Thursday, August 14, 2025
Markets were mostly flat for the day, aside from the small-cap Russell 2000, which gave back the majority of its +2% gains yesterday, closing today’s session -1.24%. The S&P 500 managed to stamp a third-straight all-time closing high, +0.03%. The Dow finished the day -0.025%, coming up from being down -200 points earlier, and the Nasdaq slipped -0.01%.
Analysts still see a 25 basis-point (bps) interest rate cut coming at the Fed’s next meeting on monetary policy. However, that’s still four weeks away, September 16-17. Between now and then we get another Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Producer Price Index (PPI) report a week from that Fed meeting, as well as Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE), which will bring us more inflation data — to say nothing of the BLS jobs report the first week of next month.
Which means the current 93% change of a September cut may come down further, depending on the data. But as of Tuesday, market participants were grimacing before a potentially hot CPI number. When they didn’t get it, the markets rallied. PPI numbers, however, jumped nearly a full percentage point this morning, and after at first taking some wind out of the sails, have crept back up to at or near new all-time highs.
Applied Materials Beats but Guides Lower
LCD and PV cell maker Applied Materials AMAT outperformed on both top and bottom lines this afternoon, with earnings of $2.48 per share easily surpassing the Zacks consensus of $2.34 on revenues of $7.3 billion instead of the $7.2 billion estimated. Yet a weak outlook for the current quarter is sending shares down -12% in late trading today.
The stock has given away almost all of its year-to-date gains in today’s after-market, even though it outpaced the trailing 4-quarter average earnings beat. But these downward guides are pretty sizable: $6.7 billion on the top-line versus a previously expected $7.3 billion. The midpoint on earnings guidance is $2.11 per share is down from the prior $2.38 per share.
What to Expect from the Stock Market Tomorrow
Sometimes Fridays are light on economic reportage, but not so tomorrow. Retail Sales, Imports and Exports, and Industrial Production/Capacity Utilization — all for July — are expected before the opening bell. Also the August print for Empire State manufacturing. After the session begins, Business Inventories for June and Consumer Sentiment for August hit the tape.
As far as earnings go, we slow down to end the week but the pick up strong next week. Not only big-box retailers like Walmart WMT, Target TGT, Home Depot HD, Lowe’s LOW and The TJX Companies TJX come out with their July quarters starting next Monday, but also Palo Alto Networks PANW and Estee Lauder EL.
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
