Happy all-time highs to those who celebrate. The S&P 500 (+0.41%) set a new intraday high, then closed out the day at 6,978.60, good for a new record close.
It's the first record for the index since Jan. 12, made possible by a rally in tech. That same rally helped lift the Nasdaq Composite (+0.91%) nearly one percent, putting it within reach of a fresh all-time record at 23,817.10.
The Russell 2000 (+0.26%) crawled out of an intraday decline and mangled its way to a few basis points of gains. For the small cap index, the increase helped avoid a repeat day of declines, during which the index had retreated more than 2%.
The Dow (-0.83%), on the other hand, wasn't so lucky. The index finished out the day just a hair above 49K as 18 of the index's 30 strong holdings faced declines. However, the decline in UnitedHealth Group (-19.52%) was most weighty. Health insurers paled significant declines today after the Trump Administration floated a mere 0.09% increase on government payments for private medicare plans, hammering shares of Humana (-21%), CVS Health (-14.14%), and Elevance Health (-14.33%), among others.
Controversy wasn't exclusive to the health care space as Oracle (-4.12%) fell over four percent in response to a days-long outage on the recently-acquired TikTok US, an analyst report floating massive layoffs to bridge the gap for data center funding, and rising bids on credit default swaps (essentially, bets the company won't pay its debt.) American Airlines (-7%) also caught flack as the carrier struggled to recover from the recent winter storm, with Tuesday shaping up to be its worst day in the more than 100+ year history of the airline.
Separate tech talk, controversies, and upcoming earnings, the Dollar also faced fresh pressure today, with the Euro topping $1.20 on the greenback for the first time since 2021. Currency pressures were only exacerbated after President Trump said he "isn't concerned" about a decline in the currency. Of course, traders were as the Dollar Index fell 1.3%, hitting 95.81.
But tomorrow, the big deal will be big tech earnings --- and whether they can meet expectations for investors. Join our coverage tomorrow as we crack away at results from Microsoft, Meta, and Tesla, among others.
-- Noah Weidner
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