6 hr 20 min ago
Decliners
- Shares of server maker Super Micro Computer (SMCI) plunged 13% Monday, leading losses on the S&P 500. Although the volatile stock posted gains in the middle of last week after Supermicro met a deadline for filing its delayed annual report, Mizuho analysts warned of increasing competition and declining market share in the AI server market.
- Meanwhile, Nvidia (NVDA) shares sank 8.7%, extending losses last week as concerns intensified about the sustainability of AI spending and the possible impact of tariffs and chip export curbs.
- APA Corp. (APA) shares lost 8.7%, broadening a downturn for the stock that began last week after the oil and gas exploration firm missed fourth-quarter profit expectations. Although APA enjoyed a production boost in the Permian Basin following last year’s acquisition of competitor Callon Petroleum, declining commodity prices and increasing expenses weighed on the company’s performance.
Advancers
- The top performance among S&P 500 constituents Monday came from shares of insurance company Erie Indemnity (ERIE), which advanced 5.1%. Monday’s push higher added to gains posted last week after the insurer reported better-than-expected earnings for the fourth quarter, boosted by increased management fee revenue from policy issuance and renewal services.
- Shares of real estate investment trust Weyerhaeuser (WY), which is among the world’s largest private owners of timberlands, jumped 4.3% after President Trump signed an executive order over the weekend aimed at promoting domestic timber and lumber production.
- Hershey (HSY) shares added 3.4% on Monday, clawing back losses posted last week as the possibility of cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) weighed on consumer staples stocks.
6 hr 50 min ago
Chipotle stock rose Monday, lifted by an upbeat assessment by analysts at Morgan Stanley.
Burrito chain Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) has solid fundamentals despite recently sluggish sales and dips in profit margins, Morgan Stanley analysts said. The company is poised to reduce its expenses by adopting technology, use this savings to “underprice” competitors and bolster its finances through expansion, they said.
The shares closed 0.7% higher, bucking a steep sell-off for U.S. on Monday, though they’re down about 10% so far this year. Morgan Stanley raised its price target to $70, a few dollars above the average price target among analysts polled by Visible Alpha and nearly 30% above Monday’s close. It also upgraded the shares to “overweight” from “equal weight.”
“As the stock has continued to fade on weak sales data and growth stock pressures, an opportunity to step in has presented itself if one thinks these are short term headwinds,” the analysts wrote. “We’re optimistic about how it evolves.”
Morgan Stanley said Chipotle has historically raised prices more slowly than its peers, and most recently, demonstrated a commitment to value by ensuring customers are given substantial portion sizes. Chipotle will initially absorb higher expenses incurred under tariffs rather than raise prices, CEO Scott Boatwright told NBC over the weekend.
Due to its investment in automation and AI, Chipotle “may be in the unique position of underpricing the competition for many years to come, to maintain or even widen price gaps and protect value prop for the long run, which should in turn help traffic,” Morgan Stanley’s note said.
7 hr 1 min ago
Chipmaking giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM) plans to invest $100 billion in U.S.-based chip manufacturing facilities, CEO C.C. Wei announced alongside President Trump on Monday.
The company said it will build three new chip fabrication plants, two advanced packaging facilities, and a research and development center at its complex in Arizona, growing the company’s total investment at the site to $165 billion.
“The most powerful AI chips in the world will be made right here in America,” Trump said at a televised press conference. “It’s a matter of economic security, it’s also a matter of national security,” he added.
President Donald Trump and C.C. Wei, CEO of TSMC, during an investment announcement at the White House on Monday, March 3, 2025. Samuel Corum / Sipa / Bloomberg / Getty Images
TSMC is the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturer, and expanding its U.S. production aligns with the Trump administration’s stated goal of ensuring AI chips are designed and manufactured domestically. Trump reiterated Monday plans to announce tariffs of 25% or more on semiconductors and other imports on April 2. Tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico will begin Tuesday, Trump said.
The first factory at TSMC’s Arizona complex began production in the fourth quarter of 2024 and was recently in talks to produce Nvidia (NVDA) Blackwell chips. Two plants currently under construction are expected to begin production in 2028 and “by the end of the decade,” according to the company’s website.
The complex was awarded $6.6 billion in federal funding in 2024 through the CHIPS and Science Act, a 2022 piece of legislation supported by then-President Biden that earmarked over $50 billion for investment in semiconductor research and manufacturing facilities in the U.S.
U.S.-listed shares of TSMC fell 4% Monday as Nvidia and other AI and chip stocks lost ground amid concerns about policies on tariffs and chip export curbs.
7 hr 58 min ago
Target (TGT) is set to report fourth-quarter earnings on Tuesday morning, with analysts seeing substantial upside for the retailer’s stock.
Analysts’ ratings are split, with five “buy” and seven “hold” ratings among the brokers who currently follow Target and are tracked by Visible Alpha. Their average price target is around $144. Target shares fell nearly 3% to around $121 on Monday amid a broader downturn on Wall Street.
The retailer is expected to report revenue of $30.77 billion for the quarter and adjusted earnings per share of $2.26, down 3.6% and 24%, respectively, from the same time a year ago. At the same time, analysts expect comparable store sales to rise 1.39% year-over-year, a consensus figure that Morgan Stanley analysts noted this week has risen since Target lifted its comparable sales projection in January.
Analysts from JPMorgan, Oppenheimer, and Morgan Stanley all said in recent notes that they expect Target will likely follow some of its retail rivals like Walmart (WMT) and Home Depot (HD) and remain conservative in their first-quarter and 2025 projections.
Despite a potential conservative 2025 forecast—and concerns over the impact of tariffs and inflation on discretionary spending—Oppenheimer analysts said they “continue to believe shares have bottomed” and said they would “take advantage of any volatility” after the report. They noted that Target shares have fallen after two of the past four earnings reports, with double-digit swings after four of the last five.
JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley analysts also raised the question of succession planning entering 2025, as CEO Brian Cornell recently passed 10 years in the top job. JPMorgan analysts said Cornell planned to stay for three more years as of September 2022, and said they believe an internal candidate to replace him is “most likely.”
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Target shares have lost 22% over the past year, significantly lagging the performance of Walmart stock over the period.
8 hr 17 min ago
Nvidia (NVDA) slumped into bear territory Monday, trading more than 20% below its January all-time high.
Nvidia topped earnings estimates last week, but its meteoric rise and $3 trillion valuation left the chipmaker little room to disappoint. Narrowing profit margins spooked investors, prompting semiconductor and AI stocks to sell off last week.
The contagion continued on Monday, with fellow chipmaker Broadcom (AVGO), slated to report earnings on Thursday, following Nvidia stock lower. Shares of AI server maker Super Micro Computer (SMCI) plunged, as did nuclear power providers Constellation Energy (CEG) and Vistra (VST).
Wall Street’s bullishness has been tempered lately by uncertainty about the outlook for the U.S. economy and the business of AI. Inflation has appeared stickier than expected, and consumer confidence has declined amid concerns about the consequences of Trump’s tariff policies.
The January release of Chinese start-up DeepSeek’s R1 reasoning model, which its developers said could compete with the most advanced U.S. models at a fraction of the cost, injected fresh uncertainty into the AI trade. AI infrastructure stocks—the chipmakers, server makers, and energy providers who have benefited from the build-out of AI data center capacity—plummeted on concerns that DeepSeek’s efficiency would undercut spending.
9 hr 19 min ago
European equities have this year outperformed U.S. stocks by the widest margin since 2000, according to a recent report from Morgan Stanley.
European stocks have rallied on hopes that increased defense spending and an end to the war in Ukraine could stimulate growth.
Recent economic indicators have pointed to a stabilizing European economy that could get more support this year from interest-rate cuts.
Read the full article here.
9 hr 44 min ago
Kroger (KR) shares lost ground Monday after the grocery chain said that CEO and Chairman Rodney McMullen has resigned after a probe on his personal conduct.
McMullen is stepping down “following a Board investigation of his personal conduct that, while unrelated to the business, was inconsistent with Kroger’s Policy on Business Ethics,” the company said.
Kroger said it “was made aware of certain personal conduct by Mr. McMullen” on Feb. 21 “and immediately retained outside independent counsel to conduct an investigation.” Kroger also said McMullen’s conduct wasn’t related to its “financial performance, operations or reporting, and it did not involve any Kroger associates.”
Kroger declined to comment further Monday.
Lead Director Ronald Sargent was appointed board chair and interim CEO, according to a news release.
McMullen joined Kroger in 1978 as a part-time stock clerk in Lexington, Kentucky, according to his biography on the Kroger website, and became CEO in 2014.
Several CEOs in recent years have lost their jobs for personal relationships or other issues that ran afoul of company policies. According to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, seven CEOs left due to allegations of misconduct in 2024 through October last year.
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Shares of Kroger, which is scheduled to report earnings Thursday, were down 2.5% in recent trading. The stock has gained nearly 30% in the past 12 months.
10 hr 41 min ago
Palantir (PLTR) shares climbed Monday as Wedbush analysts called the stock one of its “top names to own in 2025.”
Shares were up about 2% in recent trading, after jumping more than 6% earlier in the session. Despite recent losses, the stock has added about 14% since the start of the year and gained 250% from a year ago.
Shares of the Palantir lost close to one-third of their value since hitting a record high last month after the Washington Post reported the Trump administration directed Pentagon officials to trim the U.S. defense budget by 8% annually for the next five years. The report raised worries Palantir’s sales could take a hit, as the federal government represents a major client for Palantir, accounting for over 40% of its revenue in the fourth quarter.
However, Wedbush analysts told clients Monday that they expect Palantir’s Artificial Intelligence Platform and the Trump administration’s focus on efficiency could leave the company in a “sweet spot to benefit from a tidal wave of federal spending on AI,” even as other government contractors face spending cuts. “We believe Palantir could actually gain more deals and IT budget dollars across various government agencies,” the analysts added.
Wedbush maintained an “outperform” rating and $120 price target for the stock, a nearly 40% premium to Monday’s intraday level.
Several other analysts have voiced similar sentiments in recent weeks, suggesting last month that Palantir could be better positioned than most to benefit from the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency’s goals to cut spending.
11 hr 28 min ago
Morgan Stanley made Tesla (TSLA) its “Top Pick” in the U.S. automobile sector as the firm expands its reach into artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics.
Analyst Adam Jonas wrote in a note to clients that while Tesla’s year-to-date deliveries have been mostly below expectations, he didn’t see it as “particularly narrative changing.” Instead, Jonas said that was “emblematic of a company in the transition from an automotive ‘pure play’ to a highly diversified play on AI and robotics.”
As AI moves from the digital world to the physical world, Morgan Stanley expects to see Tesla’s Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), which is used in self-driving cars and other applications, “further expand to broader domains.”
Jonas, who has an “overweight” rating on the stock, said that he felt Tesla had a more than 50% upside to Morgan Stanley’s price target of $430, with a “bull case” scenario of $800. He added that fiscal year 2025 deliveries could possibly fall, “creating an attractive entry point to our preferred embodied AI name.”
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Tesla shares were down 0.4% at around $292 in recent trading, after rising to nearly $304 early in the session. The stock has lost 28% since the start of 2025, but it’s gained about 44% over the past 12 months, far outpacing the S&P 500.
12 hr 26 min ago
Stocks hit a rough patch in February as the AI rally’s momentum waned and Wall Street grew antsier about an increasingly uncertain economic outlook.
Fourth-quarter earnings season will completely wind down in March, leaving Wall Street with far less to distract from this month’s economic data and the likely torrent of headlines out of Washington.
Here are stocks that are likely to be in the spotlight this month:
- Nvidia: The AI chipmaker will host its annual GPU Technology Conference, which analysts have dubbed the “Woodstock of AI,” between March 17 and 21, with CEO Jensen Huang set to deliver a keynote address at 10 a.m. PT on March 18.
- Tesla: Shares fell 28% in February as investors grew increasingly concerned about the time CEO Elon Musk is spending culling the federal workforce. Musk has become deeply involved with President Donald Trump’s administration as the unofficial leader of the Department of Government Efficiency’s campaign against government spending.
- Target: The retailer is set to report earnings for the three months through January before markets open on March 4. The report from Target (TGT) comes just a couple of weeks after Walmart (WMT), Target’s largest competitor, spooked Wall Street with a conservative full-year outlook.
- Lennar: The homebuilder is scheduled to report quarterly results on March 12. Investors will be paying special attention to executives’ comments on Trump’s protectionist trade policies.
- Momentum stocks: Investors showed signs of souring on the AI trade last month, dealing a big blow to the market’s highest-flying stocks. Palantir (PLTR), Applovin (APP) and and Vistra (VST), three of the year’s best-performing stocks, were among the worst performers in the second half of February. Investors will be eyeing these and other momentum stocks closely for signs of a bottom or acceleration of last month’s slump.
Read the full article here.
13 hours ago
Nvidia (NVDA) shares slid Monday, extending last week’s post-earnings losses amid concerns about artificial intelligence spending and uncertainty about the potential impact of policies on tariffs and AI chip export restrictions.
Shares of Nvidia were down nearly 5% in recent trading to around $119, after falling about 7% last week, leaving them more than 20% below their all-time high in early January.
Mizuho analysts warned clients Friday that Nvidia could potentially face “significant new China AI and export license restrictions,” based on industry checks. Mizuho estimated that could mean a revenue hit to the tune of $4 billion to $6 billion for the AI chipmaker in the second half of the year.
The comments come days after reports the Trump administration is seeking to tighten chip export curbs. Last week, President Trump also announced tariffs against products from Canada and Mexico would go into effect Tuesday, along with the doubling of the existing tariff on goods from China.
Still, analysts have so far largely remained bullish on Nvidia’s stock, pointing to the chipmaker’s strong outlook on the back of growing AI demand. Mizuho analysts said they expect the impacts of headwinds from China and AI chip restrictions to “remain muted.”
The average price target of the 19 analysts covering the stock polled by Visible Alpha is about $177, suggesting nearly 50% upside from Monday’s intraday level.
14 hr 50 min ago
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite all lost ground last month, as investors digested a flurry of earnings reports and grew more concerned about the health of the economy.
The Nasdaq led the decline among major indexes, falling 4% in February, its worst performance since last April. The Dow and S&P 500 fell 1.6% and 1.4%, respectively.
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Coming into Monday’s session, the Dow had gained 3.1% so far in 2025, while the S&P 500 had risen 1.2% and the Nasdaq had lost 2.4%.
16 hr 2 min ago
Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 0.2%.
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S&P 500 futures rose 0.4%.
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Nasdaq 100 futures were up 0.6%.
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