Stock market news for July 5, 2024

Stocks ended the shortened trading week in the green, with the broad market index and the Nasdaq Composite posting fresh all-time highs on Friday.

The S&P 500 gained 0.54% to close at 5,567.19, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped 0.9% to 18,352.76. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.17%, or 67.87 points, higher, to finish the session at 39,375.87.

— Pia Singh

Some key inflation readings in the week ahead could bolster the case for a September interest rate cut, as investors deliberate how long stocks can sustain their rally to record highs.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read the full story here.

— Sarah Min

JPMorgan Chase is heading into earnings season on a high note.

Shares of the global bank are up 1.4% as the holiday-shortened week comes to a close. The stock is up about 3.9% over the past month and roughly 20.5% this year. JPMorgan will be one of the first major companies to report its second-quarter results on July 12, one week from today.

JPMorgan thinks Constellation Brands stock can recover and rally after a sell-off earlier this week.

“Given favorable secular trends in U.S. alcoholic beverage consumption, including premiumization and faster growth in legal-drinking age Hispanic consumers, and further distribution runway for powerhouse Modelo Especial and emerging brands, we view the company’s long-term revenue growth targets for its core beer segment as achievable,” analyst Andrea Teixeira wrote in a note this week.

Teixeira also addressed concerns tied to Constellation’s wine and spirits segment that fueled part of the stock sell-off, which she says will improve with time as margins grow and the company “premiumizes the portfolio.”

CNBC Pro subscribers can read the full story here.

— Brian Evans

Apple shares advanced 6.9% week to date, on track to close out a holiday-shortened week of gains.

The iPhone maker’s move higher helped bolster the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite, each of which hit record highs this week.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sold $59.65 million worth of stock on June 28 and July 1, according to securities filings and information compiled by VerityData as of Wednesday.

Huang made his sales under a 10b5-1 trading plan. The plan establishes a predetermined price and time for executives to sell their shares in the future. 

More on recent insider sales can be found here.

— Hakyung Kim

The U.K.’s opposition Labour Party won a resounding parliamentary majority in the country’s general election to unseat the incumbent Conservative Party after 14 years. Labour had won more than 400 of the 650 seats in Parliament, according to the results with nearly all ballots counted.

Keir Starmer, leader of the center-left Labour, will become the country’s next prime minister and declared victory in the early hours.

Goldman Sachs upgraded its growth forecast for the U.K. following the election. The firm now forecasts gross domestic product to rise an additional 1 basis point in 2025 and 2026 to 1.6% and 1.5%, respectively.

The benchmark FTSE 100 index was last up around 0.9%.

— Hakyung Kim

Small-cap stocks have underperformed this week, building on the difficulties faced by this group in the first half of the year.

The small cap-focused Russell 2000 has dropped more than 1% this week. With that, it is now lower by 0.2% on the year.

By comparison, all three of the major indexes are up on the week and year. The benchmark S&P 500 has climbed more than 1.5% this week, bringing its year-to-date rally above 16%.

Here are the stocks on the move midday:

• Nvidia – Shares of the artificial intelligence darling fell 1% after a rare negative call on Wall Street. New Street Research downgraded Nvidia to hold from buy, citing limited upside given the big run already this year. It is only the second downgrade of Nvidia this year.
• Macy’s – Shares of the retailer jumped more than 12% after The Wall Street Journal reported that the investor group of Arkhouse Management and Brigade Capital Management increased its buyout offer. The group is now offering about $24.80 per share for Macy’s, up from $24 previously, the report said.
• Crypto stocks — Stocks tied to the cryptocurrency plummeted after the trustee for the now defunct Mt. Gox exchange said the company has begun making payments in both bitcoin and bitcoin cash to creditors. Marathon Digital was down 6% following the news, while Microstrategy and Coinbase were each down more than 3%. Bitcoin miner Iris Energy tumbled 6%, while fellow miner CleanSpark fell 2.5%. Trading platforms Robinhood and Riot Platforms were both down more than 2% as well.

Read the full list here.

— Sean Conlon

The iShares MSCI South Korea ETF (EWY) is up 2.4% on Friday, on pace for its eighth straight positive day and best daily performance since June 12, when the exchange-traded fund climbed around 2.5%.

Week to date, the ETF is up 3.2%, on track for its fifth straight weekly gain and best week since April 26, when EWY advanced 3.3%.

Samsung Electronics rallied nearly 6.9% this week, turning in its fifth straight positive week and the best week since March 22, when it added 9.1%.

— Hakyung Kim, Gina Francolla

U.S. crude oil topped $84 per barrel on Friday, touching two-month highs, as the benchmark is on pace for a fourth straight weekly gain.

West Texas Intermediate hit an intraday high of $84.52 per barrel, the highest level since late April.

Oil prices have rallied recently as analysts forecast a tighter third quarter, with inventories falling as summer fuel demand picks up and OPEC+ keeps production cuts in place through September.

Geopolitical tensions in the Middle East have also provided support as Israel and the Iran-backed militia Hezbollah stand on the brink of war.

Hurricane Beryl has underlined weather risks to refineries and oil production facilities on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Though Hurricane Beryl is not expected to cause major disruptions, weather forecasters are expecting a highly active hurricane season this year.

— Spencer Kimball

Investors can expect two interest rate cuts this year, according to David Kelly, JPMorgan Asset Management’s chief global strategist.

Friday’s jobs report adds to the view that the economy is tightening at a glacial pace, Kelly said. While it is hard to read into market movement on the Friday after the Independence Day holiday, he said traders can reasonably expect the Federal Reserve to decrease the cost of borrowing money in September and December.

“What we’re seeing is the economy is cooling, but it’s cooling slowly,” he said on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.” “That’s very much the theme of this jobs report.”

One detail of the report he highlighted: Despite the labor market remaining tight, it is not resulting in outsized wage growth, as evidenced by average hourly pay figures.

Kelly said he is now looking toward next week’s consumer price index release, which he said should be down to 3.2% on an annualized basis. That can push the personal consumption index lower, he said, and give the Fed justification to start lowering rates in the near future.

The strategy chief advised investors to ensure they are properly diversified within the stock market. That is because a correction could hit the rallying megacap technology stocks particularly hard, Kelly warned.

— Alex Harring

Traders upped their bets on a September interest rate cut following Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report for June.

The report, which showed slightly better-than-expected job creation and a bump up in the unemployment rate to 4.1%, helped raise expectations that the Federal Reserve would ease when it meets on Sept. 17-18.

Odds of a quarter-point cut increased to about 75% Friday morning, up from 64% a week ago, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch monitor of fed funds futures pricing. Expectations for a second reduction in December also increased, up to 72% from about 53% last week.

— Jeff Cox

The June jobs report showed uneven growth, with health care and social assistance and government jobs as the key areas of strength. Together, those areas accounted for roughly three-fourths of last month’s job growth.

On the other hand, employment for professional and business services fell by 17,000 jobs. Jeffrey Roach, chief economist at LPL Financial, pointed out that the unemployment rate ticked up among workers with at least a bachelor’s degree

“The increase in the unemployment rate, especially for those with at least a Bachelor’s degree, suggests a modest cooling of the labor market. So far, we don’t see apocalyptic signs within the labor market, but investors should be wary when the labor market is supported by government payrolls,” Roach said in a note Friday morning.

Check out the chart breaking down June’s jobs growth by sector here.

— Jesse Pound

Federal Reserve officials at their June meeting showed little inclination to start lowering interest rates until they see better progress on inflation, according to minutes released Wednesday.

Participants at the June 11-12 session of the Federal Open Market Committee said they did not envision cuts “until additional information had emerged to give them greater confidence that inflation was moving sustainably toward the Committee’s 2 percent objective,” the summary stated.

Officials debated over the future of policy, with some members standing ready to hike if inflation turns higher, while others noted the importance of responding to economic weakness.

— Jeff Cox

Shares of Nvidia have jumped about 3% since the start of the week, and look poised to snap a two-week losing streak.

The leading artificial intelligence chipmaker pulled back a combined 6.4% in the last two weeks of June as some investors consolidated gains in the sector.

The stock slipped less than 1% during Friday’s session after New Street Research downgraded the chipmaker to neutral. Shares are up 159% since the start of 2024.

The S&P 500 opened just above flat, while the Nasdaq Composite was 0.15% higher shortly after 9:30 a.m. ET. The Dow lost 55 points, or about 0.1%.

— Pia Singh

Several U.S. Treasury yields reached lows going back to April on Friday as traders analyzed the latest labor data.

The well-followed 2-year yield moved as far down as 4.631%. That marks its lowest level since April 1, when it touched 4.595%.

The 1-year yield slipped as low as 5.019%. That is its lowest going back to April 4, when it recorded 4.997%.

The 6-month yield at one point fell to 5.297%, its worst point since April 5. On that day, the yield hit 5.294%.

— Alex Harring, Gina Francolla