Blue chip stocks emerged as the clear winners Tuesday, with strong gains in several high-priced names sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average to a new record high. But weakness in the tech sector kept pressure on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite.
After trading above 52,000 in intraday trading, the Dow closed up 0.6% at 51,999, its highest settlement ever. JPMorgan Chase (JPM, +3.7%) and Visa (V, +2.9%) were the best Dow Jones stocks today. With JPM trading at $331 per share and V at $333 per share, these two have an outsized influence on the price-weighted Dow.
Today marks the Dow’s first foray above 52,000 — which happened just 12 trading days after it climbed above the 51,000 level for the first time. According to Dow Jones Market Data, this is the shortest amount of time the 30-stock index has taken to cross two 1,000-point thresholds since March 2021, when it took five days to rise from 32,000 to 33,000.
Sign up for Kiplinger’s Free Newsletters
Profit and prosper with the best of expert advice on investing, taxes, retirement, personal finance and more – straight to your e-mail.
Profit and prosper with the best of expert advice – straight to your e-mail.
But the broader S&P 500 fell 0.6% to 7,511 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq slumped 1.2% to 26,376 as several of the market’s recent highfliers sold off.
Intel (INTC), for one, slumped 8.5%, but remains 220% higher for the year to date. Lumentum Holdings (LITE, -8.6%) and Marvell Technology (MRVL, -9.8%) also closed with sizable losses, but have still tripled in price this year.
SpaceX briefly rockets past Amazon’s market cap
One notable tech stock that finished in positive territory today was SpaceX (SPCX). Shares jumped 4.8% on news that Elon Musk‘s satellite and space exploration company is buying AI coding startup Cursor for $60 billion. SPCX stock is now trading nearly 50% above the $135 initial public offering (IPO) price.
The stock went public last Friday in the biggest IPO ever, and its first-day surge gave the company a market valuation of more than $2 trillion. Today’s pop puts its market cap at $2.642 trillion — just below Magnificent 7 stock Amazon.com (AMZN, -0.04%) and its $2.646 trillion valuation. (SPCX briefly topped AMZN’s market cap intraday.)
Looking for more timely stock market news to help gauge the health of your portfolio? Sign up for Closing Bell, our free newsletter that’s delivered straight to your inbox at the close of each trading day.
SpaceX remains the sixth-largest U.S. company by market cap.
Oil prices continue to drop ahead of U.S.-Iran peace deal
While technology (-2.3%) was the biggest decliner of the 11 S&P 500 sectors today, energy (-0.3%) also saw notable losses as oil prices continued to decline.
Front-month West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell 5.8% to $76.05 per barrel — their lowest close since March 3.
This comes after the U.S. and Iran agreed to sign a peace plan this Friday, and President Donald Trump said that the Strait of Hormuz will reopen.
“The persistent slide in crude oil prices, which accelerated this week following positive U.S.-Iran developments, is incredibly bullish for markets,” says José Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers.
He adds that the sharp decline in energy costs ahead of this week’s Federal Reserve meeting — the first for new Chair Kevin Warsh — “offers favorable first-impression dynamics and raises the likelihood of an increasingly patient central bank willing to look through the current short-term inflation as a one-time shock.”
How will markets react to a Warsh-led Fed?
If Warsh is “perceived as more dovish than expected, it should be bullish for stocks,” says Louis Navellier of Navellier & Associates. “If he’s hawkish, it could bring volatility.”
It’s all but expected that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates unchanged tomorrow, given that the labor market remains steady even as inflation has accelerated.
But market participants will be eyeing the Summary of Economic Projections (SEP) and dot plot to see where the Warsh-led Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) expects the federal funds rate, unemployment rate and inflation rate to be over the short and long term.
You can follow along with the latest news and updates on the June Fed meeting on our live blog.