Stock Market News for July 29, 2024

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite were slightly higher on Monday as investors looked ahead to a string of big tech earnings in the coming days.

The S&P 500 rose 0.08% to close at 5,463.54, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.07% to close at 17,370.20. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 49.41 points, or 0.12%, to close at 40,539.93.

— Pia Singh

Tesla shares jumped more than 5% on Monday after Morgan Stanley named the electric-car maker its top pick among auto stocks.

Analyst Adam Jonas replaced Ford with Tesla, citing the latter’s efforts to cut costs and manage risk. Ford shares were down more than 1% in midday trading.

Jonas’s call comes as automakers grapple with the end of the electric-car euphoria, with many companies in the sector having backed off or postponed plans for the type of cars.

“While Tesla is still making cars, we have observed the company reallocating additional resources, technology, people and capital away from the automotive side,” Jonas wrote to clients. “We found it noteworthy that Ford management spent significantly more time on its Q2 conference call discussing electric vehicles than Tesla did.”

Despite Monday’s move, Tesla shares are still down more than 5% this year, and Ford shares are down about 10%.

— Alex Haring

The sell-off in big tech companies appears to have found some stability, at least in the short term.

The Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF (MAGS) rose about 1.2% on Monday, after rising 1% on Friday.

Prior to this rally, the fund had fallen in seven of the eight trading sessions, with a cumulative loss of about 10%.

—Jesse Pound

McDonald’s has heard the message consumers are sending loud and clear: they want more value.

Although the fast-food giant missed Wall Street’s quarterly targets, investors appear more focused on what’s coming, and appear to doubt that management is on the right track with its approach to pricing.

McDonald’s shares recently rose 4.5% after management said it was working to make sure its menu was priced correctly and would continue its popular $5 meal deal.

“We saw a lot of enthusiasm, and the number of $5 meal deals was higher than expected,” Joe Erlinger, president of McDonald’s U.S., said on an earnings call. “Trying the deal was highest among lower-income consumers, and sentiment around the brand around value and affordability is starting to shift positively.”

— Christina Shedder Burke

Small-cap stocks are headed for a potential bearish signal known as an “outside day” on Monday if the Russell 2000 closes below 2,238.67, its low on Friday.

Small-cap indexes have outperformed large-cap indexes this month amid a sector rotation in the stock market. The Russell 2000 rose more than 9% in July, compared with a 0.3% gain for the S&P 500. The Russell has outperformed the S&P by more than three standard deviations above its historical average over the past 20 trading days. Market watchers are calling for a pause in the rally in the near term.

Cryptocurrency-related stocks were among those farther off their highs during the day, including Riot Platforms (RIOT), Cipher Mining (CIFR) and Marathon Digital (MARA). Other notable names trading well off their highs include Archer Aviation (ACHR), Carvana (CVNA) and SoundHound AI (SOUN).

An “outside day” is a two-day technical pattern where the trading range on the second day completely engulfs the previous day’s range and changes the direction of recent momentum. Traders often use this pattern to predict potential reversals in an asset’s trend.

— Nick Wells

Shares of On Semiconductor rose about 13% Monday after reporting earnings and revenue that beat expectations before the bell.

The company’s adjusted earnings per share for the second quarter were 96 cents, beating analysts’ expectations of 92 cents surveyed by FactSet. Revenue was $1.74 billion, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.73 billion. However, adjusted earnings per share and revenue were down from the second quarter of 2023.

The company forecast third-quarter earnings per share to range between 91 cents and $1.03, while it expects third-quarter revenue to range between $1.70 billion and $1.80 billion.

“We continue our commitment to driving growth through market share gains, doubling down on investments in strategic markets, and expanding our portfolio of industry-leading products with analog and mixed signal solutions,” CEO Hassan Al Khoury said in a press release about the earnings.

“As demonstrated by our recent supply agreement with the Volkswagen Group, we also continue to strengthen our leadership position in silicon carbide in the automotive industry with increased production with world-leading OEMs in Europe, North America and China,” he added.

— Michelle Fox

Here are the stocks that made the biggest moves in midday trading:

• Walt Disney – Shares of the entertainment giant rose 2% after “Deadpool & Wolverine” debuted at the box office.
• Dexcom – Shares of the diabetes company rose 5%, recouping some of its losses from Friday.
• In the semiconductor sector – shares jumped about 13% after the chip company reported financial results that beat expectations.

Read the full list of moving stocks here.

—Lisa Kailai Hahn

Customers resisted higher menu prices after McDonald’s results fell short of expectations across the board in the latest quarter. Same-store sales fell across all regions, leading to a 1% decline companywide, versus Wall Street’s expectations for a 0.4% increase. It was the first contraction in same-store sales since the fourth quarter of 2020.

Revenue remained flat in the fourth quarter, but missed Wall Street expectations by the most since October 2014 ($6.49 billion versus $6.61 billion estimate).

That led to the fast-food giant missing earnings for the second straight time, with adjusted earnings per share coming in at $2.97 versus estimates of $3.07, the biggest earnings miss since January 2022. Earnings shrank 6% in the most recent quarter, the biggest year-over-year decline since the fourth quarter of 2020.

Despite all the bad news, McDonald’s shares have been rising — perhaps due to the poor performance that occurred before the company introduced its new $5 menu. The initiative began toward the end of June, just days before the end of the fourth quarter. McDonald’s was counting on this value proposition to attract guests to its restaurants in today’s highly competitive fast-food sales environment.

The recent trade in small-cap stocks may not be losing steam yet.

The iShares Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) gained about 0.9% in premarket trading, suggesting the broader market’s shift toward small-cap stocks could continue this week. The Russell 2000 index of small-cap companies finished last week up 3.5% and is up 12% over the past month.

Fueling this rotation are expectations that central bankers will soon cut interest rates, and that an improving interest rate outlook and inflationary environment would boost small-cap companies and other cyclical areas of the market, which tend to have higher funding costs.

— Pia Singh

The S&P 500’s decline from its all-time high on July 16 may still be unstoppable, according to a market history compiled by Sam Stovall.

From its high to its low last week, the S&P 500 has declined 4.7%, according to CFRA’s chief investment strategist. Since 1990, 68% of all declines of 4.5% or more have turned into pullbacks within “weeks,” Stovall wrote in a note Monday. The strategist defines a pullback as a decline of 5% to 9.9%.

Oppenheimer strategist John Stoltzfus noted that after last week’s volatile market moves, the prospect of a broad-based rally in large-cap technology stocks has become more likely.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite fell last week, while the Russell 2000 index of small-cap stocks and the Dow Jones Industrial Average posted gains.

“It’s not so much investors abandoning the ‘Magnificent Seven’ and the biggest tech names dominating the market performance,” Stoltzfus said in a note. “Rather, the expansion to us looks like a realistic perception by market participants that the next phase requires a broader, less concentrated approach for stocks to move higher as the Fed moves closer to cutting its benchmark interest rate.”

— Fred Imbert

The Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee meets on Tuesday and Wednesday, but the market is not expecting an interest rate cut this week.

Fed futures traders estimate a 96% chance the central bank will keep rates steady at this meeting, according to central bank data. CME Fed Monitor Tool.

However, traders widely expect one cut at the September meeting.

—Jesse Pound

Stock futures were quiet at 6 p.m. in New York, with Dow Jones futures adding about 50 points.

—Jesse Pound