Dow Jones Today: S&P 500 Futures Slip After 6 Straight Days of Gains for Benchmark Index; UnitedHealth, Home Depot Rise to Boost Dow

May 20, 2025
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Major stock indexes fell slightly on Tuesday as the stock market took a breather from a rally that had pushed the S&P 500 to six straight winning sessions. 

The S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite each dropped 0.4%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average gave up 0.2%. The major indexes were coming off a slightly higher close on Monday after shaking off early declines sparked by news that Moody’s had downgraded its rating on U.S. government debt.

Stocks have rallied in recent weeks as concerns about tariffs and their potential impact on the economy have subsided, while corporate earnings have been strong. After falling sharply early last month when President Donald Trump announced plans for massive tariffs on leading trade partners, the S&P 500 and Dow have nudged back into positive territory for 2025, while the Nasdaq is almost there as well.

Mega-cap technology stocks, which have been at the forefront of the recent rally for U.S. stocks, were mostly lower today. Alphabet (GOOG) shed 1.5%, while Nvidia (NVDA), Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN) were each down about 1%, and Microsoft (MSFT) and Meta Platforms (META) inched lower. Tesla (TSLA) shares, which have risen in each of the past four weeks, tacked on 0.5% , as did Broadcom (AVGO).

Shares of Dow component Home Depot (HD) finished 0.6% lower after the home improvement retailer reported first-quarter revenue that topped analysts’ expectations but fell slightly short of profit estimates. UnitedHealth (UNH) was leading Dow gainers, rising nearly 2%, as the stock continues to rebound from a sell-off last week that was spurred by the departure of its CEO and reports that the health insurer faces a DOJ investigation.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which affects borrowing costs on all sorts of consumer and business loans, was at 4.49% recently, up from 4.48% at yesterday’s close. The yield shot up to 4.56% early Monday, its highest intraday level in more than a month, as investors digested the Moody’s downgrade.

Bitcoin was at $106,600 in late-afternoon trading, up from an earlier low of $104,200. The digital currency is edging closer to its record high of about $109,000 set in January.

The U.S. dollar index, which measures the performance of the dollar against a basket of foreign currencies, was down 0.4% at 100.02.

Gold futures were up 2% at nearly $3,300 an ounce, adding to the previous session’s gains. West Texas Intermediate futures, the U.S. crude oil benchmark, slipped 0.1% to $62.62 per barrel.

D-Wave Surges as Company Unveils New Quantum Computer

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D-Wave Quantum (QBTS) shares surged Tuesday after the company unveiled its newest quantum computer, which it claims is capable of solving problems beyond the capabilities of a classical GPU-based supercomputer.

CEO Alan Baratz said D-Wave’s computer, known as Advantage2, “marks a significant milestone not just for D-Wave, but for the quantum computing industry as a whole.”

D-Wave shares closed 26% higher after surging as much as 34% during today’s trading session. With Tuesday’s gains, the stock has nearly doubled in value since the start of the year, and is up about 1,200% over the past 12 months.

D-Wave shares have gained nearly 100% so far in 2025, far outpacing other quantum computing stocks.

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Other quantum stocks briefly rallied as well, with shares of Quantum Computing (QUBT), Rigetti Computing (RGTI), and IonQ (IONQ) jumping earlier in the session, before paring their gains. 

Andrew Kessel

Ulta Catches Oppenheimer’s Eye Ahead of Earnings Next Week

1 hr 45 min ago

Ulta (ULTA) shares are in the midst of a glow-up.

The cosmetic company is attracting attention from investors, with analysts saying  consumers are less likely to cut back on beauty purchases during tough economic times. Oppenheimer is one of the latest investment advisory groups to make this case ahead of Ulta’s earnings release slated for next week.

Oppenheimer maintained its “outperform” rating of Ulta Tuesday and raised its target price to $465, which is 11% above the average target price among analysts who follow Ulta and were polled by Visible Alpha. Oppenheimer said Ulta appears poised to meet its financial targets and may benefit from limited exposure to tariffs and potential closures of Kohl’s (KSS) stores, which stock products from Sephora, a cosmetics company owned by LVMH Moët Hennessy.

“We are encouraged by the strategic direction of the company under new CEO Kecia Steelman and are focused on management’s execution of key digital priorities in the coming quarters to sustain the company’s competitive position vs. [Amazon] AMZN, [Walmart] WMT, and others,” Oppenheimer said. 

The cosmetic company’s stock has shot up about 33% since mid-March when better-than-expected earnings and fresh leadership helped reverse a months-long decline. The stock was up 1% at $414 recently, or 7% above where they were a year ago.

Wall Street is looking for a roughly 0.2% year-over-year increase in comparable store sales when Ulta shares its first-quarter results on May 29. Analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha expect profit of $267.3 million on net sales of $2.79 billion. A year ago, Ulta reported net income of $313.1 million on sales of $2.73 billion.

Sarina Trangle

Moderna Jumps on New Covid-19 Booster Guidelines

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Shares of Moderna surged to lead S&P 500 gainers in early afternoon trading Tuesday, hours after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued new guidance for COVID-19 vaccine boosters for healthy Americans under age 65.

FDA Commissioner Marty Makary and Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research director Vinay Prasad wrote in The New England Journal of Medicine that the agency’s “new Covid-19 philosophy represents a balance of regulatory flexibility and a commitment to gold-standard science. The FDA will approve vaccines for high-risk persons and, at the same time, demand robust, gold-standard data on persons at low risk.”

Dr. Prasad and Dr. Makary added that “for all healthy persons—those with no risk factors for severe Covid-19—between the ages of 6 months and 64 years, the FDA anticipates the need for randomized, controlled trial data evaluating clinical outcomes before Biologics License Applications can be granted.”

The expected uptick in new trials benefited shares of vaccine producers Tuesday. In addition to Moderna’s nearly 8% gains Tuesday, U.S.-listed shares of BioNTech (BNTX) advanced about 4%, and Pfizer (PFE) stock rose 2%.

Moderna shares are down 32% since the start of 2025, significantly lagging the performance of the S&P 500 index over the period.

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Despite having risen nearly 20% over the past three sessions, shares of Moderna have lost about a third of their value this year.

Aaron Rennie

Elon Musk Says He Plans to Stay at Tesla for Next 5 Years

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Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk said in an interview Tuesday that he remains committed to being CEO of the electric vehicle maker for at least the next five years.

During an interview at the Qatar Economic Forum, Musk also said that he expects a pay package that has been approved by shareholders but was struck down by a Delaware judge multiple times will be restored in the future, and that gaining “sufficient voting control such that I cannot be ousted by activist investors is what matters to me.”

Elon Musk speaking via video link at the Qatar Economic Forum today.

Christopher Pike / Bloomberg / Getty Images

Musk said that he is currently spending about one to two days per week on his work with the Trump administration’s cost-cutting efforts, a promise the CEO made during Tesla’s latest earnings call last month, as he said he would spend more time with the EV maker.

Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Tesla’s board had contacted a search firm about potentially finding Musk’s replacement, but the company and Musk pushed back after the report was published.

Musk also said in Tuesday’s interview that he expects to spend “a lot less” to support political candidates in the future, after his efforts to get President Trump elected in November.

Tesla shares, which have posted weekly gains in each of the past four weeks, were up close to 1% in recent trading. Still, they’ve lost about 13% since the start of the year.

Aaron McDade

Viking Stock Drops as Passenger Count Disappoints

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Viking Holdings (VIK) shares tumbled Tuesday morning after the adult-oriented cruise operator sailed fewer first-quarter passengers than anticipated.

 Shares of rival carriers declined as well.

The company reported the number of passengers carried in Q1 came in at 103,482, well below the 191,520 estimate of analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha. 

The news offset strong quarterly results. Viking slashed its loss by 79% year-over-year to $105.5 million, and its loss per share of $0.24 was $0.03 better than forecasts. Revenue rose 25% to $897.1 million, also more than expected.

CEO Torstein Hagen pointed out that the company boosted capacity by nearly 15%, and net yield increased 7% to $544. Hagen said those were “clear indicators of the robust demand for meaningful and enriching travel experiences among our core demographic.”

Hagen added that 2025 “is off to a remarkable start,” with the company having booked 92% of its capacity for the 2025 season and 37% of its capacity for the 2026 season.

Viking shares were down nearly 5% in recent trading.

Bill McColl

Uber Partner Pony AI Stock Gains as Q1 Revenue Rises

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Shares of Pony AI (PONY) jumped in early trading Tuesday after the Chinese autonomous vehicle maker reported a big rise in first-quarter sales on the back of gains in its robotaxi service.

The Chinese firm had struck a deal earlier this month with Uber Technologies (UBER) to put its robotaxis in the U.S. ride-hailing firm’s platform.

First-quarter revenue rose 11.6% year-over-year to $13.98 million, up from $12.52 million. Its loss per share narrowed to $0.12 from $0.23 in Q1 2024. Pony AI’s net loss attributed to the company more than doubled to $42.99 million from $20.60 million a year ago. The company attributed the bigger loss partly to its mass production of its seventh-generation autonomous vehicles.

“2025 is the year of scaling up for Pony.ai and we embraced it with strong growth momentum,” Pony AI CEO James Peng said. “Our robust total revenues in the first quarter were fueled by a 200% year-over-year rise in Robotaxi services, with fare-charging revenues achieving approximately 800% growth rate.”

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Pony AI, which was founded in 2016, went public on Nasdaq in November at $13 per share. Its shares were up more than 3% recently at $17.50. Coming into Tuesday’s session, the stock had gain 18% so far this year.

Nisha Gopalan

Home Depot Tops Revenue Estimates, Maintains Outlook

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Home Depot (HD) shares rose in premarket trading Tuesday after the home-improvement retailer’s first-quarter sales came in better than expected and its CFO said the company plans to “generally maintain” its current price levels.

The company reported adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $3.56 on net sales that increased 9% year-over-year to $39.86 billion. Analysts tracked by Visible Alpha had forecast adjusted EPS of $3.56 on sales of $39.24 billion.

Comparable store sales fell 0.3%, slightly worse than analysts’ projection of a 0.24% decline. However, they increased by 0.2% among Home Depot’s U.S. locations, while analysts had expected a very small drop.

“Our first quarter results were in line with our expectations as we saw continued customer engagement across smaller projects and in our spring events,” CEO Ted Decker said. “We feel great about our store readiness and product assortment as spring continues to break across the country.”

CFO Richard McPhail told CNBC that the retailer intends “to generally maintain our current pricing levels across our portfolio,” adding that by this time next year, Home Depot will not rely on any one country for more than 10% of its imports, with at least half its products originating from the U.S.

Home Depot affirmed its its full-year outlook. Last quarter, the retailer topped estimates but its full-year projections of approximately 2.8% total sales growth, about 1% comparable sales growth, and a roughly 2% decline in adjusted EPS were worse than estimates.3

Analysts said they were expecting relatively uneventful first-quarter reports from Home Depot and rival Lowe’s (LOW), which releases results on Wednesday, and were more focused on the retailers’ forecasts for the rest of the year.

Home Depot shares were up 2.2% in recent premarket trading. They entered the day down about 2.5% since the start of the year.

Aaron McDade

Tesla Levels to Watch Amid EV Maker’s Recent Rally

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Tesla (TSLA) shares fell on Monday, a sluggish start to the week for a stock that had posted gains in each of the previous four weeks.

The downturn to start this week came as technology conglomerate Xiaomi announced that its new electric YU7 SUV will launch in China on Thursday, likely challenging Tesla’s popular Model Y for market share in the competitive mid-size electric SUV category.

During their four-week winning run, Tesla shares gained 45%. Sentiment has received a boost lately from the cooling of global trade tensions, including lower tariffs, and CEO Elon Musk’s commitment to spend more time running the company, all of which have helped offset concerns about declining sales. The stock was up 1% at around $346 in recent premarket trading, after falling more than 2% on Monday.

Source: TradingView.com.

Tesla shares continued trending higher after breaking out above the neckline of a triple bottom pattern earlier this month, through the price has consolidated in recent trading sessions as investors assess the stock’s next move. Despite the minor retracement, which has coincided with declining volume, the relative strength index remains just below the 70 threshold, confirming bullish price momentum.

Investors should monitor key support levels on Tesla’s chart around $289 and $271, while also watching important resistance levels near $430 and $489.

Read the full technical analysis piece here.

Timothy Smith

Major Index Futures Mixed

9 hr 23 min ago

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were fractionally higher.

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S&P 500 futures were down 0.2%.

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Nasdaq 100 futures were also off 0.2%.

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