Stocks wavered for much of Thursday but ultimately scored solid gains after legal maneuvers resulted in President Donald Trump's tariffs being temporarily reinstated. The gains might have also been fueled on the stock market today by reports that said Trump met with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell in an effort to lobby for lower interest rates.
Leading chip stock Nvidia broke out on very good Q1 results despite a key change in U.S. restrictions on AI semiconductor exports to China. The growth stock arguably gave careful chart readers a new cup-with-handle buy point. Meanwhile, some newer issues sold off hard, suggesting a good time to lock in profits.
One example could be found in CoreWeave.
The AI datacenter services specialist hit a new high of 130.76 in the early going, but reversed violently, falling 9% by day's end to 105.55. Volume jumped to 38.6 million shares, higher than Wednesday's relatively tame drop.
A Negative Reversal
The big swing lower after a doubling in price after CoreWeave broke out of a five-week IPO base on May 14 at 64.62 signaled an excellent time to harvest gains. The 102% gain in just 11 days after the breakout is highly unusual.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average flirted with negative territory for much of the day, but ultimately finished more than 100 points higher, or 0.3%. The Nasdaq composite hit a session high of 19,389 not long after the stock market open. But its initial gain of 1.5% evaporated to 0.4% by the close. The Nasdaq 100, collecting that exchange's 100 largest nonfinancial companies, added 0.2%.
Among large caps, the S&P 500 hopped 0.7% before getting reeled in for a smaller rise of 0.4%. At the day's high of 5,943, the 500 was up 1% year to date.
Notice on a daily chart how the large-cap gauge has been treading nicely on the north side of its 200-day moving average for nearly three weeks. That's a bullish change vs. most of March and April, when the S&P stayed submerged beneath its 200-day line.
IBD's Big Picture: These Growth Stocks Underscore Market's Strength
A good bellwether index of the greater economy, the Dow Jones transportation average accelerated its mild gain, going more than 0.5% higher. But among sector indexes, the Dow transports remain a laggard in 2025 so far. At the session high of 14,800, the index is down nearly 7% this year. Small caps fought to keep above water, with the Russell 2000 up 0.3%.
One Dow stock that faltered was Salesforce. The pioneer in on-demand, cloud-based enterprise software reported quarterly results and raised its full-year outlook, but perhaps Wall Street wanted a bigger revision. The megacap software player dropped more than 3%, though it finished near session highs.
Market breadth was positive, a good sign. Advancers beat decliners on the New York Stock Exchange by a more than 2-1 ratio. On the Nasdaq, winners beat losers by nearly 3-to-2.
Another IPO Gets Pummeled
Going back to CoreWeave, the stock is certainly due for a rest. Watch to see if the member of IBD's enterprise software industry group makes a test of the 21-day exponential moving average in the coming days and weeks.
The 21-day line on CRWV's daily chart has risen to 82.32, or 37% below Thursday's high of 130.76.
The Livingston, N.J., company lost $1.28 a share last year and is expected to lose another $1.05 this year. But sales growth is riveting. The top line soared 544% to $747 million in Q4. Wall Street is targeting a net loss of 31 cents in the first quarter this year and a 420% catapult in sales to $981.6 million.
Nvidia has invested significantly in CoreWeave, a major reason why the company successfully completed its IPO at $40 a share in late March. The stock ended its first day of trading on the Nasdaq at 40 on March 28.
Meanwhile, online broker eToro dropped more than 3% and hit a session low of 60.82. That price is still up a healthy 17% from its recent IPO price of 52. But ETOR also marked a new closing low since debuting on the Nasdaq on May 14.
Earnings at the Israel-based firm leapt 274% in the fourth quarter of 2024 to 71 cents a share on a 293% jump in sales to $5.85 billion. There are currently no Wall Street sell-side research analyst-published profit or revenue estimates, but they may come soon.
Stock Market Today: Nvidia Surges Past New Entry
Nvidia gapped sharply higher and rallied more than 6% before gains cooled to roughly 4%. Nvidia now stands as one of the largest companies in the world with a market cap of $3.4 trillion.
The megacap tech reached a three-month high and has put in solid work on a new base. That said, recent sideways action on the daily chart reflects a handle on the base and furnishes an entry at 136.35.
That buy point is based on the intraday high of May 16. On that session, Nvidia marked a near-term closing high. Since that day, Nvidia stock showed a little bit of whipsawing action, yet still traded in relatively tight fashion compared with the stock's sharp sell-off early this year.
From 136.35, the 5% buy zone goes up to 143.17. Therefore, Nvidia stock is in a buy zone.
The leader in artificial intelligence semiconductors and AI-processing computers issued heavy-duty growth in earnings and sales for the fiscal first quarter ended in April. While data center sales missed estimates by a touch, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company issued a solid second-quarter revenue forecast of $45 billion, plus or minus 2%.
3:48 p.m. ET
Trump Gets Tariffs Reinstated, Pressures Powell
Factoring into Thursday's action was the U.S. Court of International Trade's ruling against the Trump administration, which covers a sweeping 10% baseline tax on imports from all key trading partners. That was quickly followed by reports that said an appeals court ruled that current tariffs may stay in place for now.
Other news accounts said Trump pressed on Powell to lower interest rates so that America could better compete with China. Earlier this month, the U.S. central bank decided to keep the fed funds rate for big banks at a target range of 4.25%-4.5%.
On Thursday afternoon, investors bought back long-dated U.S. Treasury bonds. The yield on the benchmark 10-year note fell 5 basis points to 4.42%. The 30-year Treasury bond yield sank by the same amount to 4.92%.
The yield curve has steepened, particularly on the long end of the curve, and this development is noteworthy for bank profits. The Financial Select Sector exchange traded fund advanced a nominal 0.2%, yet remains positive in 2025 with an almost 5% gain.
The 2-year bond yielded 3.95%, according to CNBC data.
Nvidia Breaks Out But Tech Gains Fade; 5 Earnings Movers Late
2:02 p.m. ET
Stock Market Today: What To Look For In Current Markets
In a healthy stock market, seek both the indexes and top growth stocks to trade above the 200-day moving average, not below it. Further, the S&P's 200-day moving average line is now rising a wee bit. That suggests stocks are beginning to show a slight uptrend over the past 10 months of trading.
There are signs stock market bullishness appears to be unabated.
One piece of evidence can be found on the homepage of MarketSurge. It shows a far majority of stocks in the IBD database rising in heavy volume vs. falling in rapid turnover. This suggests anxiousness among traders and institutional players to buy, not sell, shares.
Two, the homepage also highlights as many as seven companies that have broken out of bases and are poised to hit new highs, or already have done so, based on MarketSurge chart pattern recognition technology. Further, another 30 stocks are trading near their pivot points.
One of those seven breakout stocks today is Cheesecake Factory, highlighted as Thursday's IBD Stock Of The Day. Shares were up nearly 2% in recent action.
12:31 p.m. ET
Veeva Systems, ELF Beauty and Uber also stood out among the day's early movers so far.
ELF pulled back from its session high of 120.81, yet still ramped almost 25% higher. Watch to see if its lowly 23 Relative Strength Rating improves quickly. ELF's 3-month RS Rating is stately, however, at 97 out of a possible 99, according to MarketSurge.
10:49 a.m. PT
Uber Skids, ELF Beauty Proves Radiant
While Magnificent Seven megacap techs enjoyed gains, some leaders slumped. Uber sank more than 4% and notched a session low of 83.35 in heavy volume. The stock undercut the 21-day exponential moving average, a sell signal for short-term traders.
Other big moves in the stock market today included ELF Beauty, which soared more than 25% on the trade court ruling. The leader in cosmetics innovation has been beaten down hard in recent months after a toasty run that stretched from a breakout in July 2022 through its peak in March 2024.
But on Thursday, the stock took a pretty nice step toward forming a potential new base. Shares leaped above the falling 200-day moving average for the first time in months.
ELF is not at a proper buy point yet. Even at the session high of 120.81, the stock is still more than 49% off a 52-week high. The company posted a 47% gain in earnings to 78 cents a share as sales edged 4% higher to $333 million. ELF Beauty's gross margin was also healthy at 71.3%, according to MarketSurge data.
Veeva, which reported excellent earnings that were up 31% vs. a year ago, staged a breakaway gap and cleared a standard buy point of 258.93 within a five-month consolidation pattern.
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