon Web Services customers. According to the companies, CrowdStrike’s AI-powered Falcon cybersecurity platform can help users of the Amazon (AMZN) cloud service respond more quickly to incidents.

-Michael Bromberg

Tesla Plans Weeklong Shutdown at Austin Plant, Report Says

7 hr 21 min ago

Tesla (TSLA) shares slid nearly 4% Tuesday as a report emerged the company plans to pause production of Cybertrucks and Model Y vehicles at its Austin, Texas plant for one week starting later this month. 

The electric vehicle maker told employees the stoppage will occur the week of June 30 and allow for maintenance on production lines, according to a report from Business Insider. It would be the third production halt within the past year, the report said.

Tesla did not immediately respond to an Investopedia request for comment. 

Austin is also the site of Tesla’s highly anticipated robotaxi launch, which CEO Elon Musk said last week is “tentatively” planned for June 22. The company has said it expects to start with 10 to 20 vehicles, and grow the fleet in the coming months.

With Tuesday’s losses, Tesla shares have lost about a fifth of their value since the start of the year. The stock has taken a hit in 2025 amid worries about slumping sales, tariffs, and as controversy swirled around Musk’s political activities.

-Andrew Kessel

AMD Levels to Watch as Stock Rises Amid AI Optimism

8 hr 1 min ago

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) shares continued gaining ground Tuesday, boosted by upbeat Wall Street commentary following the chipmaker’s “Advancing AI” event last week.

Piper Sandler on Monday raised its price target for the stock and expressed enthusiasm for AMD’s recently unveiled Helios server rack architecture, which will combine the company’s next-generation AMD MI400 chips into one larger system. The investment bank pointed out that the hardware, anticipated for release in 2026, is “pivotal” for the growth of AMD Instinct GPUs.

Meanwhile, analysts at Bank of America speculate that the chipmaker could announce Amazon (AMZN) as a partner after the tech giant’s cloud unit, Amazon Web Services (AWS), was a key sponsor of last week’s event.

AMD shares rose 0.6% to around $127 on Tuesday, after surging nearly 8% yesterday to pace S&P 500 advancers. The stock is up 66% from its early-April low, though has gained just 5% since the start of 2025 amid uncertainty over chip export curbs and the company’s ability to capture a greater share of the lucrative AI chip market that’s now dominated by Nvidia (NVDA).

After hitting their May high, AMD shares formed a pennant, a chart pattern that signals a continuation of the stock’s uptrend that started in early April.

Indeed, the stock broke out from the pattern earlier this month and staged a volume-backed close above the closely watched 200-day moving average in Monday’s trading session. Moreover, the relative strength index indicates bullish momentum, generating a reading just below the indicator’s overbought threshold.

Investors should watch crucial overhead areas on AMD’s chart around $145, $160 and $175, while also monitoring support levels near $115 and $108.

Read the full technical analysis piece here.

-Timothy Smith

Morgan Stanley: Western Digital is ‘Key Name’ in IT Hardware

8 hr 51 min ago

Western Digital (WDC) is poised to benefit from growing demand for AI-driven data storage, analysts at Morgan Stanley said in a note to clients Tuesday.

The bank raised its price target on Western Digital stock to $78 from $70, while maintaining an overweight rating. Shares rose 2% to $58.57 on Tuesday, boosting the stock’s year-to-date gain to 30%.

Western Digital “benefits from accelerating data growth, which drives storage demand,” the analysts said. Such demand currently outstrips supply, which puts upward pressure on the price of hard drives such as those made by the company, they added.

“WDC is a key name where we’d be putting incremental capital to work within our IT Hardware universe,” Morgan Stanley said. The bank’s new $78 target is the most bullish on Wall Street when compared to the consensus near $59 supplied by Visible Alpha.

-Andrew Kessel

JetBlue Reportedly Cutting Costs as Travel Demand Slumps

9 hr 25 min ago

JetBlue Airways (JBLU) CEO Joanna Geraghty wrote in a memo that the struggling carrier will be further cutting unprofitable routes among other cost-cutting measures amid weak travel demand, a report said.

According to CNBC, which said it obtained a copy of the memo dated Monday, Geraghty wrote to staff that JetBlue is “hopeful demand and bookings will rebound, but even a recovery won’t fully offset the ground we’ve lost this year and our path back to profitability will take longer than we’d hoped. That means we’re still relying on borrowed cash to keep the airline running.”

JetBlue did not immediately respond to an Investopedia request for comment.

Shares of JetBlue closed nearly 8% lower on Tuesday and have lost nearly half of their value since the start of the year.

The stock was trading at more than $20 four years ago but has declined since, with the carrier experiencing setbacks including the end of its Northeast Alliance with American Airlines (AAL) in 2023 and a failed merger attempt with Spirit Airlines last year.

Last month, JetBlue and and United Airlines (UAL) announced a new collaboration  called “Blue Sky” that would allow for reciprocal loyalty program benefits like priority boarding and complimentary access to preferred seats.

-Aaron Rennie

Lennar Shares Fall as Homebuilder’s Profit Misses Estimates

10 hr 3 min ago

Shares of Lennar Corp. (LEN) fell Tuesday, a day after the homebuilder posted a mixed second-quarter report, with revenue topping analysts’ expectations but profit, new orders, and average sale price falling short.

After the closing bell Monday, the Miami-based firm reported earnings per share of $1.81 on revenue that decreased more than 4% year-over-year to $8.38 billion. Analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha had expected $1.96 and $8.29 billion, respectively.

Lennar generated 22,601 new orders and 20,131 home deliveries with an average sales price of $389,000, while analysts were looking for 22,934, 20,019, and $400,690, respectively. Last quarter, Lennar guided for 22,500 to 23,500 new orders and 19,500 to 20,500 deliveries with an average sales price of $390,000 to $400,000.

“While we continue to see softness in the housing market due to affordability challenges and a decline in consumer confidence, we adhered to our strategy of driving starts, sales, and closings in order to build long-term efficiencies in our business,” Lennar co-CEO Stuart Miller said.

For the third quarter, Lennar expects 22,000 to 23,000 new orders and an identical range for deliveries, with an average sales price of $380,000 to $385,000. Analysts were calling for 22,542 new orders and 23,645 deliveries with an average sales price of $398,260.

Lennar shares were down 4% in late trading Tuesday. The stock has lost a fifth of its value since the start of the year.

-Aaron McDade

Fed’s Policy Meeting Kicked Off Tuesday

11 hr 8 min ago

The Federal Reserve’s two-day monetary policy meeting kicked off Tuesday, as investors await the central bank’s view on the outlook for the economy and what it could mean for interest rates.

Members of the Federal Open Market Committee are scheduled to release their decision about the key federal funds rate after the meeting at 2 p.m. ET on Wednesday, along with a set of economic projections. Following the announcement, Fed Chair Jerome Powell is expected to hold a press conference at 2:30 p.m.

Fed officials are widely expected to keep the key fed funds rate at its current range of 4.25% to 4.5%, the same as it’s been since December.

The Fed has held the rate, which influences interest rates on all kinds of loans, at a higher-than-usual level to discourage borrowing and spending and drag inflation down to the Fed’s goal of a 2% annual rate.

Fed officials had cut the rate last year as price increases cooled down, and recent data has showed key inflation measures are now tantalizingly close to the Fed’s preferred rate. However, officials have said they are concerned Trump’s tariffs could push up consumer prices and stoke inflation later in the year.

That decision could provoke more criticism from President Donald Trump. The president has publicly browbeaten Fed officials and demanded they cut rates to boost the economy as the job market shows signs of a slowdown. The Fed is an independent agency, outside the direct control of the White House.

With the interest rate decision mostly a foregone conclusion, the wild card of the meeting will be the quarterly economic projections, which Fed officials last made in March. Those projections include the “dot plot” charting how many times each FOMC member expects to cut interest rates in the months ahead.

When Fed officials last made projections in March, they penciled in a median of two rate cuts, to a range of 3.75% to 4%. Since then, the outlook has been shaken up by several Trump policy changes, including the sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs against many U.S. trading partners, which were subsequently paused until July.2

Some experts expect the Fed to scale back its expectations to one rate cut in light of fresh concerns about tariffs. Others anticipate the Fed will still project two quarter-point cuts, out of concern the tariffs could slow down the economy and push up the unemployment rate.

The Fed’s “dual mandate” from Congress requires it to keep employment high at the same time as it keeps inflation under control.

-Diccon Hyatt

Investor Sentiment Rebounds to Pre-Liberation Day Levels

12 hr 15 min ago

Investors think the future is looking brighter than it has in months, according to a recent Bank of America survey. 

The BofA Global Fund Manager Survey’s investor sentiment index rose to 3.3 in June, its highest reading since March, before President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs sparked fear of a global trade war. (Note, the survey was conducted between June 6 and 12, after the U.S.-China trade détente, but before the recent escalation of hostilities in the Middle East.) 

The fund managers surveyed by BofA reduced their cash levels to a three-month low while significantly upping their allocations to emerging market equities, as well as energy and bank stocks. They slightly increased their allocations to U.S. stocks, but remain net underweight. 

Investors are most overweight Eurozone stocks, which got a boost earlier this year from the announcement of fiscal stimulus in Germany, the bloc’s largest economy, and a pivot out of U.S. stocks in the wake of heightened trade uncertainty. When asked what they expected to be the best-performing asset class in the next five years, 54% of respondents said international stocks, compared with just 23% indicating U.S. stocks, signaling a major shift in expectations after more than a decade of U.S. outperformance. 

Nonetheless, investors think the outlook for the global economy has improved markedly in recent months. A net 36% of respondents said a global recession in the next year was unlikely; just two months ago, a net 42% said a recession was likely. The share of respondents saying they expect the global economy to achieve a soft landing in the next 12 months rose to 66% from 61% in May and 37% in April. 

Granted, investors still aren’t entirely optimistic. A net 46% of global fund manager respondents are expecting a weaker economy in the next 12 months, and 75% of respondents expect the global economy to struggle with stagflation over the same period. 

Read the full article here.

-Colin Laidley

Jabil Leads S&P 500 Gainers After Strong Earnings Report

13 hr 49 min ago

Jabil (JBL) stock surged to a record high on Tuesday after the circuit board maker’s fiscal third-quarter results topped estimates and the firm lifted its full-year projections.

Revenue rose nearly 16% year-over-year to $7.83 billion, well above the $7.04 billion analyst consensus compiled by Visible Alpha. “Core,” or adjusted, earnings per share came in at $2.55, also better than projections.

“Our Intelligent Infrastructure segment remains a critical growth engine, benefiting from accelerating AI-driven demand,” CEO Mike Dastoor said. “Despite softness in areas like [electric vehicles], Renewables, and 5G, our diversified portfolio and operational discipline have us tracking toward record core earnings per share.”

Jabil lifted its full-year outlook to $29 billion in revenue and $9.33 in core EPS from $27.9 billion and $8.95, respectively. For the fourth quarter, it expects revenue of $7.1 billion to $7.8 billion and core EPS of $2.64 to $3.04, with the midpoints of both metrics above Visible Alpha consensus.

Jabil shares were up more than 12% in recent trading around $202.50, leading S&P 500 gainers, after earlier setting a new all-time high of $203.90.

-Aaron McDade

T-Mobile Stock Slides as Softbank Reportedly Sells Shares

15 hr 18 min ago

T-Mobile US (TMUS) stock dropped following reports Japanese investment firm SoftBank Group sold millions of the U.S. telecommunication giant’s shares. 

In an unregistered overnight sale, SoftBank sold 21.5 million T-Mobile shares for $224 each, according to reporting from Bloomberg, good for $4.8 billion.

SoftBank’s sale price was below T-Mobile’s Monday closing price of about $231. In early trading Tuesday, T-Mobile shares declined about 4%, bringing them to roughly flat for 2025.

Neither SoftBank nor T-Mobile immediately responded to an Investopedia  request for comment. 

The move helps SoftBank fund its growing wave of investments in artificial intelligence, the report said. In April, a SoftBank-led group invested as much as $40 billion in ChatGPT developer OpenAI, which the company also formed a joint venture with earlier this year. SoftBank is also part of the Stargate AI infrastructure venture along with OpenAI and Oracle (ORCL).

-Andrew Kessel

Verve Therapeutics Soars as Eli Lilly Buys Gene Editing Firm

15 hr 55 min ago

Shares of Verve Therapeutics (VERV) skyrocketed 75% early Tuesday after Eli Lilly (LLY) announced that it would acquire the gene-editing startup for about $1.3 billion.

Eli Lilly said it will pay $10.50 per share to Verve shareholders initially, with a $3-per-share contingent value right (CVR) potentially paid out if Verve treats at least one patient with gene-editing medicine VERVE-102 for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) in a Phase 3 clinical trial within a decade of the deal’s closing or termination of the CVR. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter this year.

VERVE-102 currently “is being evaluated in a Phase 1b clinical trial study and has been granted Fast Track designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration,” Lilly said.

“Verve was founded with one mission in mind: transform the treatment of cardiovascular disease from chronic care to a one-dose future,” Verve CEO Dr. Sekar Kathiresan said. “In just seven years, our team has progressed three in vivo gene editing products, with two currently in the clinic. Now, we will take the next steps in the drug development journey together with an ideal strategic partner in Lilly.”

The Financial Times reported late Monday that the companies were close to a deal.

Eli Lilly shares, which entered Tuesday up roughly 5% this year, were down 1.5% about 15 minutes after the opening bell. Verve stock entered the day up 11% in 2025.

-Aaron McDade

Meta is the Biggest Mag 7 Gainer in 2025—Watch These Levels

16 hr 19 min ago

Meta Platforms (META) shares were little changed before the opening bell on Tuesday after surging Monday following news the tech giant plans to introduce paid advertising to WhatsApp, a move that expands the company’s revenue-generating opportunities.

The company, which expects to launch several advertising features globally over the next few months, said that it’s introducing channel subscriptions, promoted channels, and ads to its WhatsApp Updates tab, which it says attracts about 1.5 billion users daily.

Meta shares, which rose nearly 3% to close around $702 on Monday, have gained 20% since the start of the year and are just 5% below their record high, set in mid-February, as of Monday’s close. The stock, which is the top performing member of the Magnificent Seven so far in 2025, has impressed investors with strong AI-driven ad revenue growth and plans to significantly  expand its AI capacity.

After reclaiming the 50- and 200-day moving averages, Meta shares consolidated within a pennant before decisively breaking out from the pattern earlier this month. Moreover, the relative strength index confirms bullish price momentum and sits below the indicator’s overbought threshold to provide room for further upside.

However, it’s worth noting that stock’s rally from its April low has occurred on declining trading volume, suggesting that larger market participant, such as institutional investors, remain on the sidelines.

Investors should monitor important overhead areas on Meta’s chart around $741 and $865, while also watching key support levels near $635 and $603.

Read the full technical analysis piece here.

-Timothy Smith

Solar Stocks Sink on Removal of Tax Credits

16 hr 58 min ago

Solar stocks tumbled Tuesday after the Senate maintained the full removal of clean-energy tax credits in the budget bill, even as it reportedly extended the time frame for the phaseout beyond the House’s bill.

Shares of SunRun (RUN) and SolarEdge Technologies (SEDG) each plunged more than 30% in premarket trading, while Enphase Energy (ENPH) and First Solar (FSLR) were each down about 20%.

Solar stocks were hammered last month after the House passed a tax and spending bill that would end tax credits for wind and solar projects in 2029, years earlier than a previous version of the bill. Citi analysts said Tuesday that the measures in the Senate’s bill were “a slight improvement” on the previous plan to terminate credits for projects that weren’t in place by the end of 2028 “but is far more restrictive than the original bill’s phase out starting in 2029 and elimination of credits in 2032.”

The analysts stuck to their sell rating on residential solar stocks, adding they expected a “sharp pullback” in shares of SunRun, SolarEdge Technologies, and Enphase Energy. The analysts said that the Senate bill “also creates significant headwinds for storage” stocks like Enphase, SolarEdge and Fluence Energy (FLNC). Fluence shares were up 7% in premarket trading.  

-Nisha Gopalan

Major Index Futures Point to Lower Open

17 hr 22 min ago

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down 0.4%.

S&P 500 futures also declined 0.4%.

Nasdaq 100 futures slipped 0.5%.