Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York City, U.S., July 14, 2025.
Jeenah Moon | Reuters
U.S. stocks moved higher on Monday as investors tracked the latest developments in trade and awaited the start of big tech earnings this week.
The S&P 500 rose 0.5%, and the Nasdaq Composite jumped 0.6%. Both indexes hit new all-time intraday highs earlier in the session, bolstered by advances in major technology names. Alphabet increased almost 2%, while others like Meta Platforms and Apple advanced around 1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, meanwhile, ticked up by 231 points, or 0.5%
Trade was once again in focus as the White House reiterated its position on tariffs. On Sunday, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick called Aug. 1 the “hard deadline” for countries to start paying tariffs, though he also added that “nothing stops countries from talking to us after Aug. 1.”
Wall Street is coming off a winning week for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq, both of which continued to notch all-time highs. The S&P 500 ended the week higher by 0.6%, while the Nasdaq climbed 1.5%. The Dow ended the week slightly lower.
This comes as earnings season is off to a strong start. Of the 62 S&P 500 companies that have reported thus far, more than 85% have topped expectations, according to FactSet data. Earnings for the second quarter are also tracking 5% year-over-year growth following the first week of results, per Bank of America.
The major averages could receive a boost in the week ahead if Alphabet and Tesla — the first of the “Magnificent Seven” companies set to report — manage to beat estimates. The megacaps are expected to be a major driver of earnings growth during the second-quarter earnings season. FactSet’s John Butters expects the “Magnificent Seven” will post earnings growth of 14% in the second quarter, while the other 493 S&P 500 companies are seen posting growth of just 3.4%.
“Rarely do you injure yourself falling out of a basement window. With expectations so low in earnings, I think that the end result will end up being better than anticipated,” Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research, said to CNBC. “That is encouraging for the market as well.”
More broadly, Stovall pointed out that the market is doing “what it normally does,” revealing that it tends to advance on average about another 10% after recovering all of its losses from a decline of up to 20%. With that, he thinks the S&P 500 could reach 6,600 before slipping into a new decline, which implies upside of almost 5% from Friday’s closing price.
“A lot of the negativity has typically been shaken out of the market during these corrections, and now we’re seeing articles about maybe the economy is not as bad as we thought it was, consumer confidence is on the mend and we’re not seeing the inflation numbers be adversely affected by tariffs,” he continued. “Maybe it’s just a matter of time before those things kick in, but at least for now, I think investors are saying, ‘You know what, the market is indicating that it wants to go higher.'”
