Stocks opened lower to start the week, but closed the session with modest gains. Market participants brushed off conflicting messages from Fed officials and the threat of a potential government shutdown, and instead cheered a broader rally in tech stocks.
There were no fewer than five Federal Reserve speakers on today’s economic calendar. Most who took the podium echoed the data-dependent stance toward monetary policy that Fed Chair Jerome Powell has repeatedly taken.
St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem, for one, called last week’s quarter-percentage point rate cut “a precautionary move intended to support the labor market at full employment and against further weakening.”
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During his speech at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., he also said the Federal Open Market Committee “should tread cautiously” going forward and that “there is limited room for easing further without policy becoming overly accommodative.”
But Stephen Miran, who was confirmed last week to fill the Fed governor position vacated by Adriana Kugler, expressed a different opinion.
“My view is that policy is roughly 2 points too restrictive, which is considerably restrictive,” Miran said during the question-and-answer session of his appearance at the Economic Club of New York.
Fed officials have been cautious about lowering the federal funds rate by too much too soon due to worries over the potential impact of President Donald Trump’s tariff policies on inflation. But Miran countered this stance, arguing that “relatively small changes in some goods prices have led to what I view as unreasonable levels of concern.”
Miran was also the lone dissenter at last week’s Fed meeting, voting for a 50 basis-point rate cut (0.50%) vs the 25 bps cut the majority of the Federal Open Market Committee backed.
Market participants didn’t appear too concerned over the clashing Fed outlooks – or next week’s potential government shutdown (likely because these have little lasting impact on stocks).
At the close, the blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.1% at 46,381), the broader S&P 500 (+0.4% at 6,693) and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (+0.7% at 22,788) were all at new record closing highs.
Apple tops the Dow on iPhone 17 sales
Today’s record highs for the main indexes came courtesy of tailwinds from the tech sector. Apple (AAPL) surged 4.3% – making it the best Dow Jones stock today – after a solid launch for the iPhone 17.
“[W]e were expecting this upgrade cycle to be a good, but not great one,” says Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives. “Instead the combination of a pent-up consumer upgrade cycle with our estimates of 315 million of 1.5 billion iPhones globally not upgrading their iPhones in the last 4 years, coupled with some design changes/enhancements have been the magical formula out of the gates.”
He also believes consensus estimates for iPhone unit sales of 230 million in fiscal 2026 “could be conservative,” and believes they could reach 240 million to 250 million.
“The Street is clearly underestimating this iPhone cycle in our view and it’s a Ryder Cup Bethpage moment for Cook and Cupertino after a few years of disappointing growth years,” Ives adds.
Nvidia jumps on OpenAI deal
Not far behind Apple was Nvidia (NVDA), which jumped 4% after the chipmaker said it will invest $100 billion in OpenAI to build and deploy artificial intelligence (AI) data centers.
“The combination of the OpenAI partnership and a potential re-entry into China at some point, among other factors, has the potential to still drive notable upside to our assumptions over the next three to five years,” says CFRA Research analyst Angelo Zino.
Zino upgraded Nvidia stock to Strong Buy from Buy on the OpenAI news, and lifted his price target to $225 from $210, representing implied upside of nearly 23% to current levels.
Oracle pops on C-suite shake-up
Oracle (ORCL) was another notable gainer, rising 6.3% after the tech giant tapped Clay Magouyrk, president of the company’s cloud infrastructure business, and Mike Sicilia, president of Oracle Industries, as co-CEOs.
The two will replace Safra Catz, who will now serve as executive vice chair on Oracle’s board of directors. “We think the changes make a lot of sense given the background of the individuals and the direction that ORCL will be heading,” says CFRA’s Angelo Zino.
“All said, we think ORCL is in good hands with the new management team,” Zino concludes, “and note both Safra Catz and [Chief Technology Officer] Larry Ellison will have significant input as leaders of the Board.”