Stock market today: Live updates

Stocks closed higher on Monday.

The S&P 500 climbed 1.1% to settle at 5,564.41 and clinch its best day since June 5, while the Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.6% to close at 18,007.57. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 127.91 points, or 0.3% to finish at 40,415.44.

— Samantha Subin

President Biden dropping out of the election has removed a key overhang from the election. Since his disastrous performance in the June debate, many analysts were anticipating a higher likelihood of a Trump victory in November.

Now, Wall Street is deliberating the U.S. political outlook as Biden’s endorsement of Harris has muddied expectations for who will win the election, and has added uncertainty to markets.

“We will continue to have both bulls and bears because you have both sides who are talking about the uncertainty, increased uncertainty regarding the presidency,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read the full story here.

— Sarah Min

Friday’s inflation data in the personal consumption expenditures price index should show cooling, according to Tom Lee, head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisors.

“One print can be uncertain, but I think the forces underway for inflation to fall like a rock are in place,” Lee said on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.”

Lee said there does not appear to be any new drivers of inflation, which means it could surprise to the downside. He also said there is “urgency” for the Federal Reserve to begin cutting interest rates.

— Alex Harring

Bitcoin was little changed on Monday, a day after President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.

“The markets dipped shortly after Biden announced he would drop out because there is no immediate successor named, in terms of a presumptive nominee, and uncertainty fuels doubt,” said Bartosz Lipiński, CEO at crypto trading platform Cube.Exchange. “Once Kamala was endorsed by him and others, the markets largely recovered and appear to be taking the news somewhat well despite remaining mostly flat today.”

Bitcoin was last lower by less than 1% at $67,257.88, according to Coin Metrics. However, Coinbase rose 2%, while mining stocks Riot Platforms and Iris Energy gained more than 1% each.

— Tanaya Macheel

Shares of AMC Entertainment popped 8% Monday following a brief halt to allow the movie theater chain to share news that it bought itself a little more time with creditors by restructuring debt.

The multifaceted deal pushes out the maturities of as much as $2.45 billion in debt, originally due in 2026, to 2029 and 2030, the company said. As part of the refinancing, a separate unit of the company has been created that will own the leases and property of 175 theaters and other assets, including the AMC brand name, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Even before the Covid-19 pandemic shuttered movie theaters for months and dried up revenue, AMC was laden with debt. Since then, the company has looked for creative ways, including taking advantage of a temporary boost in its stock price during the “meme stock” craze, to deleverage its balance sheet.

— Christina Cheddar Berk

The past couple of weeks have been rife with political uncertainty, from former President Donald Trump’s convictions and attempted assassination to incumbent President Joe Biden dropping out of the race.

Still, even in these unprecedented times, Strategas head of Washington policy research Dan Clifton noted that the S&P 500 has rallied 6% over the past seven weeks.

“There are limits to how much the political events are going to have impacts on the broader equity market,” he said on CNBC’s “The Exchange,” pointing to liquidity increases provided by the U.S. Treasury as the reason. “So there’s a cushion to digest some of this political uncertainty.”

— Lisa Kailai Han

Berkshire Hathaway resumed selling down its stake in BYD, now owning less than 5% of China’s biggest electric vehicle maker.

Warren Buffett’s conglomerate has trimmed its lucrative BYD stake to 4.94% as of July 16, according to a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. 

The “Oracle of Omaha” credited his late business partner Charlie Munger for convincing him — a famous hater of technology businesses — to invest in Shenzhen-based BYD, which has turned out to be one of Berkshire’s most profitable.

Hong Kong’s rules only require a filing when a stake percentage crosses a whole number, so if Berkshire’s stake falls below 4%, there will be another filing.

— Yun Li

The S&P 500 tech sector popped 1.7% on Monday, clawing back some of its steep losses from last week. That gain also put the space on track for its best daily performance since June 25, when it jumped nearly 1.8%.

Nvidia, Lam Research and On Semiconductor were among the sector’s top performers on the day.

Here are the stocks on the move midday:

• Ryanair — Shares fell 16% after the budget airline reported weaker-than-expected fiscal first-quarter earnings. The company said its quarterly profit after tax had fallen 46% and that it expects fares to be lower than expected in the summer months.
• CrowdStrike — The cybersecurity stock plunged 12% as investors fully digested Friday’s massive outage, which resulted in thousands of canceled flights. Guggenheim downgraded shares of CrowdStrike to a neutral rating from buy on Sunday, citing likely delays to new deals for the company at least in the short term.
• Nvidia — Shares advanced 4%. On Monday, Reuters, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that the company is working on a version of its Blackwell chips for the Chinese market. The report added that the new version would be compatible with current U.S. export controls.

Read the full list here.

— Sean Conlon

Mattel shares surged nearly 19% after Reuters reported that buyout firm L Catterton made the toymaker an acquisition offer.

If that holds, Monday would mark Mattel’s best day since February 2019, when shares jumped more than 23% in a single session. Mattel shares are now up about 2% on the year.

The broad rotation out of megacap tech stocks in favor of rate-sensitive sectors such as industrials, real estate and regional banks is a “stunning reversal across equity markets,” says UBS head of asset allocation Jason Draho.

“The leaders in the first half of the year are the relative losers this month, while previous laggards have gone on a tear,” Draho wrote in a Monday note.

The S&P 500 is higher by just 0.8% month to date, while regional banks and the Russell 2000 are up 14.5% and 7.6%, respectively.

However, Draho believes the previous market rally leaders will soon resume their winning position.

“The overall evidence leans in favor of … a reversal of the reversal,” Draho said.

Draho noted that ideal macro conditions must be maintained for the rate-sensitive sectors to continue outperforming.

However, “there is a fine line between good macro data and ideal conditions necessary for the rotation trade to be sustained. In particular, investors may be getting ahead of themselves in expecting Fed rate cuts,” said Draho.

— Hakyung Kim

During Monday’s trading session, nine stocks in the S&P 500 index reached new 52-week highs.

Of these stocks, six hit new all-time highs. Here are the tickers that reached this milestone:

• KKR & Co. trading at all-time highs back to when it began trading in October 2099
• Intuitive Surgical trading at all-time highs back to its initial public offering in June 2000
• Vertex Pharmaceuticals trading at all-time highs back to its IPO in July 1991
• Fair Isaac trading at all-time highs back to when it was listed at the New York Stock Exchange in 1986
• Roper trading at levels not seen since its IPO in 1992
• Welltower trading at all-time-high levels back to its incorporation as a Health Care REIT in 1985

On the other hand, three stocks in the S&P 500 were trading at new 52-week lows. These included ZoomInfo Technologies, Teradata and Amer Sports.

— Lisa Kailai Han, Christopher Hayes

The rotation away from Big Tech and into small caps that happened last week will be more than a short-term blip, according to Deutsche Bank.

Strategist Parag Thatte said in a note to clients over the weekend that the market is still pricing in too much optimism about the growth areas of the market that have led most of the bull rally.

“While overall equity positioning remains elevated there have been sharp rotations in positioning and flows away from [megacap growth] & Tech and into other sectors and small caps, and in our view, these have plenty of legs to run medium term. MCG & Tech positioning is still aligned with a continuation of extremely strong earnings growth and upgrades while we see a slowing as growth catches back down to the trend rate in place for the last 2 decades,” the note said.

— Jesse Pound

Shares of IQVIA popped more than 5% during morning trading after the health tech company’s second-quarter earnings topped Wall Street’s estimates.

IQVIA posted earnings of $2.64 per share, excluding items, on revenue of $3.81 billion, which is above the $2.56 per share on revenue of $3.79 billion that analysts polled by FactSet were expecting.

The stock is up nearly 10% in the past one month.

— Sean Conlon

CrowdStrike continued to weigh on the S&P 500 on Monday in the aftermath of last week’s software update that sparked a global IT outage.

The software stock dropped nearly 11% in morning trading, making it the worst performer in the broad index. As a whole, the S&P 500 climbed nearly 1% in the session.

CrowdStrike’s decline builds on Friday’s slide of more than 11%, when investors sold off amid the outage.

— Alex Harring

Stocks opened higher to kick off the trading week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 125 points, or 0.3%, while the S&P 500 rose 0.65%. The Nasdaq Composite jumped 1%.

— Samantha Subin

Check out the companies making headlines before the bell:

• CrowdStrike — The cybersecurity stock dropped 4% after Guggenheim downgraded CrowdStrike to neutral from buy, saying the company is unlikely to emerge unscathed from the global outage.
• Nvidia — Shares gained 2% after Reuters, citing people familiar with the matter, reported Nvidia is preparing a version of its new Blackwell chips for the Chinese market. They would be compatible with current U.S. export controls, the report said.
• Bank of America — The bank stock dipped more than 1% in premarket trading after a filing revealed that Warren Buffett‘s Berkshire Hathaway sold 33.9 million Bank of America shares for almost $1.5 billion last week. Berkshire remains Bank of America’s largest shareholder with a 10.8% stake after the sale. Berkshire may be taking some profits with the bank stock up 27.4% so far this year.

Read the full list here.

— Sarah Min

Nvidia shares rose nearly 2% in the premarket after Reuters reported, citing sources, that the company was working on a version of its artificial intelligence chips for the Chinese market. Additionally, several analysts raised their price targets on the stock, calling for more upside ahead.

While the stock is up a whopping 138% year to date, it shed 8.8% last week amid a violent market rotation out of large-cap tech in favor of smaller names.

A regulatory filing late Friday shows Berkshire Hathaway sold about $1.48 billion in Bank of America stock, pushing the bank’s shares down more than 1% in the premarket.

Overall, Berkshire sold 33.9 million BofA shares at an average price of $43.56 per share, amounting to a 3.3% stake reduction. Despite the sale, Bank of America remains Berkshire’s second-biggest position.

— Fred Imbert