Stocks close at records
All the three major averages finished at record levels on Monday.
The S&P 500 rose 1.23% to end at 6,875.16. The Nasdaq Composite also gained 1.86%, closing at 23,637.46. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 337.47 points, or 0.71%, to reach 47,544.59.
— Sean Conlon
Companies that have top- and bottom-line beats are ‘not being reward with outsized price action,’ Wolfe Research says
While the current reporting season has been off to a solid start, shares of companies that have posted earnings and revenue beats are not seeing big post-earnings moves, according to Chris Senyek, chief investment strategist at Wolfe Research.
“With 145 S&P 500 companies having reported, we view trends coming out of earnings season to be positive so far,” the strategist wrote in a Monday note. “Our sense is estimates were likely too low as tariff policy uncertainty continues to linger, though having less of an impact.”
“Despite the solid quarter, early trends have indicated that companies beating on the top- and bottom-lines are not being reward with outsized price action (+1.3% vs. LT avg of +1.6%),” Senyek also said. “However, with price action improving over last quarter, our sense is that investors are returning their focus on company fundamentals versus macro forces.”
— Sean Conlon
Keurig Dr Pepper poised for best day since 2020
Keurig Dr Pepper shares headed for their best day in more than half of a decade on Monday after revenue came in stronger than Wall Street expected.
Shares gained more 7% in afternoon trading. If that holds through closing bell, it would mark the stock’s biggest one-day gain since March 2020, when it surged more than 22%.
Keurig Dr Pepper, 1-day
The 7UP and Canada Dry parent posted $4.31 billion in third-quarter revenue, exceeding analyst expectations of $4.15 billion, according to FactSet. The company’s earnings per share of 54 cents, excluding items, came in line with analysts’ consensus forecast.
Despite Monday’s rally, shares are still down more than 9% in 2025.
— Alex Harring
Citi says to buy AngloGold Ashanti
Thomas Fuller | SOPA Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
Citi kicked off coverage on AngloGold Ashanti on a positive note.
Analyst Ephrem Ravi initiated the gold stock at a buy rating. Ravi’s $90 price target implies U.S.-listed shares can surge more than 31% over last week’s finishing level.
“We expect the company to be net cash position 3Q’25, and expect substantial excess cash over the next 12 months, which generates further growth and cash returns optionality,” Ravi wrote in a Monday note to clients.
Shares fell more than 5% on Monday. Despite that, the stock has surged around 180% this year.
— Alex Harring
Wall Street initiates coverage of AI play Fermi at a buy rating
A smattering of Wall Street shops launched their coverage of data center developer Fermi at a buy rating.
Fermi, which develops electric grids that power AI data centers, saw its first day of public trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market earlier this month. Following the stock’s post-IPO blackout period, shops such as Mizuho, Stifel, UBS and Rothschild & Co Redburn all adopted a bullish stance on the name.
“Fermi is a pureplay on Artificial Intelligence (AI) power, formed to provide a differentiated large-scale off-grid power solution for AI leaders facing increasing grid access constraints and mounting social and regulatory scrutiny as the AI power draw from the grid grows,” wrote Rothschild & Co Redburn. “At such an early stage of development, the risks are not insignificant. However, Fermi’s progress to date is impressive, and we see valuation risk/reward as skewed to the upside, with a clear path to derisking the equity story over the next 12-18 months.”
The firm’s price targets on the stock ranged from $27 to $31. The lower end of this range represents a 15% upside from Fermi’s Friday closing price, while the higher end implies a 32% upside.
Shares of Fermi have climbed about 14% since their initial public offering price of $21.
FRMI 1M chart
— Lisa Kailai Han
Tesla on pace for best day since September
Tesla shares were nearly 6% higher in afternoon trading Monday, pacing for their best day since Sept. 12, when it gained 7.4%.
Monday’s move puts the stock’s six-month advance at about 61%, far exceeding the S&P 500’s gain of more than 24% in that period.
TSLA, 1-day
— Nick Wells, Sean Conlon
Check out the stocks making midday moves Monday
Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon delivers a keynote speech at Computex in Taipei, Taiwan May 19, 2025.
Ann Wang | Reuters
- Qualcomm — The chipmaker soared more than 11% after announcing artificial intelligence processors to compete with AMD and Nvidia. The AI chips are a shift for Qualcomm, which has previously focused on semiconductors for wireless connectivity and mobile devices, not massive data centers.
- Intellia Therapeutics — The clinical stage genome editing company plunged 45% after pausing patient dosing and screening for its MAGNITUDE and MAGNITUDE-2 Phase 3 clinical trials. Â
- Fermi — The AI data center developer briefly climbed as much as 9% before giving back the entire gain. Mizuho, Stifel, UBS and Rothschild & Co. Redburn began research coverage after Fermi’s Sept. 30 IPO at $21 per share, assigning price targets ranging from between $27 to $31. Fermi has no revenue, but analysts are bullish on its deals to produce nuclear-power reactors for an AI data center campus in Texas. UBS, Evercore ISI, Cantor and Mizuho led Fermi’s IPO. Shares most recently were off 1.1%.
Read here for the full list.
— Scott Schnipper
Palantir hits a new all-time high
Palantir jumped 3% Monday and had hit a new all-time high, surpassing its prior high from mid-August.
Monday’s gains came as Poland signed a with Palantir as the country seeks to upgrade its army amid record military spending.
The stock has been one of the best performers in the S&P 500 this year, rallying more than 150%.
Palantir Monday
— Yun Li
Bessent names five finalists for Fed chair
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks to reporters as U.S. President Donald Trump stands next to him aboard Air Force One en route to Tokyo, Japan, for the second stop on his Asia tour, Oct. 27, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday confirmed that the list of candidates to replace Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has been winnowed down to five, and President Donald Trump said the replacement is likely to be named by the end of the year.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Bessent said the finalists are current Fed Governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh, and BlackRock executive Rick Rieder, according to several media outlets.
Those names were reported earlier this month by CNBC. Read more.
— Jeff Cox
Goldman Sachs upgrades Victoria’s Secret to neutral following recent fashion show
In a Monday note, Goldman Sachs upgraded shares of lingerie seller Victoria’s Secret to a neutral rating from sell. The bank’s new 12-month price target of $32, raised from $18 prior, still represents a 4% downside from the company’s Friday close.
Shares of Victoria’s Secret have fallen 18% this year.
VSCO YTD chart
As a catalyst, analyst Brooke Roach pointed to the recent “successful” Victoria’s Secret fashion show on Oct. 15, which could indicate improving sentiment among consumers for the brand.
“The company has obtained new leadership and implemented several transformation initiatives under its Path to Potential strategy which have driven sequentially stronger brand relevance and consumer engagement with both the Victoria’s Secret and PINK banners,” the analyst wrote. “Our trackers now suggest modest improvements in brand engagement, lower promotionality, and improved net purchase intent vs. peers.”
Upcoming tailwinds include strengthening execution and a more robust innovation pipeline, she added.
— Lisa Kailai Han
Factory output holds positive in Texas, Fed survey shows
Manufacturing production in the Texas region held up in October though business activity remained weak, the Dallas Federal Reserve reported Monday.
The central bank’s monthly survey of business conditions showed a reading of 5.2 for the key production index, unchanged from September. Though the general business activity index improved, it was still negative at -5.0, up from -8.7 a month ago.
Inflation-related indexes eased a bit while the employment index rose 5.4 points to 2.0.
The survey measures the difference between companies reporting expansion against declines in activity.
— Jeff Cox
Argentina posts strong market, currency gains following Milei triumph
Argentina’s President Javier Milei waves to supporters as he arrives at the ruling party’s La Libertad Avanza headquarters following the results of the national midterm legislative election in Buenos Aires on Oct. 26, 2025.
Luis Robayo | AFP | Getty Images
Argentina’s President Javier Milei, with the strong backing of the Trump administration, won a landslide victory Sunday that was even stronger than polls had indicated.
La Libertad Avanza (“Freedom Advances”) took 41.5% of the vote, giving Milei a veto-proof majority with which to continue his economic austerity agenda. With its libertarian agenda, the party has been able to slash inflation from 12.8% to 2.1% while achieving a fiscal surplus and enacting sweeping deregulation actions.
Markets reacted positively to the political developments. An exchange-traded fund that mirrors activity in the nation, the Global X MSCI Argentina ETF, soared 19% Monday. The Argentinian merval also saw outsized gains, rising more than 17%.
President Donald Trump has been a strong backer of Milei, tying some $40 billion in financial aid to the election.
— Jeff Cox
Huntington Bancshares, American Water Works drop after planning large acquisitions
Wall Street analysts remain skeptical on Beyond Meat
Beyond Meat products are offered for sale at a grocery store on February 29, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois.
Scott Olson | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Wall Street remains skeptical on Beyond Meat. Shares of the alternative meat food company soared more than 230% last week, but analysts say liquidity issues and a poor sales outlook continue to weigh on the stock. The stock was down by more than 6% on Monday.
“We remain Underweight on BYND,” Barclays’ analyst Benjamin M. Theurer wrote on Friday. “While the company has avoided immediate liquidity issues with its recent debt swap, declining sales and operating losses continue to linger. We will need to see a consistent period of turnaround and cost-cutting from BYND as it faces consistent negative FCF.”
BTIG’s Peter Saleh, who has a neutral rating on the stock, wrote that the company’s preannounced results show further earnings downside. He also specified that the recent “meme frenzy doesn’t actually help make money.”
“The weaker sales growth outlook, heightened competition, existing cash burn and uncertainty on additional capital raises lead to our Neutral rating,” he wrote.
Beyond Meat, 1-day
— Sarah Min
Qualcomm shares pop 18% after company announces AI chips to compete with AMD, Nvidia
Shares of Qualcomm jumped more than 18% on Monday, reaching a fresh 52-week high, after the company announced that it will release new artificial intelligence accelerator chips to target the AI inference market.
The announcement marks a shift from Qualcomm, which has so far focused on semiconductors for wireless connectivity and mobile devices and not massive data centers. In announcing these new chips, Qualcomm is matching Nvidia and AMD’s graphics processing units, or GPU, offerings and adding competition to the AI semiconductor market.
Qualcomm said that both the AI200, which will go on sale in 2026, and the AI250, planned for 2027, can come in a system that fills up a full, liquid-cooled server rack.
Qualcomm stock performance this year.
Qualcomm shares are up more than 29% year to date.
— Pia Singh, Kif Leswing
Stocks hit new highs
The three leading U.S. indexes soared to new heights on Monday morning.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 325.19 points, or about 0.7%, to a high of 47,532.31. The S&P 500 rose around 1% to 6,856.30, and the Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.5% to 23,547.64.
— Sean Conlon
Stocks open in the green to kick off the trading week
Stocks traded higher on Monday morning.
The S&P 500 rose 0.9% just after the opening bell, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also moved up 302 points, or 0.6%.Â
— Sean Conlon
Stocks making the biggest moves premarket
Jeff Greenberg | Universal Images Group | Getty Images
Here are some of the names making moves before the opening bell.
- Avidity Biosciences — Avidity Biosciences surged 43% after Novartis said it would acquire the biopharmaceutical company for about $12 billion in cash. Novartis will pay Avidity shareholders $72 a share, a premium of 46% to Friday’s closing price. U.S.-listed shares of Novartis shed 1.4%.
- Lululemon Athletica — Shares rose 6% after the athletic apparel maker announced it was partnering with the National Football League and Fanatics to launch an apparel collection for all NFL teams.
- GameStop — The video-game retailer gained more than 4% after the White House’s official X account reposted a statement from GameStop’s handle that the “console wars” are over with an AI-generated image of President Donald Trump as a character from video game franchise “Halo.” GameStop’s statement comes after Microsoft said that Xbox game Halo will be available on rival Sony’s PlayStation, the first time that the game will be available on a competing console.
To see more stocks moving in premarket trading, read the full story here.
— Michelle Fox
Janus Henderson jumps on buyout report
Shares of Janus Henderson jumped nearly 14% after Bloomberg reported that Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management is working on an offer to buyout the asset manager.
Trian Fund Management is working with investment firm General Catalyst to acquire the remaining shares of Janus Henderson it doesn’t already own, the report said. The offer values the asset manager at about $7 billion, according to Bloomberg, who cited people familiar with the matter.
— Michelle Fox
JPMorgan upgrades discount retailer Five Below
JPMorgan sees several upcoming catalysts for Five Below as the fall holiday season approaches.
The bank upgraded shares of the discount retailer to an overweight rating from neutral. It also raised its price target to $186 per share from $154.
Shares of Five Below have surged 49% this year. JPMorgan’s new price target is approximately 19% above where the stock closed on Friday afternoon.
CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.
FIVE, 1-day
— Lisa Kailai Han
Keurig Dr Pepper gains after latest quarterly results
A Keurig coffee maker at a store in New York, US, on Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024.
Eilon Paz | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Keurig Dr Pepper shares jumped more than 8% in premarket trading on Monday after the beverage company posted better-than-expected third-quarter revenue and raised its full-year revenue growth outlook.
The company posted revenue for the quarter of $4.31 billion, above the $4.15 billion that analysts polled by FactSet had penciled in. Adjusted earnings came in line with the consensus estimate at 54 cents per share.
Keurig Dr Pepper also increased its revenue growth guidance for the full year, now expecting that to be in the high single-digit percentage range compared to last year. That’s up from its prior guidance of a mid-single-digit percentage range.
KDP, 1-day
— Sean Conlon
Global stocks rally on U.S.-China trade deal hopes
Global markets rallied at the start of the week as investors were buoyed by growing optimism that the U.S. and China are nearing an agreement on trade.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 added about 0.3% on Monday morning, which followed earlier solid gains across Asian markets, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 breaching the 50,000 mark for the first time to close up 2.46% and South Korea’s Kospi rising 2.57% on the day. Read more.
— Hugh Leask
Rare earth stocks fall after Bessent says China to delay export controls
Shares of several U.S.-listed rare earth miners fell on Monday as U.S. officials said they expect China to delay introducing export controls on critical minerals as part of a broader trade deal.
Critical Metals fell 8.5% in premarket trade, USA Rare Earth declined 7.2%, MP Materials was down 5.3% and Trilogy Metals lost 5%. Energy Fuels and NioCorp Developments, meanwhile, traded 4% and 6% lower, respectively.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told NBC News’ “Meet The Press” on Sunday that Washington and Beijing were expected to reach a deal to avoid a new 100% U.S. tariff on Chinese goods, with Beijing set to defer on imposing strict rare earth export controls.
His comments come ahead of a high-stakes meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday. Read more.
Critical Metals shares, 1-day
— Sam Meredith
Novartis strikes $12 billion deal to acquire Avidity Biosciences
A sign of Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis is seen on the top of a building at Novartis Campus in Basel on Sept. 9, 2025.
Fabrice Coffrini | AFP | Getty Images
Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis has agreed to buy biotechnology company Avidity Biosciences for about $12 billion, the company said Sunday.
Novartis will pay Avidity shareholders $72 a share in cash, a premium of 46% to the company’s Friday closing price.
The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2026, after Avidity spins out parts of its business, including its early-stage precision cardiology programs, the company said in a statement.
Read the full story here.
— Liz Napolitano
Stock futures rise
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 rose 0.7% and 0.9%, respectively, around 6 p.m. ET on Sunday. Dow futures added 290 points, or 0.6%.
— Liz Napolitano
