The S&P 500’s Top Movers on Friday
March 21, 2025 05:05 PM EDT
Gainers:
- Super Micro Computer (SMCI) shares gained the most of any S&P 500 constituent on Friday, surging 7.8% after JPMorgan upgraded the stock to “neutral” from “underweight.” The analysts suggested Supermicro could be poised to benefit from strong demand for AI infrastructure and its servers that incorporate Nvidia’s (NVDA) Blackwell platform.
- Tesla (TSLA) shares also rose, adding 5.3%. CEO Elon Musk held an all-hands meeting with employees Thursday evening in which he told staff to “hang on” to their stock in an effort to shore up confidence following a rough stretch that has seen the stock shed half its value in the past few months.
- Boeing (BA) shares advanced 3.1% after President Trump awarded the aircraft manufacturer with a contract to build the F-47, the U.S. Air Force’s next-generation fighter jet. While financial details were not disclosed, The Wall Street Journal estimated that research, development, and acquisition costs could exceed $50 billion. Shares of defense contractor Lockheed Martin (LMT), which lost out to its rival, slipped 5.8%.
Decliners:
- Micron Technology (MU) shares tumbled 8%, posting the weakest daily performance in the S&P 500. The memory and storage chipmaker posted better-than-expected sales and profits for its fiscal second quarter, but worries about its gross margin trajectory raised concerns, prompting analysts at Citi to trim their price target on the stock.
- Shares of Texas Pacific Land (TPL), which owns major acreage in the oil-rich Permian Basin, fell 7.2% following reports that several company insiders sold off significant positions in the company. Executives recently offloading shares included the company’s CFO as well as its senior vice president and general counsel. Investors often interpret selling by top executives as a lack of confidence in a company’s prospects.
- FedEx (FDX) missed quarterly profit estimates and cut its full-year outlook, citing economic uncertainty. Analysts from UBS and Bank of America lowered their price targets on FedEx stock, and shares of the package delivery giant dropped 6.5% on Friday.
- Steelmaker Nucor (NUE) provided a lower-than-expected profit forecast for the first quarter of 2025, and its shares slipped 5.8%. The company said soft steel pricing is pressuring its average selling prices, forecasting a sequential earnings decline from its steel products segment.
Boeing Stock Jumps, Lockheed Falls on Air Force Jet Fighter Contract News
March 21, 2025 04:18 PM EDT
Shares of Boeing (BA) jumped Friday, leading Dow Jones Industrial Average gainers, after President Donald Trump named the plane maker the winner of a contract to build the Air Force’s next-generation F-47 fighter jet.
“After a rigorous and thorough competition between some of America’s top aerospace companies, the Air Force is going to be awarding the contract for the next-generation air dominance platform to Boeing,” Trump said, according to a video provided by The Wall Street Journal.
The Air Force later confirmed that it indeed was awarding the Next Generation Air Dominance Platform contract to Boeing. Financial terms were not disclosed, but the Journal reported that “experts say the total research, development and acquisition costs could top $50 billion.”
“We recognize the importance of designing, building and delivering a 6th-generation fighter capability for the United States Air Force,” Boeing Defense, Space & Security CEO Steve Parker said. “In preparation for this mission, we made the most significant investment in the history of our defense business.”
Boeing stock rose 3.1% Friday. Shares of Lockheed Martin (LMT) sank 5.8% after the defense contractor lost out to its rival. Lockheed has supplied the Air Force with F-22 Raptor and F-35 fighter jets. The F-47 would replace the F-22, the Journal said.
“While disappointed with this outcome, we are confident we delivered a competitive solution,” a Lockheed spokesperson said in a statement to Investopedia. “We will await further discussions with the U.S. Air Force.”
Investors Are Antsy, But Analysts Are Still Bullish
March 21, 2025 03:27 PM EDT
Economists, consumers, and business leaders are antsy. Wall Street analysts are bullish.
Of the 12,320 analyst ratings on S&P 500 stocks, 55.7% of them are Buy ratings, according to a recent report from FactSet Research. If that holds through the end of the month, it will represent the highest month-end percentage of Buy ratings since August 2022.
The S&P 500 fell into a correction last week amid growing concerns about the Trump administration’s tariff policies and the potential they’ll raise prices and slow economic growth.
Big tech stocks have been hit particularly hard this year. Yet they remain among the stocks analysts are the most bullish on. Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), and Nvidia (NVDA) are the S&P 500’s fourth, fifth, and sixth highest-rated stocks, respectively. Not a single Wall Street analyst recommends selling those stocks, according to FactSet’s calculations.
The tech sector is the second-highest rated sector—63% of ratings are Buys—bested only by energy, with 65%. Meanwhile, consumer staples, a traditionally defensive sector that tends to outperform when investors expect a recession, has the lowest share of Buy ratings (41%).
That discrepancy tracks with a recent report from Bank of America suggesting investors bought up cyclical stocks and sold defensives during last week’s sell-off.
Carnival Posts Better-Than-Expected Results on ‘Incredibly Strong Demand’
March 21, 2025 02:28 PM EDT
Carnival Corporation (CCL) reported better-than-expected fiscal first-quarter profit and record-setting revenue Friday, although its current-quarter outlook came up shy of estimates.
The company reported adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.13, with revenue setting a first-quarter record of $5.81 billion. Both topped Visible Alpha forecasts.
CEO Josh Weinstein said the performance was driven by “incredibly strong demand throughout our portfolio including exceptional close-in demand that exceeded expectations for both ticket prices and onboard spending.”
Weinstein added that while the company was “not completely immune from the heightened macroeconomic and geopolitical volatility,” Carnival remains “on track to have another stellar year across our cruise brands.”
Carnival now sees full-year adjusted EPS of $1.83, up from its previous estimate of $1.70. Weinstein noted the higher outlook “incorporates our increased first-quarter yield results and reduced interest expense thanks to our recent successful refinancings.”
The company sees second-quarter fiscal 2025 adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.22, and adjusted EBITDA of $1.32 billion. Analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha were looking for $0.24 and $1.37 billion, respectively.
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Shares of Carnival Corporation were down about 0.6% in afternoon trading. They are up about 25% over the past year.
Supermicro Leads S&P 500 Gainers Friday as JPMorgan Boosts Rating
March 21, 2025 01:41 PM EDT
Super Micro Computer (SMCI) shares surged to lead gains on the S&P 500 Friday, as JPMorgan analysts lifted their rating and price target for the server maker’s stock.
The analysts boosted their rating to “neutral” from “underweight,” and raised their price target to $45 from $35, saying the company is “cycling past filing challenges” after meeting a key deadline to stay listed, and could see growth from strong demand for its servers based on Nvidia’s (NVDA) Blackwell chips.
Supermicro is “on the cusp of benefitting from ramp in Blackwell-based server shipments, which are experiencing significantly higher demand than previous generations,” the analysts wrote in a note Friday.
Shares were up nearly 8% in recent trading, bringing year-to-date gains close to 40%, though they’ve still lost more than half their value over the past 12 months.
The server maker’s stock has been volatile in the past year, as it faced accusations of accounting manipulation last August that led to the resignation of the company’s auditor. It narrowly avoided a possible delisting last month after filing belated financial disclosures with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The analysts at JPMorgan cautioned the company could still face some headwinds, among them an “increasingly competitive AI Servers landscape” that is leading to “aggressive pricing “ and putting pressure on its gross margins. Elevated costs and the prospect of higher interest expenses when the company raises more capital could also present challenges, they said.
Micron Stock Falls but Analysts Are Bullish Despite Gross Margin ‘Fly in the Ointment’
March 21, 2025 12:57 PM EDT
Shares of Micron Technology (MU) turned lower Friday after the company’s fiscal second-quarter results a day earlier, but analysts have remained bullish on the memory chip company.
Micron “has established technology leadership in [high-bandwidth memory],” UBS analysts said after the results, and its DRAM chip business “should operate with more sustained supply/demand dynamics as long as AI continues to grow.” The bank maintained its “buy” rating and $130 price target.
Despite initially rising after the results were released, Micron shares dropped around 8% intraday Friday. The chipmaker’s revenue and profit forecast came in above Wall Street’s expectations, but UBS said the company’s commentary on gross margins was “a bit of a fly in the ointment.”
Citi analysts also reiterated a “buy” rating but trimmed their price target from $150 to $120 “given Micron’s persistent gross margin issues.” The bank raised its full-year sales and earnings per share estimates, driven by expected improvements in the DRAM market. Meanwhile, Wedbush raised its price target to $130 from $125, and Bank of America stood pat at $110.
Nike Stock Slides as Analyst Says Turnaround Will ‘Take Time’
March 21, 2025 11:57 AM EDT
Shares of Nike (NKE) tumbled Friday after the company delivered disappointing revenue guidance the day before, with several analysts opting to lower their price targets.
The sneaker giant’s turnaround effort under new CEO Elliott Hill is going to “take time,” JPMorgan analysts said, dropping their price target to $64 from $73. “We continue to anticipate a ‘crawl, walk, run’ setup,” the analysts added, with investors likely having to wait until the back half of fiscal 2026 for Nike to start walking.
On the company’s earnings call, CFO Matt Friend said Nike’s fiscal 2025 fourth-quarter sales are expected to fall in the low end of “mid-teens” year-over-year, while analysts had projected a roughly 12% decline, according to Visible Alpha. Nike’s third-quarter revenue decline was not as severe as Wall Street expected, but JPMorgan noted this year’s sales were lifted by Cyber Monday, which did not fall within Nike’s third quarter last year.
Meanwhile, UBS analysts said they “don’t believe Nike has improved its product assortment or marketing enough yet to ensure trends won’t get worse,” lowering their target to $66 from $73. Deutsche Bank trimmed its target to $77 from $80.
Nike shares fell about 6% intraday Friday and have lost about a third of their value over the past 12 months.
Quantum Computing Stock Falls as Firm’s Loss Soars
March 21, 2025 10:55 AM EDT
Quantum Computing (QUBT) stock fell Friday, a day after the high-tech firm that produces photonic and quantum optics products reported a widening fourth-quarter loss.
Shares had soared earlier this week when another company in the sector, D-Wave Quantum (QBTS), announced its quantum machine outperformed current supercomputers on certain tasks.
After the bell Thursday, Quantum Computing posted a Q4 net loss of $0.47 per share, more than five times its per-share loss last year. Revenue fell 17% year-over-year to $62,000.
The company said the larger loss was mainly because of costs related to the merger with QPhoton in June 2022. In addition, operating expenses grew 35% to $8.9 million on “higher non-cash employee-based expenses, including stock-based compensation, and increased depreciation expense for production equipment installed at the Company’s TFLN chip foundry in Tempe, AZ.”
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Quantum Computing shares sank 14% as markets opened Friday but pared losses and were down about 2% in recent trading. They have lost about three-quarters of their value since hitting an all-time high in December.
FedEx Stock Falls as Shipping Giant Cuts Its Outlook for the Third Quarter in a Row
March 21, 2025 09:52 AM EDT
FedEx (FDX) reported quarterly earnings that missed analysts’ expectations and cut its full-year outlook, sending shares lower in extended trading Thursday.
The shipping giant said it expects full-year revenue to come in flat to slightly lower year-over-year, worse than its prior forecast of “approximately flat.” The company also dropped its outlook for earnings per share to between $15.15 and $15.75, from $16.45 to $17.45, marking the third quarter FedEx has lowered its forecasts in a row.
In its fiscal third quarter, FedEx saw revenue grow 2% year-over-year to $22.2 billion, above the analyst consensus from Visible Alpha. Adjusted earnings of $1.09 billion, or $4.51 per share, improved from $970 million, or $3.86 per share, a year earlier, but missed Wall Street estimates.
FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam said the company faced “a very challenging operating environment, including a compressed peak season and severe weather events.”
The results also come after FedEx in December announced plans to spin off its Freight business as a standalone company.
Shares of FedEx tumbled more than 10% Friday morning, putting the stock down more than 22% so far this year.
Stock Futures Point To Lower Open For Major Indexes
March 21, 2025 08:52 AM EDT
Futures contracts connected to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down 0.4% in premarket trading on Friday.
S&P 500 futures were also off 0.4%.
Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.5%.
