Stock market today: Dow sheds 800 points, S&P 500, Nasdaq slide as Treasury yields surge, bitcoin hits record
US stocks stumbled Wednesday as bond yields continued to climb, putting pressure on equities as Wall Street fretted about the ballooning US debt while Republican leaders aimed to ready President Trump's tax bill for a House vote.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) fell more than 1.9%, or about 800 points. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) slid about 1.6%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) fell roughly 1.4%. All three major indexes moved lower after a 1 p.m. 20-year bond auction saw weak demand, and Treasury yields surged.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield (^TNX) added 11 basis points to hit 4.59%, while the 30-year Treasury yield (^TYX) added 12 basis points to 5.09%, hovering near its highest level since 2023.
Meanwhile, bitcoin (BTC-USD) rallied to a fresh record of over $109,000 earlier in the session before reversing with the broader market.
Markets are reassessing a recent rally, with the S&P 500 snapping a six-day run of gains as relief over the surprise US-China trade truce faded. Meanwhile, growing concern about the US deficit and ballooning debt has intensified attention on discussions around Trump's tax-and-spending bill.
Wall Street is keeping a close eye on Trump's giant tax bill, as Republicans try to appease all factions of their splintered caucus. Anxieties about the budget bill and the US debt have helped push up US bond yields.
Meanwhile, the US and China have begun feuding over chips again, less than two weeks after agreeing to a temporary pause in tariff hostilities. The Trump administration's warnings against using AI chips by Huawei have undermined the recent trade talks in Geneva, China said, putting the fragile trade deal at risk and reviving worries about economic fallout.
Read more: The latest on Trump's tariffs
Tariffs were in focus for Target's first quarter results, after Trump told retailers they need to "eat" the costs of duties and not pass them on to customers. The discount retailer missed badly on quarterly earnings and cut its full-year outlook, but its top executives repeatedly declined to say whether Target will follow Walmart (WMT) in passing on costs of tariffs via price hikes.
Currency concerns also have alarm bells ringing as the US dollar fell to a two-week low, with traders eyeing the ongoing G-7 meeting for signs the Trump administration may favor a weaker currency.
Stocks were having a rather mundane day until a 1 p.m. 20-year bond auction saw weak demand and Treasury yields surged.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield (^TNX) added 11 basis points to hit 4.59%, while the 30-year Treasury yield (^TYX) added 12 basis points to 5.09%, hovering near its highest level since 2023.
Stocks subsequently sold off. Interest rate-sensitive pockets of the market led the declines, with Real Estate (XLRE) falling 2.6% to lead the S&P 500 sector action. Meanwhile, the small-cap Russell 2000 Index (^RUT) also sank about 2.6%.
Yahoo Finance's Dan Howley reports:
OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) is purchasing legendary Apple (AAPL) designer Jony Ive's startup, io, for $6.5 billion in an effort to develop a new family of products that take advantage of generative AI technologies.
'The products that we're using to deliver and connect us to unimaginable technology, they're decades old,' Ive said in a prerecorded video released by OpenAI.
'And so it's just common sense to at least think, surely there's something beyond these legacy products.
Ive famously oversaw the design of Apple's original colorful iMac, as well as products like the iPad, Apple Watch, and, most importantly, the iPhone. He left his position as chief design officer at Apple in 2019 to start his own design company called LoveFrom.
Ive later founded io with his Apple successor, Evans Hankey, as well as Tang Tan and Scott Cannon, who also worked at Apple.
Read more here.
Rising bond yields appear to be at the forefront of the market narrative once again.
In a research note to clients on Wednesday, Piper Sandler chief investment strategist Michael Kantrowitz detailed key levels to watch on the 10-Year Treasury yield and their potential implications on stocks.
"The path of rates will also be crucial for equities, particularly for relative performance," Kantrowitz wrote. "Since 2022, equity markets have struggled when 10yr rates moved above 4.5%-4.75% and we are pushing up against that zone once again."
As Kantrowitz highlights in the chart below, once the 10-year Treasury yield has risen above 4.5%, interest rate sensitive stocks typically see increased underperformance. This played out in Wednesday's action with the Russell 2000 Index (^RUT), which has many companies with more interest rate exposure than the S&P 500, falling nearly 2.2%. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 (^GSPC) was down 1.1%.
\
A 1 p.m. 20-year bond auction saw weak demand, sending Treasury yields surging.
The 10-year Treasury yield (^TNX) added 9 basis points to hit 4.58% while the 30-year Treasury yield (^TYX) added 10 basis points to 5.07%, hovering near its highest level since 2023.
Stocks reversed as yields rose, with all three of the major indexes quickly hitting their lows on the day.
Canada Goose (GOOS) stock rose nearly 30% on Wednesday after the luxury coat maker posted strong first quarter results.
Read more from Yahoo Finance Canada's Jeff Lagerquist.
Alphabet (GOOG,GOOGL) stock led a tech rally on Wednesday as shares rose nearly 5%. The move higher comes after multiple announcements from the company at its Google I/O conference on Tuesday that has Wall Street more bullish on the tech giant's AI prospects.
The company announced new AI glasses and new AI capabilities for its search product during the event on Tuesday.
"We come away from Google I/O incrementally positive as we believe Google is leading in many areas of AI with Gemini at the top of foundational model leaderboards," JPM analyst Doug Anmuth wrote in a note to clients on Wednesday morning.
Bitcoin rose to an all-time high above $109,000 per coin on Wednesday and cryptocurrency stocks followed the world's largest cryptocurrency higher.
Bitcoin passed its old record high just after 11 a.m. ET on Wednesday. Take a look at what happened to shares of Coinbase (COIN), a bitcoin exchange, as well as bitcoin miners MARA Holdings (MARA) and Riot Platforms (RIOT).
Bitcoin (BTC-USD) rallied more than 4% on Wednesday to hit a new all-time high of $109,468 per coin, according to Yahoo Finance data.
The world's largest cryptocurrency extended gains on Wednesday as investors digested growing trade tensions between the US and China while looming concerns over the US debt crisis boiled as well.
The S&P 500's (^GSPC) macro moment may be over.
As tariff news whipsawed markets to start the second quarter, stocks moved roughly in unison. In April, the one-month correlation of stock movements within the benchmark index soared to nearly 0.7, a level only seen in the past five years when the Federal Reserve began hiking interest rates in 2022 and during the onset of the pandemic.
But as President Trump has dialed back the height of his tariffs on other nations, the correlation between stocks in the S&P 500 has tumbled to about 0.16. Piper Sandler chief investment strategist Michael Kantrowitz wrote in a note to clients that this is a sign that the market is shifting from a macro-driven market, where headlines on US trade policy have produced massive swings, to a market driven by company-specific fundamentals.
"After two months of macro-dominated markets, we're likely to continue seeing markets, economic outlooks and sentiment stabilize," Kantrowitz wrote on Wednesday. "We are transitioning to a backdrop with mixed data and mixed views. This should keep market correlations low, as stocks should trade more with micro fundamentals and note entirely on macro headlines like we saw earlier this year."
He added that "many of the macro fears that remain are more likely to be issues that differentiate stocks rather than dominate all of them."
CoreWeave (CRWV) stock is ripping higher again on Wednesday. Shares were up more than 10% in early trading and have now soared about 50% in the past five sessions.
The move higher comes after CoreWeave's first quarterly financial update as a public company revealed a revenue forecast far above Wall Street's expectations a week ago.
In a research note on Wednesday, Citi analyst Tyler Radke boosted his 12-month price target to $94 from a prior target of $43. Radke noted his now anticipating "a cadence of strong [financial results]beats in the near term" for the Nvidia-backed AI play.
But after a more than 100% rally since its IPO, Radke's new price target merely reflects roughly where CoreWeave stock was changing hands on Wednesday.
"While we'd argue a portion of the re-rating is justified, given strong Azure/hyperscaler numbers and capex, we reiterate our Neutral/High Risk rating as we'd like to see more progress on profitability and more customer diversification," Radke wrote.
Target (TGT) shares fell more than 7% in early trading after the company posted earnings results that were weaker than expected and warnrf of a potential drag from tariffs.
Read more on Target's results from Yahoo Finance's Brian Sozzi here.
Long-term Treasury yields continued to surge in the aftermath of Moody's US credit downgrade.
The 30-year Treasury yield (^TYX) rose above the closely watched 5% level on Wednesday morning. It also briefly broke above that threshold on Monday before retreating,
Yahoo Finance's Allie Canal reports:
Read more here.
More losses are weighing on UnitedHealth Group stock (UNH), which traded % lower an hour ahead of the opening bell.
First, HSBC downgraded UnitedHealth shares to Reduce from Hold and slashed its price target by around 45% to $270, a Street low. The analysts cited UnitedHealth's leadership change and pulled guidance as risks to earnings going forward.
Also on Wednesday, the Guardian reported that the healthcare conglomerate secretly paid nursing homes thousands in bonuses to help cut hospital transfers for ailing residents, per Reuters. The move is said to have saved the company millions while risking the health of residents.
UnitedHealth, which is the largest Dow (^DJI) component by weight, has been a drag on the index recently. My colleague Anjalee Khemlani detailed a timeline of UnitedHealth's downward spiral over the past two years, which you can read here, as a cyberattack, the killing of its health insurance business's CEO, and a DOJ investigation have set shares back.
Lowe's stock (LOW) popped 2% on Wednesday after delivering earnings that beat subdued expectations after years of post-pandemic struggles.
Yahoo Finance's Brooke DiPalma writes:
Read more here.
Target (TGT) stock fell over 3% premarket on Wednesday after the retailer reported first quarter results that came in shy of Wall Street's expectations.
Target earnings again fell behind the pace set by rival retailer Walmart (WMT), offering a tough comparison.
Yahoo Finance's Brian Sozzi reports:
Read more here.
Shares of Wolfspeed (WOLF) plunged over 60% on Wednesday on the heels of a report that the semiconductor supplier is getting ready to file for bankruptcy within weeks.
The company is pursuing a Chapter 11 plan as it struggles to tackle its debt pile, per The Wall Street Journal report.
Reuters reports:
Read more here.
Traders faced a widespread outage to Bloomberg's terminal early on Wednesday morning that hampered a UK auction of government debt, per several media reports.
The disruption and delays to the markets data service took hold at around 4:30 a.m. ET and weren't fixed until about 6 a.m.
The Financial Times reported:
Read more here (premium).
Economic data: MBA Mortgage Applications (May 16)
Earnings: Baidu (BIDU), Canada Goose (GOOS), Snowflake (SNOW), Target (TGT), TJX Companies (TJX), Urban Outfitters (URBN), VF Corporation (VFC), Zoom (ZM), Lowe's (LOW)
Here are some of the biggest stories you may have missed overnight and early this morning:
How Trump could push retailers to 'eat' tariff price hikes
Target slashes guidance amid DEI fallout and tariffs
US-China tensions over chips put trade truce at risk
What's next for Tesla as Musk enters a new phase
Lowe's rises as it reports better than expected Q1 earnings
Bloomberg terminal outage hits traders
US-China tensions over chips risk hurting trade truce
'Fortnite' returns to Apple App Store after 4-year battle
Nvidia CEO: US curbs on AI chip exports to China 'a failure'
The dollar (DX=F) sank to a two-week low overnight Tuesday as the US's mounting debt concerns continue to impact the greenback. A Group-of-7 meeting currently underway in Banff, Canada, has brought the administration's approach towards buoying the dollar to the minds of investors.
Bloomberg reports:
Read more here.
CNN has reported that Israel is in its final stages of preparing an attack on Iran, leading to oil prices jumping.
Bloomberg reports:
Read more here.
Stocks were having a rather mundane day until a 1 p.m. 20-year bond auction saw weak demand and Treasury yields surged.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield (^TNX) added 11 basis points to hit 4.59%, while the 30-year Treasury yield (^TYX) added 12 basis points to 5.09%, hovering near its highest level since 2023.
Stocks subsequently sold off. Interest rate-sensitive pockets of the market led the declines, with Real Estate (XLRE) falling 2.6% to lead the S&P 500 sector action. Meanwhile, the small-cap Russell 2000 Index (^RUT) also sank about 2.6%.
Yahoo Finance's Dan Howley reports:
OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) is purchasing legendary Apple (AAPL) designer Jony Ive's startup, io, for $6.5 billion in an effort to develop a new family of products that take advantage of generative AI technologies.
'The products that we're using to deliver and connect us to unimaginable technology, they're decades old,' Ive said in a prerecorded video released by OpenAI.
'And so it's just common sense to at least think, surely there's something beyond these legacy products.
Ive famously oversaw the design of Apple's original colorful iMac, as well as products like the iPad, Apple Watch, and, most importantly, the iPhone. He left his position as chief design officer at Apple in 2019 to start his own design company called LoveFrom.
Ive later founded io with his Apple successor, Evans Hankey, as well as Tang Tan and Scott Cannon, who also worked at Apple.
Read more here.
Rising bond yields appear to be at the forefront of the market narrative once again.
In a research note to clients on Wednesday, Piper Sandler chief investment strategist Michael Kantrowitz detailed key levels to watch on the 10-Year Treasury yield and their potential implications on stocks.
"The path of rates will also be crucial for equities, particularly for relative performance," Kantrowitz wrote. "Since 2022, equity markets have struggled when 10yr rates moved above 4.5%-4.75% and we are pushing up against that zone once again."
As Kantrowitz highlights in the chart below, once the 10-year Treasury yield has risen above 4.5%, interest rate sensitive stocks typically see increased underperformance. This played out in Wednesday's action with the Russell 2000 Index (^RUT), which has many companies with more interest rate exposure than the S&P 500, falling nearly 2.2%. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 (^GSPC) was down 1.1%.
\
A 1 p.m. 20-year bond auction saw weak demand, sending Treasury yields surging.
The 10-year Treasury yield (^TNX) added 9 basis points to hit 4.58% while the 30-year Treasury yield (^TYX) added 10 basis points to 5.07%, hovering near its highest level since 2023.
Stocks reversed as yields rose, with all three of the major indexes quickly hitting their lows on the day.
Canada Goose (GOOS) stock rose nearly 30% on Wednesday after the luxury coat maker posted strong first quarter results.
Read more from Yahoo Finance Canada's Jeff Lagerquist.
Alphabet (GOOG,GOOGL) stock led a tech rally on Wednesday as shares rose nearly 5%. The move higher comes after multiple announcements from the company at its Google I/O conference on Tuesday that has Wall Street more bullish on the tech giant's AI prospects.
The company announced new AI glasses and new AI capabilities for its search product during the event on Tuesday.
"We come away from Google I/O incrementally positive as we believe Google is leading in many areas of AI with Gemini at the top of foundational model leaderboards," JPM analyst Doug Anmuth wrote in a note to clients on Wednesday morning.
Bitcoin rose to an all-time high above $109,000 per coin on Wednesday and cryptocurrency stocks followed the world's largest cryptocurrency higher.
Bitcoin passed its old record high just after 11 a.m. ET on Wednesday. Take a look at what happened to shares of Coinbase (COIN), a bitcoin exchange, as well as bitcoin miners MARA Holdings (MARA) and Riot Platforms (RIOT).
Bitcoin (BTC-USD) rallied more than 4% on Wednesday to hit a new all-time high of $109,468 per coin, according to Yahoo Finance data.
The world's largest cryptocurrency extended gains on Wednesday as investors digested growing trade tensions between the US and China while looming concerns over the US debt crisis boiled as well.
The S&P 500's (^GSPC) macro moment may be over.
As tariff news whipsawed markets to start the second quarter, stocks moved roughly in unison. In April, the one-month correlation of stock movements within the benchmark index soared to nearly 0.7, a level only seen in the past five years when the Federal Reserve began hiking interest rates in 2022 and during the onset of the pandemic.
But as President Trump has dialed back the height of his tariffs on other nations, the correlation between stocks in the S&P 500 has tumbled to about 0.16. Piper Sandler chief investment strategist Michael Kantrowitz wrote in a note to clients that this is a sign that the market is shifting from a macro-driven market, where headlines on US trade policy have produced massive swings, to a market driven by company-specific fundamentals.
"After two months of macro-dominated markets, we're likely to continue seeing markets, economic outlooks and sentiment stabilize," Kantrowitz wrote on Wednesday. "We are transitioning to a backdrop with mixed data and mixed views. This should keep market correlations low, as stocks should trade more with micro fundamentals and note entirely on macro headlines like we saw earlier this year."
He added that "many of the macro fears that remain are more likely to be issues that differentiate stocks rather than dominate all of them."
CoreWeave (CRWV) stock is ripping higher again on Wednesday. Shares were up more than 10% in early trading and have now soared about 50% in the past five sessions.
The move higher comes after CoreWeave's first quarterly financial update as a public company revealed a revenue forecast far above Wall Street's expectations a week ago.
In a research note on Wednesday, Citi analyst Tyler Radke boosted his 12-month price target to $94 from a prior target of $43. Radke noted his now anticipating "a cadence of strong [financial results]beats in the near term" for the Nvidia-backed AI play.
But after a more than 100% rally since its IPO, Radke's new price target merely reflects roughly where CoreWeave stock was changing hands on Wednesday.
"While we'd argue a portion of the re-rating is justified, given strong Azure/hyperscaler numbers and capex, we reiterate our Neutral/High Risk rating as we'd like to see more progress on profitability and more customer diversification," Radke wrote.
Target (TGT) shares fell more than 7% in early trading after the company posted earnings results that were weaker than expected and warnrf of a potential drag from tariffs.
Read more on Target's results from Yahoo Finance's Brian Sozzi here.
Long-term Treasury yields continued to surge in the aftermath of Moody's US credit downgrade.
The 30-year Treasury yield (^TYX) rose above the closely watched 5% level on Wednesday morning. It also briefly broke above that threshold on Monday before retreating,
Yahoo Finance's Allie Canal reports:
Read more here.
More losses are weighing on UnitedHealth Group stock (UNH), which traded % lower an hour ahead of the opening bell.
First, HSBC downgraded UnitedHealth shares to Reduce from Hold and slashed its price target by around 45% to $270, a Street low. The analysts cited UnitedHealth's leadership change and pulled guidance as risks to earnings going forward.
Also on Wednesday, the Guardian reported that the healthcare conglomerate secretly paid nursing homes thousands in bonuses to help cut hospital transfers for ailing residents, per Reuters. The move is said to have saved the company millions while risking the health of residents.
UnitedHealth, which is the largest Dow (^DJI) component by weight, has been a drag on the index recently. My colleague Anjalee Khemlani detailed a timeline of UnitedHealth's downward spiral over the past two years, which you can read here, as a cyberattack, the killing of its health insurance business's CEO, and a DOJ investigation have set shares back.
Lowe's stock (LOW) popped 2% on Wednesday after delivering earnings that beat subdued expectations after years of post-pandemic struggles.
Yahoo Finance's Brooke DiPalma writes:
Read more here.
Target (TGT) stock fell over 3% premarket on Wednesday after the retailer reported first quarter results that came in shy of Wall Street's expectations.
Target earnings again fell behind the pace set by rival retailer Walmart (WMT), offering a tough comparison.
Yahoo Finance's Brian Sozzi reports:
Read more here.
Shares of Wolfspeed (WOLF) plunged over 60% on Wednesday on the heels of a report that the semiconductor supplier is getting ready to file for bankruptcy within weeks.
The company is pursuing a Chapter 11 plan as it struggles to tackle its debt pile, per The Wall Street Journal report.
Reuters reports:
Read more here.
Traders faced a widespread outage to Bloomberg's terminal early on Wednesday morning that hampered a UK auction of government debt, per several media reports.
The disruption and delays to the markets data service took hold at around 4:30 a.m. ET and weren't fixed until about 6 a.m.
The Financial Times reported:
Read more here (premium).
Economic data: MBA Mortgage Applications (May 16)
Earnings: Baidu (BIDU), Canada Goose (GOOS), Snowflake (SNOW), Target (TGT), TJX Companies (TJX), Urban Outfitters (URBN), VF Corporation (VFC), Zoom (ZM), Lowe's (LOW)
Here are some of the biggest stories you may have missed overnight and early this morning:
How Trump could push retailers to 'eat' tariff price hikes
Target slashes guidance amid DEI fallout and tariffs
US-China tensions over chips put trade truce at risk
What's next for Tesla as Musk enters a new phase
Lowe's rises as it reports better than expected Q1 earnings
Bloomberg terminal outage hits traders
US-China tensions over chips risk hurting trade truce
'Fortnite' returns to Apple App Store after 4-year battle
Nvidia CEO: US curbs on AI chip exports to China 'a failure'
The dollar (DX=F) sank to a two-week low overnight Tuesday as the US's mounting debt concerns continue to impact the greenback. A Group-of-7 meeting currently underway in Banff, Canada, has brought the administration's approach towards buoying the dollar to the minds of investors.
Bloomberg reports:
Read more here.
CNN has reported that Israel is in its final stages of preparing an attack on Iran, leading to oil prices jumping.
Bloomberg reports:
Read more here.
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It continued: "The bill's tax provisions alone would reduce federal tax revenue by $4.1 trillion from 2025 through 2034 on a conventional basis before added interest costs. On a dynamic basis, accounting for economic growth, the revenue reduction would fall by nearly 22 percent to $3.2 trillion over 10 years before added interest costs." 6 Nobel Laureates Six Nobel Prize-winning economists — including Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, Peter Diamond, Paul Krugman, Oliver Hart, and Joseph Stiglitz — said in a June 2 letter that the bill would worsen wealth inequality in the US. "The combination of cuts to key safety net programs like Medicaid and SNAP and tax cuts disproportionately benefiting higher-income households means that the House budget constitutes an extremely large upward redistribution of income. Given how much this bill adds to the U.S. debt, it is shocking that it still imposes absolute losses on the bottom 40% of U.S households," the letter said. "The House bill addresses none of the nation's key economic challenges usefully and exacerbates many of them," it added. Ken Rogoff, professor of economics at Harvard University Rogoff, former chief economist at the IMF, cast doubt on the notion that the bill would boost growth in a piece for Project Syndicate this week. "Trump and his acolytes argue that his "big, beautiful bill" will supercharge economic growth, generating enough revenue to make up for sweeping tax cuts. But history offers little support for such claims," he wrote. "While both Democratic-led spending sprees and Republican-backed tax cuts have fueled the growth of US debt over the past two decades, tax reductions have accounted for the lion's share of the increase. Moreover, the notion that tax cuts pay for themselves was already discredited in the 1980s, when President Ronald Reagan's tax cuts led to soaring deficits rather than self-sustaining growth." He added: "Will America's rising debt ultimately trigger a full-blown crisis? Perhaps, but a continued upward drift in long-term interest rates is more likely." Desmond Lachman, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute Lachman, a former IMF official who currently works for a conservative-leaning think tank, said in a June 4 post that rising bond yields, a declining dollar, and appreciating gold prices could be harbingers of an economic crisis brought on by Trump-driven policy volatility. Trump's tax bill is adding to investors' fears due to its inflationary implications. But one of its clauses undermines confidence in the reliability of the returns on Treasurys, he said. "That bill includes a clause that has to be sending shivers down foreign investors' spines. According to Section 899, the US Treasury can impose additional taxes of up to 20 percent on income earned by foreign entities from countries that enact taxes deemed 'unfair' to US interests."
