Stock Market News for May 2, 2025
U.S. stock markets closed higher on Thursday to start May. Strong earnings results by AI giants have boosted market participants' confidence on risky assets like equities. No bad news on tariffs and trade related issues also bolstered investors' sentiment. All three major stock indexes ended in green.
How Did The Benchmarks Perform?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) rose 0.2% to close at 40,752.96. The blue-chip index posted a eight-day winning streak, for the first time since July 2024. Notably, 15 components of the 30-stock index ended in positive territory and 15 finished in negative zone.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite finished at 17,710.74, rising 1.5% or 264.40 points due to strong performance of technology bigwigs. The S&P 500 was up 0.6% to finish at 5,604.14. The benchmark posted a eight-day winning run, for the first time since November 2024.
Eight out of 11 broad sectors of the broad-market index ended in positive territory and three in negative zone. The Technology Select Sector SPDR (XLK) rose 1.5%, while the Health Care Select Sector SPDR (XLV) fell 2.7%.
The fear-gauge CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) was down 0.4% to 24.60. A total of 16.15 billion shares were traded on Thursday, lower than the last 20-session average of 19.56 billion. Advancers outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by a 1.31-to-1 ratio. On Nasdaq, a 1.19-to-1 ratio favored advancing issues.
Earnings Data
Meta Platforms Inc. META reported first-quarter 2025 earnings of $6.43 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 23.18%. The figure surged 36.5% year over year. Revenues of $42.31 billion beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2.61% and increased 16.1% year over year. At constant currency, revenues soared 19% year over year.
Microsoft Corp. MSFT reported third-quarter fiscal 2025 earnings of $3.46 per share, which beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 8.13% and increased 17.7% on a year-over-year basis. Revenues of $70.06 billion increased 13.3% year over year and beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2.46%. At constant currency, revenues grew 15% year over year, showcasing strong demand for cloud and AI offerings.
Consequently, stock price of Meta Platforms and Microsoft climbed 9% and 7.6%, respectively. Both stocks currently carry a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Economic Data
The institute of Supply Management (ISM) reported that manufacturing PMI (purchasing managers' index) for April contracted to 48.7% from 49% in March. The consensus estimate was 48.8%. Any reading below 50% indicates contraction in manufacturing activities. The new orders index rose to 47.2% in April from 45.2% in March. The Employment Index in April came in at 46.5% from March's figure of 44.7%.
Construction spending decreased 0.5% in March, in contrast to the consensus estimate of an increase of 0.2%. The metric for February was revised downward to 0.6% from 0.7% reported earlier.
The Department of Labor reported that initial claims increased 18,000 to 241,000 for the week ended April 26, higher-than the consensus estimate of 225,000. Previous week's data was revised upward from 222,000 to 223,000.
Continuing claims (those who have already received government aids and reported a week behind) increased 83,000 to 1.916 million. This is the highest level for insured unemployment since the week ended Nov. 13, 2021. Previous week's data was revised downward by 8,000 to 1.833 million.
5 Stocks Set to Double
Each was handpicked by a Zacks expert as the #1 favorite stock to gain +100% or more in 2024. While not all picks can be winners, previous recommendations have soared +143.0%, +175.9%, +498.3% and +673.0%.
Most of the stocks in this report are flying under Wall Street radar, which provides a great opportunity to get in on the ground floor.
Today, See These 5 Potential Home Runs >>
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.
Microsoft Corporation (MSFT): Free Stock Analysis Report
Meta Platforms, Inc. (META): Free Stock Analysis Report
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Globe and Mail
3 hours ago
- Globe and Mail
3 Top AI Stocks to Buy in June 2025
The U.S. equity market made a strong recovery in May 2025, fueled by robust earnings, decreasing trade tensions, and rising investor confidence in the U.S. economy -- a significant improvement compared to the market's performance in April 2025. Now, Deutsche Bank analysts have raised the target for the benchmark S&P 500 index from 6,150 to 6,550 by the end of 2025. Given this renewed market optimism, artificial intelligence (AI) stocks are poised to be key beneficiaries of the next wave of capital inflows. Long-term investors can benefit from this trend by investing in these high-quality, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered companies that offer significant growth potential in the evolving market landscape. June is a good time to take a closer look at these three top AI stocks. 1. Nvidia Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) has reported stellar results for the first quarter of fiscal 2026 (ended April 27, 2025). The company reported revenue of $44.1 billion, representing a 69% year-over-year increase. Nvidia also generated a solid $26 billion in free cash flow. Nvidia currently accounts for nearly 80% of the AI accelerator market. While a dominant presence in AI training workloads, the company is also focused on inference (real-time deployment of pre-trained models) workloads. The company is at the forefront of handling reasoning workloads (computationally intense and complex inference workloads) with its Blackwell architecture systems. Major cloud providers are already deploying these chips at a massive scale -- almost 72,000 GPUs weekly -- and plan to ramp up even more in the coming quarter. Hence, Blackwell is powering the next phase of AI where technology is thinking longer, solving problems, and giving better answers than just responding with pre-written answers. Besides hardware leadership, Nvidia's robust software ecosystem has ensured developer lock-in and a sticky customer base. With the CUDA parallel programming platform, TensorRT for deployment, and NIM microservices for inference, clients find it extremely costly and time-consuming to switch to competitors. The company has also built a healthy networking business, with this segment's revenue growing 64% quarter over quarter to $5 billion in the first quarter. Thanks to the technological superiority of its comprehensive ecosystem, Nvidia managed to provide a healthy outlook for fiscal 2026's Q2, despite its revenue being negatively affected by nearly $8 billion due to export restrictions for the Chinese market. Nvidia stock trades at 31.8 times forward earnings, which is not a particularly cheap valuation. But considering its growth trajectory and competitive advantages, Nvidia is a smart AI pick now, even at elevated valuation levels. 2. Broadcom Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO) has emerged as a prominent AI infrastructure player in 2025. The company's custom AI chips and networking solutions are being increasingly used by three prominent hyperscaler clients -- rumored to be Alphabet, Meta Platforms, and Chinese company ByteDance -- to optimize the execution of their specific workloads. CEO Hock Tan expects the three hyperscalers to generate a serviceable addressable market (SAM) of $60 billion to $90 billion in fiscal 2027. Additionally, the company is engaging with four additional hyperscalers to develop custom chips, underscoring the even larger market potential. Beyond custom chips, Broadcom is building the critical networking infrastructure that enables the training and deployment of large and powerful frontier AI models. The company's recent $69 billion acquisition of VMware positioned it as a key player in the enterprise software and hybrid cloud infrastructure space. With VMware's cloud orchestration and virtualization technologies, Broadcom can offer full-stack AI infrastructure solutions to its clients. Broadcom stock currently trades at 37.8 times forward earnings. However, considering its critical role in building global AI infrastructure, the company is an excellent pick, despite the rich valuation. 3. CoreWeave Previously a cryptocurrency mining operator, CoreWeave (NASDAQ: CRWV) has now positioned itself as a prominent "AI Hyperscaler." Unlike traditional hyperscalers such as Amazon 's AWS, Microsoft 's Azure, or Alphabet's Google Cloud Platform, which are primarily designed for general-purpose applications, CoreWeave's cloud infrastructure has been specifically designed for AI and machine-learning workloads. The company has established an extensive network of 33 purpose-built AI data centers across the United States and Europe. Solid demand for CoreWeave's specialized AI-first cloud infrastructure is directly driving its exceptional financial performance. The company reported $982 million in revenue in the first quarter of fiscal 2025, up 420% year over year. At the same time, the company's adjusted operating income rose 550% year over year to $163 million. This highlights that the company is on its way to becoming profitable, despite the high level of capital expenditures typical in the AI data center business. The company had a massive $25.9 billion revenue backlog from multi-year contracts at end of the first quarter. CoreWeave's strategic partnership with Nvidia is proving to be a significant competitive advantage. The deep relationship has given the company preferential access to Nvidia's cutting-edge GPUs and advanced networking technologies. With Nvidia having more than a $2.5 billion equity stake in CoreWeave (at current prices), the latter is practically assured of continued access to next-generation GPUs in the coming years. CoreWeave stock currently trades at 37.5 times sales, which seems quite rich. However, the elevated valuation is justified considering the company's huge addressable market, robust contract backlog, and impressive financial performance, making it a buy now. Should you invest $1,000 in Nvidia right now? Before you buy stock in Nvidia, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Nvidia wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $669,517!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $868,615!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor 's total average return is792% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to171%for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 2, 2025 John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Manali Pradhan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends Broadcom and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Globe and Mail
5 hours ago
- Globe and Mail
The 3 Best Growth Stocks to Buy With $100 Right Now
Growth stocks have been some of the best-performing investments over the last few years, but 2025 brought some challenges for growth investors. The increased volatility from growing global trade tensions and economic uncertainty hasn't been kind. Nonetheless, the S&P 500 Growth index has managed to eke out some outperformance of the S&P 500 index over the last month or so. With more downside from factors like tariffs priced into many growth stocks now compared to the beginning of the year, there could be room for them to continue outperforming through the rest of the year and beyond. Still, investors should remain mindful to be sure they're getting good value for the price they're paying. You can still overpay for a great growth stock. Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Continue » Importantly, you don't need a lot of money to get started with investing. Even if you have just $100 available to invest, you can buy shares in any of the following three great growth stocks that could outperform over the coming years. 1. Marvell Technology Marvell Technology (NASDAQ: MRVL) is a chip designer that's been a big beneficiary of the growth in artificial intelligence spending. There are two primary areas where Marvell's business benefits from the strong growth in generative AI infrastructure: its custom AI accelerators and its networking chips. Marvell is the company behind Amazon 's Trainium 2 custom AI accelerator, and it recently won Amazon's Inferentia order to make its custom AI inference chips. It also works with the three other hyperscalers (Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta Platforms) for various data center chip designs, including Microsoft's Maia AI accelerator. Marvell's stock has been beaten down over concerns about hyperscalers working with other chip designers, like AIchip. However, management reported that it secured deals wth both Amazon and Microsoft to design their next-generation AI accelerators during the company's first-quarter earnings call. That said, given the demand for custom silicon, it's not unreasonable to see one or both of them use a secondary source to supplement Marvell. Marvell also makes networking chips, and it holds a particular advantage in optical modules that transfer data using light. Marvell's chips enable servers to communicate data with each other faster, increasing the efficiency of each cluster's performance. As data centers and clusters grow bigger and bigger, demand for Marvell's networking chips stands to grow considerably. Marvell stock trades for around $65 per share as of this writing. That gives it a forward P/E of just 23, which is an exceptional value considering the growth prospects ahead of it. While the growing reliance on a few select customers makes the company risky, it looks secure in its ability to hold onto those customers and grow its business. And given the price, there's less downside to the stock than just a few months ago when it traded at more than twice the price. 2. Block Block (NYSE: XYZ) is the company behind Cash App and Square. It disappointed investors recently due to a shortfall in Cash App's gross profit growth in the first quarter. But the recent sell-off could be a great opportunity for growth investors. Cash App aims to increase revenue per user through growing spend on the Cash Card (where it collects interchange fees) and expanding the number of services its users engage with in the app. The more services a user takes, the more likely they are to stick with the app. Its most recent service is Cash App Borrow, which gives users small, short-duration loans. The new product could help address the core issue leading to disappointing results for Cash App last quarter: a slowdown in spending. That result speaks to the more vulnerable nature of Cash App's core users. In an economic slowdown, Cash App users may be the first to cut back on spending. Major credit card networks notably didn't see a slowdown last quarter. The Square side of the business remains a leader in onboarding small businesses. It's focused on several core verticals, including restaurants, beauty, and services businesses. That's enabled it to build out a core software stack that makes it easy for small businesses to get up and running on its platform and start transacting. That's produced predictable growth and return on customer acquisition spending as it continues to grow its share of the microbusiness market while working to move upstream to bigger businesses. Block's current share price of around $63 is just 16.5 times analysts' estimates for 2026 earnings. While Block is expected to see an earnings dip this year, it should quickly recover in 2026, surpassing 2024 earnings. While short-term economic uncertainty has weighed on the stock (as it should), the long-term outlook remains strong thanks to its growing ecosystem and the network effect driving customer growth and retention. 3. DraftKings DraftKings (NASDAQ: DKNG) is one of the largest sports betting companies in North America. The company successfully leveraged its brand in Daily Fantasy Sports to rapidly expand into sports betting after a Supreme Court ruling legalized it in 2018. That brand strength gives it a significant advantage in the sports betting market. That's seen in its ability to attract about 400,000 new monthly unique payers to its platform over the past year despite increased competition from well-known brands like ESPN and Fanatics. But the growing popularity of DraftKings creates a second advantage for the business: more and better user data. Data is an extremely valuable asset in sports betting. Better data means more accurate and up-to-date money lines, more personalized and effective promotions, and faster expansion into new bet types, like in-game parlays. It can also help identify sharp bettors and mitigate the losses the sportsbook makes, and identify acquisition opportunities like DraftKing's recent Jackpocket purchase. DraftKings faces potential headwinds from lawmakers and regulators. Illinois recently passed a new tax law requiring sportsbooks to pay $0.25 per bet for the first 20 million bets and $0.50 per bet thereafter. DraftKings may be better positioned to absorb taxes like that than smaller sportsbooks with less regional coverage. DraftKings can shift its marketing focus to friendlier states where it can generate better profit margins. DraftKings did lower its revenue and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) expectations alongside its first-quarter earnings report. Still, at just $34 per share, the stock trades for an enterprise value -to-forward-EBITDA ratio of about 21 based on management's outlook for 2025. Management's long-term outlook calls for an average EBITDA growth of 35% for 2026 through 2028 based on its 2025 outlook. That makes the current price a great value for growth investors. Should you invest $1,000 in Marvell Technology right now? Before you buy stock in Marvell Technology, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Marvell Technology wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $669,517!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $868,615!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor 's total average return is792% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to171%for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 2, 2025 Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Adam Levy has positions in Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Block, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool recommends Marvell Technology and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Globe and Mail
21 hours ago
- Globe and Mail
Why an Investment in This Index Can Be the Best Gift You Give New Grads This Year
May and June are graduation season, and if you haven't decided what to get for the new grad in your life, you may want to consider gifting them an investment. It may not be as flashy as a car or trip abroad, but that investment is likely to grow over time. In the process, it can not only underscore just how valuable investing can be but also how simple it can be as well. Beginners often believe successfully investing in the stock market must be a complex undertaking that requires years of experience and countless hours of research. But picking a good investment can be much easier than that. Tracking a broad market index such as the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) is arguably the simplest way for anyone to get started, and your gift can put the new grad you know on the right path. Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Learn More » Why an investment in the S&P 500 makes sense for new grads The biggest advantage young investors have is time. The problem is that many students and young professional aren't thinking about saving for retirement. Even if they are, they're often financially unable to do so as they grapple with student debt, rent payments, and other adult responsibilities. Or worse, they're most interested in finding the next big growth stock or chasing meme stocks. Investing in the safe and dependable S&P 500 probably doesn't rank too highly in any of these scenarios. But with decades ahead of them, new grads will benefit immensely from the effects of compounding. The S&P 500 has grown an average of 10% per year in its history, enough to mint a sizable nest egg for patient investors (more on this below). And beyond this attractive rate of return, the index is made up of 500 of the largest U.S. companies with exposure to all of the major sectors, industries, and geographic markets. Here's how much your gift could grow over time Though I've been talking about the benefits of investing in the S&P 500, you can't just buy a piece of the index. Instead, you can invest in an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that tracks it and offers very similar returns. A popular option is the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: SPY). This low-cost fund has an expense ratio of just 0.0945%, so for every $1,000 you have invested in the ETF, you lose less than $1 per year to management fees. When investing over the long term, high expense ratios can add up to hundreds and thousands of dollars. Over the past decade, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF has grown more than 180%. Including dividends, its total return climbs above 230%. Data by YCharts. That works out to a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.7% over the past 10 years, which is higher than the S&P 500's historical average. But taking a slightly more conservative approach and assuming the index and ETF will deliver a 10% annual return long term, here's how different sized gifts -- all invested in the SPDR S&P 500 ETF -- could grow for a new grad: Gift Amount 20 Years 30 Years 40 Years 50 Years $100 $673 $1,745 $4,526 $11,739 $200 $1,345 $3,490 $9,052 $23,478 $500 $3,364 $8,725 $22,630 $58,695 $1,000 $6,727 $17,449 $45,259 $117,391 $2,000 $13,455 $34,899 $90,519 $234,782 $3,000 $20,182 $52,348 $135,778 $352,173 Table and calculations by author. Your gift could become a five or even six-figure sum if its recipient is patient enough to let compounding do its magic. Though inflation will diminish the purchasing power of the estimates above, this is still a great example of how a simple investment in the stock market can become a major windfall for young grads, even if retirement planning is the last thing on their minds. Should you invest $1,000 in SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust right now? Before you buy stock in SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $669,517!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $868,615!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor 's total average return is792% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to171%for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 2, 2025
