Thursday, July 24, 2025
Markets started the session mixed, and not much changed through the course of the trading day. The blue-chip Dow followed its +500-point Wednesday by selling off -316 points, -0.70%. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq were both up modestly, +0.07% and +0.18%, respectively. The small-cap Russell 2000, which had been starting to draw even with the better-performing indexes, fell -1.3% on the day.
S&P Services PMI for July came in nicely above expectations earlier today: 55.2 versus estimates of 53.2 and the previous month’s 52.9 — and the highest print so far in 2025. Demand seems to be on the rebound for services; it was only this past April when we last saw this metric below 51 (50 is the threshold between growth and loss).
S&P Manufacturing PMI, however — also for July — sunk below 50 for the first time since December: 49.5 on the headline, below the 52.7 anticipated and the 52.9 posted for June. New orders declined for the first time this year, perhaps owing to a pull-forward of manufacturing ahead of domestic tariff policy, which is still evolving.
Tech giant Intel INTC posted mixed results in its Q2 earnings report after the closing bell today. Negative earnings of -$0.10 per share were well off the +$0.01 expected, and the +$0.02 per share reported in the year-ago quarter. Revenues, on the other hand, came in at $12.9 billion in the quarter, nicely above the Zacks consensus of $11.87 billion.
Intel submitted mixed guidance for next quarter, as well: while revenue expectations of between $12.6-13.6 billion pulled higher the top end of the range, but earnings for Q3 are expected at $0.00 per share, not the 2 cents Zacks analysts had projected. Plus, Intel announced it will be cutting another -15% of its workforce. It wasn’t too long ago Intel had over 100K employees; they have been downsizing in a big way.
Deckers Outdoor DECK, meanwhile, ripped estimates on both top and bottom lines, beating with earnings of 93 cents per share versus expectations of 68 cents. Revenues of $965 million rose +17% year over year, up from the $899 million in the Zacks consensus. Guidance remained in range with where are estimates already were, with Wholesale gaining +26.7% and International +49.7%.
Shares had shot up as much as +20% on the news, but are dwindling back down to around +7%. Deckers had been far outperforming earnings estimates going back the past couple years, but shares had not come back from the April lows; DECK is still down around -40% year to date.
