Stock market today: Dow slips as S&P 500, Nasdaq trim gains to hover near latest records

Circle (CRCL) shares rose on Friday following the passage of the Genius Act, a landmark piece of legislation providing regulatory clarity for stablecoin issuers.

“We’re raising our price target for CRCL to $280 (from $235) on the passing of the Genius Act,” Jeff Cantwell, senior analyst at Seaport Research, wrote on Friday.

“This is a watershed moment that unlocks substantial new opportunity for stablecoins. CRCL is the purest stablecoin play in public markets, and we expect the company to capitalize on this legislative clarity by accelerating new partnerships and revenue streams.”

Circle shares are up more than 600% since the company went public on June 5 with an IPO price of $31.

Netflix (NFLX) stock dropped over 4% in early trading on Friday as its earnings beat and raise didn’t quite meet Wall Street’s lofty expectations.

Netflix topped second quarter earnings expectations and raised its full-year revenue outlook, but as Yahoo Finance’s Allie Canal reports, the company’s lofty valuation left little room for error.

“Despite a good quarter and positive tone that business trends remain strong, shares are up 42% year-to-date and expectations were high,” William Blair analyst Ralph Schackart wrote in a note titled “Good Quarter, but Tough to Surpass High Expectations.”

“In other words,” he added, “An overall ‘good’ set of results and guide were not good enough for elevated expectations, in our view.”

Netflix stock trades at roughly 40 times forward earnings, a steep premium to the broader market and even many of its tech peers.

Read more here.

The latest University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey, released Friday, showed pessimism over the inflation outlook lessened in July, as one-year inflation expectations plunged to 4.4% from 5% in June. Those expectations had been at a more-than-four-decade high of 6.6% in May. Long-run inflation expectations, which track expectations over the next five to 10 years, also fell, hitting 3.6%% in July, down from 4% in June.

The decrease in inflation expectations has come as consumers’ worst fears over tariff-driven inflation have faded. Still, the broader consumer sentiment survey hasn’t shown a sharp rebound. July’s index reading of 61.8 was just marginally higher than the 60.7 seen in June.

“Consumers are unlikely to regain their confidence in the economy unless they feel assured that inflation is unlikely to worsen, for example, if trade policy stabilizes for the foreseeable future,” Surveys of consumers director Joanne Hsu wrote in the release.

American Express (AXP) stock fell nearly 3% in early trading on Friday after the premium credit card issuer surpassed revenue and profit estimates for the second quarter.

On the earnings call, American Express CFO Christophe Le Caillec said consumer spending remained resilient among its affluent customers.

“What you see is remarkable resilience across our customer base,” he said, though he noted consumers are exercising “a little bit of prudence around the edges.”

Overall consumer and business spending rose 7% to $416.3 billion, remaining consistent with trends in the first quarter, Le Caillec stated. Airline and lodging spending was slightly softer, while restaurant spending grew 8%.

Transaction growth was up 9%, “another indicator of strong customer engagement and … largely consistent with what we’ve been seeing over the past few quarters,” the CFO said.

American Express sees continued growth for the rest of the year and left its revenue and earnings per share guidance unchanged.

Read more here.

Stocks were in the green at the opening bell after hitting fresh records in the previous session amid investor enthusiasm over stronger-than-expected economic data.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose 0.2% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) added 0.1%, and Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) was up 0.3% in early trading. The S&P and Nasdaq rose to fresh records on Thursday.

Second quarter earnings continued to roll in with morning reports from 3M (MMM), American Express (AXP), and Charles Schwab (SCHW).

Charles Schwab (SCHW) stock rose 3% ahead of the opening bell as the company’s adjusted profits surged more than 50% year over year. Market volatility surrounding President Trump’s tariffs fueled higher trading activity for the brokerage.

The company reported adjusted earnings per share of $1.14, beating Wall Street estimates for EPS of $1.10. Revenue came in at $5.9 billion, above expectations for $5.7 billion.

Charles Schwab also brought in new assets of $80.3 billion, representing 31% growth annually.

“Schwab delivered growth on all fronts during the second quarter,” Charles Schwab CEO Rick Wurster said. “The firm’s diversified revenue model, coupled with our best-in-class scale and efficiency, produced quarterly records for both revenue and earnings per share.”

Listen to the earnings call live at 9:30 a.m. ET here.

3M (MMM) stock rose over 2% in premarket trading on Friday after posting an earnings beat and raising its full-year profit forecast.

The Scotch tape maker reported second quarter adjusted earnings per share of $2.16 on revenue of $6.16 billion, both above estimates.

It now sees full-year adjusted profits between $7.75 and $8 per share, compared with its previous estimate of $7.60 to $7.90.

3M also projected tariffs would create a smaller hit to earnings this year than previously expected. Its forecast includes a $0.10 per share hit to 2025 earnings, versus the $0.20 to $0.40 impact it guided for previously.

Other companies have also scaled back their projected losses from tariffs. Earlier this week, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) halved its expected tariff impact to $200 million.

Read more here from Reuters.

Chevron (CVX) and Hess (HES) have won an arbitration battle against Exxon (XOM) over access to an oil project off the coast of Guyana.

Chevron stock rose 3% premarket, while shares of Hess climbed 7%. Exxon’s stock declined less than 1%.

The result clears the way for Chevron to proceed with its $53 billion acquisition of the smaller oil firm, whose value was partially tied up in its 30% stake in the Guyanese oil project shared with Exxon.

Chevron had said it could delay or terminate the acquisition altogether if it didn’t win the arbitration. But in the end, it prevailed.

“We disagree with the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) panel’s interpretation but respect the arbitration and dispute resolution process,” Exxon said in a statement.

Read more here.

Overseas investors are starting to warm up to the UK’s unloved stocks as a UK-US trade deal, lighter regulation, and cheap stocks deliver juicy returns versus the rest of Europe.

The FTSE 100 (^FTSE) has gained nearly 10% this year to hit record highs this week, beating the STOXX 600 (^STOXX), which is up 7.5%.

Reuters reports:

Read more here.

Bloomberg reports:

Stocks of battery material makers climbed after the US announced it would impose preliminary anti-dumping duties of 93.5% on graphite imports from China.

Shares of Australian graphite miner Syrah Resources Ltd. (SYAAF) surged as much as 38%, while shares of South Korea’s Posco Future M Co. (003670.KS) climbed 24%. Novonix Ltd. (NVNXF), an Australian-listed company with a graphite production plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, surged 21%. Gains in these and other Asian stocks tracked earlier jumps in Canadian peers including Nouveau Monde Graphite Inc. (NMG)

The Commerce Department issued the preliminary determination Thursday, and a final plan should be announced by Dec. 5. The US determined that China, which dominates the processing capacity of graphite, had been unfairly subsidizing the industry.

Graphite is a key raw material in the anodes of electric-vehicle batteries. About two-thirds of the material imported by the US still came from China last year.

Read more here.

Netflix (NFLX) shares are faltering in premarket trading, despite “solid” second quarter earnings.

The streamer delivered beats on both profit and sales, and upped its full-year revenue guidance in its report late Thursday.

Some on Wall Street had flagged Netflix’s lofty valuation going into the print, Yahoo Finance’s Allie Canal reports.

Bloomberg Intelligence senior media analyst Geetha Ranganathan told Yahoo Finance that the stock was priced to perfection heading into the report.

“It was a really solid print,” Ranganathan said in reaction to the earnings. “The big thing that investors were really focused on was commentary for the rest of the year, and they delivered there as well.”

Ranganathan also noted that while the operating margin was also solid, it was “maybe not spectacular.”

“I think investors were looking for something a little but more here,” she said. “So it was originally forecast at 29% for the full year operating margin — they just took that up a smidge to 29.5%. I think investors were looking somewhere in the range of 30%-31%.”

Read more on Netflix’s earnings here.

After headhunting a top AI expert at Apple (AAPL) to lead Meta’s (META) faltering AI division, the social media giant has followed up by taking two more key players from the artificial intelligence team, both of whom had previously worked under Meta’s new head of AI.

Bloomberg reports:

Read more here.

Netflix (NFLX)

Stock in the streamer dipped nearly 2% despite topping analyst expectations for both earnings and revenue in Q2. The streaming leader reported revenue of $11.08 billion, just above the $11.07 billion Wall Street had forecast. Investors may be reacting to the narrower-than-hoped revenue beat and looking ahead to guidance.

Norfolk Southern (NSC)

Share value in railroad operator Norfolk Southern soared 4.7% in after-hours trading following a report from WSJ that Union Pacific is in preliminary talks to acquire the railroad operator. There’s also discussion of a merger in the possible creation of what would be America’s largest railroad.