Stocks Closed Mostly Higher Yesterday, Nasdaq Led The Way
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Stocks closed mostly higher yesterday. The big three indexes (Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq) were all in the green. The Nasdaq was the top performer with 1.17%. The small-cap Russell 2000 and mid-cap S&P 400 were moderately in the red.
Big tech led the way. Arista Networks, for example, soared more than 17% yesterday after posting strong earnings results the day before.
But Apple grabbed the headlines yesterday after it was reported they would be announcing an additional $100 billion investment into the U.S., bringing their commitment from $500 billion over the next 4 years to $600 billion. He joined President Trump at the White House yesterday in making the announcement.
Many companies have announced plans to reshore manufacturing to the U.S. Apple's is one of the most high profile and ambitious efforts. Apple CEO Tim Cook called the program the 'American Manufacturing Program.'
But big tech companies weren't the only winners yesterday.
McDonald's reported before the open and posted a positive EPS surprise of 1.27%, and a positive sales surprise of 1.92%. That translated to a quarterly EPS growth rate of 7.41% vs. this time last year, and a sales growth of 5.39%. They were up 2.96%.
We also heard from Shopify before the open, and they posted a positive EPS surprise of 25.0%, and a positive sales surprise of 5.47%. That equated to a quarterly EPS growth rate of 34.6%, and a sales growth of 30.7%. They soared by 21.84%.
After the close we heard from delivery company DoorDash. They reported a positive EPS surprise of 54.8%, and a positive sales surprise of 3.80%, for a quarterly EPS growth rate of 71.1%, and a sales growth of 24.7%. They were up 1.12% in the regular session before earnings, and up another 5.30% in after-hours following earnings.
We'll hear from another 495 companies on deck to report today, including Eli Lilly, Constellation Energy, and Datadog to name a few.
In other news yesterday, President Trump announced he would be levying an additional 25% tariff on India for buying Russian oil. That's on top of the 25% reciprocal tariffs that are already going on. The additional tariffs won't take effect for another 21 days. And with India and the U.S. in the midst of trade negotiations, there's a possibility that an agreement can be struck before then.
On a separate note, it was reported that President Trump could be meeting with President Putin as early as next week. The U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff met with President Putin yesterday in what's being called a "highly productive" meeting. The meeting between the two Presidents will focus on the Russia/Ukraine war. But the issue of Russian sanctions and punitive tariffs on countries buying Russian oil are sure to come up.
On the economic front yesterday, MBA Mortgage Applications were up 3.1% w/w, with purchases up 1.5%, and refi's up 5.2%.
Today we'll get Weekly Jobless Claims, the Productivity and Costs report, Wholesale Inventories, and Consumer Credit.
With two more days left in the week, all of the indexes are in the plus column.
It's been a busy week of earnings so far this week. And a strong week of earnings.
Next week looks to be a busy one as well with as many as 1,347 companies in queue to report.
In the meantime, if earning season can keep this better-than-expected pace up, we could very well see the S&P and Nasdaq hit new all-time highs. And maybe even the Dow, which isn't that far away either.
See you tomorrow,

Kevin Matras
Executive Vice President, Zacks Investment Research
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