Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City on June 18, 2025.
Timothy A. Clary | Afp | Getty Images
Stocks were relatively unchanged on Friday as investors contemplated the next move from the Federal Reserve and monitored the latest developments out of the Middle East.
The S&P 500 fell 0.1%, while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 73 points, or 0.2%.
Chip stocks came under pressure following a report by the Wall Street Journal that the U.S. may revoke waivers for some semiconductor manufacturers. Nvidia was down more than 1%, while Broadcom and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing each fell more than 2%. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) was lower by nearly 2%.
The S&P 500 started off the trading session higher after Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said that the central bank could cut interest rates as early as July. “I think we’re in the position that we could do this and as early as July,” Waller said during a “Squawk Box” interview.
“That would be my view, whether the committee would go along with it or not,” he added.
This comes after Fed Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday the central bank was in no hurry to cut benchmark rates and will remain data dependent, especially as it remains unclear how President Donald Trump’s tariffs will impact the economy. The S&P 500 closed slightly lower that day following those remarks.
Trump ripped into Powell again Thursday, saying the Fed Chair is costing the U.S. “hundreds of billions of dollars” by delaying rate cuts. The president said ahead of the Fed’s decision Wednesday that “stupid” Powell “probably won’t cut” rates.
Traders also bid stocks higher slightly as oil prices pulled back with Trump saying Thursday that he would decide whether to strike Iran within the next two weeks but wanted to allow for “a substantial chance of negotiations.” International benchmark Brent slid more than 2%, while U.S. crude was marginally higher.
Tensions around the Israel-Iran conflict still remained high, however, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly ordering Jerusalem’s military to strike “strategic targets” in Iran, as well as “government targets.” Trump is weighing direct U.S. involvement with a strike on Tehran, with the White House on Thursday saying that he will make a final decision within the next two weeks. Trump previously called for Tehran’s complete surrender, to which Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, labeled the notion “threatening and ridiculous.”
“There are several key questions to answer before we know how stocks will handle this geopolitical shock, including how much of Iran’s energy infrastructure will be impaired and for how long, whether Iran’s nuclear capabilities will be completely wiped out, and whether the current regime will remain in power,” said Jeff Buchbinder, chief equity strategist for LPL Financial.
For the week, the S&P 500 was higher by 0.2%. The 30-stock Dow has risen by 0.3% on the week, while the Nasdaq has jumped 0.5%.
Here are the biggest market movers midday
- GXO Logistics— The stock popped more than 11% after the supply chain and warehousing management firm raised its full-year earnings outlook. The company now sees EBITDA between $860 million and $880 million. GXO also appointed Patrick Kelleher as CEO, effective Aug. 19.
- CarMax— Shares jumped 6% after CarMax reported first-quarter results that exceeded analyst expectations. The car retailer earned $1.38 per share on revenue of $7.55 billion. Analysts polled by LSEG expected a profit of $1.16 per share on revenue of $7.52 billion.
- GMS— The specialty building products stock jumped 26% as a bidding war for GMS has reportedly developed betweenQXOandHome Depot. QXO said late Wednesday that it was offering $95.20 per share for QXO, while theWall Street Journal reportedFriday that Home Depot had also made an offer privately.
Check out the full list here.
— Fred Imbert
Building stocks climb amid reported bidding war for GMS
Building stocks were moving higher on Friday amid a reported bidding war for GMS.
Late Wednesday, billionaire Brad Jacobs’ QXO announced an all-cash offer of $95.20 per share for GMS, a building products company. On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Home Depot has also made an offer of an undisclosed amount.
Shares of GMS surged 28% on Friday, putting its stock price above $100 per share. QXO and Home Depot rose 4.4% and 0.9%, respectively.
Shares of GMS rose sharply on Friday.
U.S. may cancel technology waivers for some chipmakers, Wall Street Journal reports
A U.S. official has told major semiconductor manufacturers that the U.S. may revoke waivers that allow the companies to access American technology in China, the Wall Street Journal reported citing people familiar with the matter.
Specifically, the official told Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing that he wanted to cancel blanket waivers those companies have, the report said.
U.S.-traded shares of Taiwan Semi moved lower after the report and were down about 2% in late morning trading.
Shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing moved lower in late morning trading Friday.
— Jesse Pound
Swiss National Bank takes cuts to zero as inflation lags
A view of the headquarters of the Swiss National Bank (SNB), before a press conference in Zurich, Switzerland, March 21, 2024.
Denis Balibouse | Reuters
The Swiss National Bank has slashed its key borrowing rate to zero, potentially paving the way toward negative real rates again in Europe.
In a decision announced Thursday, the central bank noted it “is countering the lower inflationary pressure. The SNB will continue to monitor the situation closely and adjust its monetary policy if necessary, to ensure that inflation remains within the range consistent with price stability over the medium term.”
Deflation took hold in the Swiss economy during May, with the rate down 0.1% and the full-year forecast falling to 0.2% for average inflation.
“The economic outlook for Switzerland remains uncertain. Developments abroad continue to represent the main risk,” the bank said in a statement.
The SNB could go to negative rates if inflation falls further “though it will not take that decision lightly given the costs of negative rates in particular to banks,” Krishna Guha, head of global policy and central bank strategy at Evercore ISI, said in a note.
“The return to a zero policy rate follows inflation falling negative with extreme strength in the Swiss Franc on safe haven demand following Trump trade wars and the accompanying decline at the margin in global appetite for holding dollars,” Guha added.
President Donald Trump has been badgering the U.S. Federal Reserve to cut its key rate, noting the trend of cutting from its European counterparts.
— Jeff Cox
Bearishness spikes back up among individual investors after one-week decline
Bearishness toward the outlook for stocks over the next six months spiked to 41.4% of respondents after a one-week decline to 33.6% last week, according to the latest weekly survey by the American Association of Individual Investors. The historical average over the length of the survey is 31.0%.
Bullish sentiment dropped to 33.2% from 36.7% last week, and remains below the historic average of 37.5% for the 18th week out of the past 19, the AAII said.
Roughly 41% of those surveyed said they’d recently become slightly or much more conservative in their investments, while a little less than 10% said they’d become much more aggressive, according to a special question AAII asked this week. The balance reported no change or only modest changes to their investments.
— Scott Schnipper
Philadelphia Fed June monthly manufacturing survey worse than estimated
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve manufacturing business outlook for June came in at -4, worse than Wall Street’s estimate of -2, as forecast by economists surveyed by Dow Jones. The prices paid index fell 18 points to 41.4, the lowest since February, the report said.
Manufacturing activity in the region, which includes eastern and central Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware, “remained weak,” the survey said. “The survey’s indicator for current general activity remained slightly negative, unchanged from May,” while the new orders index and the shipments index remained “below their nonrecession averages,” according to the survey. “The employment index turned negative and fell to its lowest value since May 2020. Both price indexes moderated but remain elevated. The survey’s future indicators suggest less widespread expectations for growth over the next six months,” it showed.
Survey responses were collected from June 9 to June 16.
— Scott Schnipper
Stocks open in positive territory
Stocks traded up on Friday morning.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 122 points, or about 0.3%, just after the opening bell. The S&P 500 gained 0.4%, while the Nasdaq Composite increased 0.5%.
— Sean Conlon
Stocks making the biggest moves premarket
A view of a CarMax dealership on April 10, 2025 in Santa Rosa, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
Check out the companies making headlines before the bell.
CarMax— Shares jumped 10% after CarMax reported first-quarter results that exceeded. Earnings of $1.38 per share on revenue of $7.55 billion exceeded an LSEG consensus of $1.16 in earnings per share and revenue of $7.52 billion.
GMS— The specialty building products stock jumped 26% as a bidding war for GMS has reportedly developed betweenQXOandHome Depot. QXO said late Wednesday that it was offering $95.20 per share for QXO, while theWall Street Journal reportedFriday that Home Depot had also made an offer privately. Shares of QXO were up 2.4% in premarket trading, while Home Depot dipped less than 1%.
Darden Restaurants— Shares were up nearly 3% after the Olive Garden parent’s fourth-quarter earnings beat on both the top and bottom line. Adjusted earnings were $2.98 a share, topping expectations by 1 cent, according to LSEG. Revenue was $3.27 billion, versus the $3.26 billion expected. Darden also authorized a new $1 billion share repurchase program.
Read the full list here.
— Sarah Min
JPMorgan reiterates overweight rating on Cisco
JPMorgan reiterated its overweight rating on Cisco, saying security transformation can drive up valuation 20 times.
“Networking growth in the medium term can track to at least mid-single digit growth helped by the upgrade cycle associated with newly launched switches,” the Wall Street firm said in a note.
The firm said Cisco will benefit from opportunities associated with the networking cycle as well as an increase in the organic growth pace in security revenues. JPMogan’s 12-month price target of $73 would translate into a 11% gain from the current level.
— Yun Li
Tesla shares rise ahead of planned robotaxi launch
TSLA, 1-day
A group of seven Democratic lawmakers in Texas have called on Tesla to delay the launch until September, when a new law requiring operators of self-driving cars to receive prior authorization from the Department of Motor Vehicles is set to take effect.
“As members of the Austin delegation in the Texas Senate and Texas House of Representatives, we are formally requesting that Tesla delay autonomous robotaxi operations until the new law takes effect on September 1, 2025,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter shared in a post on X by Texas state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt. “We believe this is in the best interest of both public safety and building public trust in Tesla’s operations.”
— Sean Conlon
UK retail sales tumbled in May
Shoppers and visitors to the capital wait and walk outside Fortnum & Masons on Piccadilly, on June 13, 2025, in London, England.
Richard Baker | In Pictures | Getty Images
Retail sales in the United Kingdom saw an unexpectedly large decline in May, the Office for National Statistics said Friday.
The government office said sales volumes declined 2.7%, while economists had expected a dip of just 0.5%, according to Reuters.
The decline was the biggest since December 2023 and came on the heels of a 1.3% rise in April.
The FTSE 100 was higher on the day despite the worse-than-expected data.
— Jesse Pound
CarMax jumps following earnings beat
CarMax shares surged about 10% in the premarket Friday after its first-quarter results topped Wall Street’s expectations.
The used car retailer earned $1.38 per share for the quarter, coming in above the $1.16 per share that analysts surveyed by LSEG were looking for. The company’s revenue of $7.55 billion also beat the consensus estimate of $7.52 billion.
KMX, 1-day
— Sean Conlon
Asia-Pacific markets trade mixed after China keeps benchmark rates steady
Asia-Pacific markets traded mixed Friday after China kept benchmark rates steady, while investors monitored escalating tensions between Israel and Iran.
U.S. President Donald Trump is now weighing whether to back the Israeli military and strike Tehran. The White House said that he will make afinal decision within the next two weeks.
Hong Kong’sHang Seng Indexended the day 1.26% higher at 23,530, while theCSI 300index closed flat at 3,846.64, after the People’s Bank of Chinaat 3.0% for the 1-year loan prime rate and 3.5% for the 5-year LPR.
Japan’sbenchmarkNikkei 225closed 0.22% lower at 38,403.23 while the broader Topix index fell 0.75% in choppy trade to 2,771.26
The country’s core inflation rate climbed to 3.7% in May, its highest level since January 2023. The metric — which strips out costs for fresh food — was higher than the 3.6% expected by economists polled by Reuters and is above April’s print of 3.5%.
In South Korea, theKospiindex increased by 1.48% to end the day at 3,021.84, it’s highest in over 42 months, after crossing the 3,000 mark for the first time in 42 months, earlier in the session. Meanwhile, the small-cap Kosdaq climbed 1.15% to 791.53
Over in Australia, theS&P/ASX 200 ended the day down 0.21%, paring losses to close at 8,505.50.
India’s benchmarkNifty 50advanced 1.05% while the BSE Sensex gained 1.13% as of 1.40 p.m. Indian Standard Time.
— Amala Balakrishner
Trump slams Fed Chair Powell as ‘destructive’
U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell walks to attend a press conference following the issuance of the Federal Open Market Committee’s statement on interest rate policy in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 18, 2025.
Kevin Mohatt | Reuters
President Donald Trump added to his criticism of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Thursday, after the central bank kept benchmark interest rates unchanged a day earlier.
Trump labeled Powell as “destructive” in a Truth Social post on Thursday, and also said the central bank chair is costing the United States “hundreds of billions of dollars”by leaving rates steady.
— Brian Evans
Stock futures slip on Thursday
Stock futures were lower on Thursday, as investors continue to keep a close eye on tensions in the Middle East.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 201 points, or 0.04%, while Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.5%. S&P 500 futures pulled back 0.4%
— Brian Evans