Stocks deteriorated and finished the day in negative territory Thursday, as investors moved past excitement of a possible trade truce between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Meanwhile, Trump's spat with Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk took a huge bite out of the electric-vehicle giant's shares on the stock market today.
Major indexes continued their weakness into the close, after swaying between gains and losses throughout the session. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished the day 0.3% lower. It held up slightly better than the S&P 500, which lost 0.5%, while the Nasdaq lagged with a 0.8% drop. Small caps on the Russell 2000 outperformed the major indexes but were still flat.
Volume was higher on both the Nasdaq exchange and New York Stock Exchange vs. Wednesday. Advancers narrowly edged out decliners on the NYSE, while losers outpaced winners on the Nasdaq by roughly 3-to-2.
Oil prices climbed to around $63.35 a barrel. Bitcoin fell to just above $102,000, and the benchmark 10-year Treasury bond added three basis points to settle just above 4.4%.
Indexes jumped shortly after Trump posted on his Truth Social account that he had a "very good phone call with President Xi" that lasted around 90 minutes, but the initial jubilation faded. The two leaders agreed to meet in person in China to discuss a trade deal and defuse the tariff war.
Tesla Crashes
Tesla continued its slide in heavy trading, adding to Wednesday's 3.6% drop. Selling picked up downward momentum with shares down 17% at the lowest point before trimming losses to around 14% at the close Thursday.
Tesla CEO Musk and President Trump are having trouble seeing eye-to-eye, causing tensions and sending the stock lower.
Musk, who recently finished serving under Trump in the specially created Department of Government Efficiency, has criticized Trump's proposed spending plan and said the president would have lost the 2024 election without his help. Trump, in turn, called Musk "crazy," and suggested he may target the government contracts issued with Musk's companies.
The electric vehicle stock plunged through its 21-day exponential, 50-day and 200-day moving averages. Shares are now far below a 354.99 handle entry.
The stock had its worst day since Sept. 8, 2020, when it sank 21.1% according to Dow Jones Market Data. The electric-vehicle giant sits on the IBD Leaderboard stock list.
Circle Rockets, Settles Back To Earth, Shoots Up Again
In stocks, initial public offering Circle Internet Group more than tripled at one point after it started trading on the NYSE Wednesday afternoon. The stock's offer price was set at 31 Wednesday evening, but shares opened at 69.50 on Thursday.
Shares were temporarily halted after soaring 120%. It resumed trading and rocketed even higher. The stock catapulted as much as 210% earlier in the session, faded, then shot back up again. Shares ended the day up 168% to 83.23 a share.
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3:19 p.m. ET
Stock Market Today: Cybersecurity Stock Breaks Out
Cloudflare jumped nearly 4% to break out of a deep cup base with a 177.37 buy point Thursday. The IBD 50 name is a buy range up to 186.24.
The cybersecurity stock is on pace for nine straight weeks of gains. Its relative strength line hit a 52-week as shown by the blue dot on the MarketSurge chart.
2:52 p.m. ET
Palantir Falls From Grace; Dollar Tree Spikes
Elsewhere, Palantir Technologies plunged while Dollar Tree surged after getting some love from Wall Street on the stock market today.
IBD 50 name Palantir dropped 5.9%, adding to Wednesday's 2.4% loss. Shares fell from the buy zone of a cup-with-handle base with a 125.25 entry and are back below the buy point. Palantir stock undercut its 21-day line on the stock market today.
Dollar Tree spiked around 8.7% after a handful of analysts raised their price targets on the stock. Included was JPMorgan with a price hike to 111 from 72 and an upgrade to overweight from neutral.
Dollar Tree reported better-than-expected fiscal first-quarter profit and sales Wednesday. It also raised its fiscal 2025 earnings guidance and reaffirmed its revenue outlook. The discount retail stock was the biggest gainer on the S&P 500 Thursday.
Futures: AI Giant Falls After Tesla Dives On Musk-Trump Feud
1:43 p.m. ET
Stock Market Today: Tariff Concerns Weigh On Stocks
Earlier, the Dow industrials fell more than 100 points amid Wall Street's concerns over tariffs, U.S. debt and the sinking dollar. Investors are also bracing for a key nonfarm payrolls report on Friday ahead of the open.
Within the 30-stock blue-chip index, laggard tech and biotech names such as Amgen and Salesforce joined at least four other stocks with gains of 2% or more, but those gains faded. The Dow Jones industrials are price weighted, as opposed to the S&P 500 and Nasdaq, which are both market cap weighted.
Early Thursday, the Labor Department reported a surprise increase in weekly unemployment claims at 247,000, 12,000 more than anticipated by Wall Street.
The jobs report comes after a dreary announcement by ADP that private-sector payrolls climbed much less than expected. In May, employers outside the government added 37,000 net new jobs, well below the Econoday forecast of 110,000, ADP said.
CoreWeave Sinks, Robinhood Swings Wildly
Leading IBD 50 stock CoreWeave pulled back more than 15% after four straight days of gains tallying around 54%. The stock is coming off its all-time high of 166.63, reached Wednesday.
Another IBD 50 name, Robinhood Markets, swung wildly in Wednesday's action. Shares jumped more than 6% at one point and touched a fresh new high on the stock market today. Then the stock reversed and was off a fraction before rising again. Robinhood stock was up more than 2% in recent action.
The online broker reported its platform assets topped $250 billion in May and had record trading volumes during the same month. Further, its May crypto total dollar volume increased over 30% month-over-month.
The Investor's Business Daily Leaderboard watchlist name has doubled so far this year, helping it earn a 98 IBD Relative Strength Rating. Mutual funds have piled in the trading app stock, with 1,415 owning shares in March, up from 1,271 in December.
11:53 a.m. ET
New IPOs To Watch
Online trading platform and app eToro exemplified strong interest in initial public offerings with a rally of more than 5%. The member of IBD's Finance-Investment Management industry group priced its IPO in May at $52 a share and is etching a narrow IPO base. For now, the entry point stands at 74.28.
The stock, which has a market value of $5.8 billion, putting it squarely in midcap territory, got some airplay during the Thursday episode of IBD Live.
Circle Internet Group, a specialist in issuing stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency, is set to debut on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, and it will trade under the stock ticker CRCL. The company has very strong fundamentals, according to MarketSurge. In the fourth quarter of 2024, earnings soared 274% to 71 cents a share on a 293% boost in sales to $5.85 billion.
Finally, Venture Global cooled off on Thursday, falling 3%. But this comes after two days in a row of strong gains. The liquefied natural gas infrastructure firm is still below its IPO pricing at $25 a share, but shares have lifted nicely from their April low of 6.75. Trading near 14.40, Venture Global is perhaps building the right side of its initial base.
Go to IBD's Technology News section for the latest on new IPOs, including Circle Internet, and other top-rated growth stocks.
Stock Market Today: Trump, Xi Talk
Major stock indexes advanced right after the open as President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping reportedly connected on a phone call.
The 10-year Treasury yield ticked to a session low of to 4.31% early Tuesday, down 5 basis points, before rebounding a touch to 4.38%. And oil prices rose, as West Texas Intermediate futures traded as high as $63.98 per barrel. But oil is still down sharply for the year and has underperformed other markets.
10:36 a.m. ET
Silver Proves Strong; Dutch Bros Breaks Out
Precious metals mining plays continued their bullish advance in 2025 amid a sharp jump in silver futures. The near-expiration contract rose nearly 3.5% to $35.83 per ounce. At one point, the industrial and precious metal hit a session high of $36.27.
Among exchange traded funds linked to precious metals, iShares Silver Trust rallied more than 4% and made a session high of 32.78. The ETF broke out of a nearly eight-month trading range after peaking at 31.80 in October.
Dutch Bros, a fast-growing coffee chain and member of the IBD 50, outpaced the market. Shares bolted more than 6% higher and moved past a 73.93 buy point in a cup with handle.
The 5% buy zone goes up to 77.63. Volume raced 341% higher than its usual pace in the early going. That big burst of volume indicated institutional traders were eager to scoop up shares.
Dutch Bros posted a 56% jump in earnings to 14 cents a share in the first quarter vs. a year ago as sales lifted 29% to $355 million.
9:46 a.m. ET
Tesla's Losses Deepen
After the open, Tesla's losses compounded as the electric-vehicle maker's shares fell nearly 5%.
If Tesla stock fails to turn around before Thursday's close, it will have recorded its fourth losing session out of the last five trading days. Shares are down more than 8% for the week thus far.
9:26 a.m. ET
Trump, Xi Have A Chat
President Trump and Chinese leader Xi held a phone call ahead of Thursday's open, according to Xinhua, the Chinese state media. CNBC reported that the Beijing's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Trump initiated the call, but it was unclear what came of the discussion.
Early Wednesday, Trump issued a social media post regarding China. The comments came after a White House official said Monday that Trump was likely to speak with the Chinese leader this week.
Trump said: "I like President Xi of China, always have, and always will, but he is VERY TOUGH, AND EXTREMELY HARD TO MAKE A DEAL WITH!!!"
The two nations reached a trade agreement May 12 that suspended tariffs between China and the U.S. for 90 days. But then the two sides later blamed each other for violating the pact.
8:48 a.m. ET
Stock Market Today: Jobless Claims Higher Than Expected
Early Thursday, the Labor Department said that weekly jobless claims rose to 247,000 vs. 240,000 in the previous week. They were expected to fall to 235,000.
The jobless figure comes in the wake of Wednesday's disappointing report from Automated Data Processing, which said payroll additions amounted to just 37,000, instead of the 110,000 expected for May.
The ADP report prompted President Donald Trump to take shots at Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell for not reducing interest rates.
"ADP NUMBER OUT!!! 'Too Late' Powell must now LOWER THE RATE," Trump wrote on Truth Social. The president added: "He is unbelievable," and noted that Europe has lowered interest rates nine times.
While the ADP report initially impacted stocks, all three major indexes ended Wednesday higher.
8:02 a.m. ET
Jobless Claims Due
At 8:30 a.m. ET, the Labor Department is scheduled to release weekly jobless claims. Initial claims have remained low, but continuing claims have trended higher, reflecting a slow-to-hire, slow-to-fire labor market. It's part of a big week of labor data, capped by Friday's May jobs report.
Claims are expected to fall to 235,000 vs. 240,000 in the previous week, per Econoday estimates.
Heavy construction firm Argan, Ciena and specialty discounter Five Below all reported earnings ahead of Thursday's open. Argan stock rose 1% premarket while Ciena stock tumbled nearly 8%. Five Below jumped 6% in early morning trading.
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Stock Market Today: Dow Jones Leader Amazon Eyes Buy Point
Dow Jones e-commerce giant Amazon is approaching a 214.84 cup-with-handle entry, according to MarketSurge chart analysis. Amazon stock rose 0.7% Thursday.
Outside the Dow, artificial intelligence leader and IBD Leaderboard name Broadcom has broken out past a consolidation buy point of 251.88. Earnings are due out late. Broadcom stock advanced 0.8% premarket Thursday.
Magnificent Seven stock and recent IBD Stock Of The Day Meta Platforms is in buy range above a 662.67 entry. Meta stock inched higher Thursday premarket.
Check out IBD MarketSurge's "Breaking Out Today" list for top growth stocks that are moving above correct buy points. Investors also can find potential breakouts on the "Near Pivot" list. To find additional stock ideas, check IBD Stock Lists like IBD 50, Big Cap 20 and Stocks Near A Buy Zone.
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