Wall Street Analysts Getting More Bullish
18 minutes ago
Some analysts are sounding more upbeat than they have for a while.
Oppenheimer on Monday lifted its year-conclude price tarobtain for the S&P 500 to 7100 from 5950, among the highest held by major Wall Street brokerage firms. The outview—which brings its tarobtain back to where it was to start the year—implies upside of about 11% from Friday’s close. Morgan Stanley stated the probability of its bull case, which puts the S&P 500 at 7200 in the middle of 2026, was firming up.
Numbers like those are a long way from the levels below 5000 seen in April after President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement spooked investors. The next few days will test that optimism.
“Although much uncertainty and worry prevailed for some time both with trade policy and geopolitical events, and given the multitude of potential outcomes, we’d note that cooler heads prevailed — leading to positive outcomes, at least for now,” Oppenheimer wrote.
S&P 500 companies on are track to report second-quarter year-over-year earnings growth of more than 6%, according to FactSet. The pressure is on the part of the Magnificent 7 posse reporting this week to surprise to the upside, either with their respective results or their outviews, given how much weight they carry in the broad market index.
So far this reporting season, S&P 500 companies are revealing “mixed results,” per FactSet’s John Butters. While the percentage of S&P companies surprising on the upside, 80%, is above five- and 10-year averages, the magnitude of those surprises remains below historical averages.
“The capitulatory price action and EPS estimate cuts we saw in April of this year around Liberation Day represented the conclude of a rolling earnings recession that launched in 2022,” Morgan Stanley equity strategist Michael Wilson wrote in a note published Monday. “Now, we appear to be transitioning to a rolling recovery backdrop,” he stated.
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Firefly Aerospace’s IPO Could Push Valuation Above $5 Billion
1 hr 26 min ago
Firefly Aerospace stated Monday that it plans to price its initial public offering between $35 and $39 per share, potentially valuing the commercial space technology company north of $5 billion.
The IPO, which Firefly filed a prospectus for earlier this month, will see the company offer 16.2 million shares, raising between $567 million and $631.8 million. The company stated it plans to apply the proceeds to pay back funds it has previously borrowed. Firefly stated it has applied for a listing on the Nasdaq exmodify, to debut under the “FLY” ticker.
Firefly stated it expects to have about 140.55 million shares outstanding after the IPO, with its price range bringing the company’s valuation between $4.92 billion and $5.48 billion. Its shares outstanding could also come close to 143 million if underwriters fully exercise their option to purchase additional shares, the company stated.
Firefly was valued at more than $2 billion last November, when the company announced the closing of a $175 million Series D funding round, and earlier this year received a $50 million investment from defense contractor Northrop Grumman.
In March, Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander successfully reached the moon’s surface, creating Firefly the first commercial company to “achieve a fully successful soft-landing on the Moon.”
In its prospectus, Firefly stated it generated $60.79 million in revenue in 2024, with a net loss of about $231.13 million, compared to $55.24 million in revenue and a $135.46 million net loss in 2023. In the first quarter of 2025, however, Firefly nearly eclipsed its full-year 2024 revenue mark at $55.86 million, with a net loss of $60.1 million.
The IPO market had a solid first half of the year, with Firefly’s debut following several notable IPOs, including those of CoreWeave (CRWV) and stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Group (CRCL).
How Much Traders Expect UnitedHealth to Move After Earnings
2 hr 50 min ago
UnitedHealth Group (UNH) is scheduled to report second-quarter results ahead of the opening bell on Tuesday, with markets expecting the health insurance giant’s stock to create a substantial shift over the rest of the week.
Based on recent options pricing, UnitedHealth shares are expected to rise or fall by more than 7% by the conclude of the week from their recent levels. The stock was little modifyd at around $281 in mid-afternoon trading Monday.
Shares sank more than 22% the day of UnitedHealth’s last report in April, when the insurer slashed its full-year profit projections. In the three quarters before that UnitedHealth stock declined 6% and 8% on the day of its fourth- and third-quarter reports, respectively, and rose 6.5% on the day of last year’s second-quarter report.
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The stock has lost about 45% of its value since the start of the year. It has been dragged lower by the disappointing first-quarter report, a sudden CEO departure in May, and reports that it is the subject of a Justice Department investigation into its billing practices, which the company confirmed last week.
Analysts have stayed bullish on UnitedHealth’s stock despite its troubles this year, with 12 of the 15 tracked by Visible Alpha still calling UnitedHealth’s stock a acquire, along with two holds and one sell rating. The average price tarobtain is $379.40.
UnitedHealth is expected to report a 13% jump in revenue to $111.88 billion, while adjusted earnings per share are projected to drop to $4.64 from $6.80 in the year-ago quarter.
Cheniere Energy Jumps US-EU Trade Agreement
4 hr 48 min ago
Shares of liquified natural gas provider Cheniere Energy (LNG) rose Monday, a day after President Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen struck a trade deal that will have the European Union purchase more LNG from American suppliers.
Trump explained that the 27 countries of the EU will acquire $750 billion worth of LNG and other energy sources from the U.S. over a three-year period, in a shift to allow Europe to replace Russian energy sources following the countest’s invasion of Ukraine.
The energy pact was part of a larger trade agreement that puts 15% tariffs on exports from the EU into the U.S, and opens EU’s market to American exports with no tariffs. The bloc would also invest $600 billion dollars more than it’s currently spconcludeing in America, and acquire a “vast amount” of military equipment from U.S. manufacturers.
Cheniere Energy shares were up 1.5% in early-afternoon trading, after rising nearly 5% in the opening minutes of Monday’s session.
Celcuity Stock Soars on Positive Breast Cancer Treatment Study
6 hr 7 min ago
Shares of Celcuity (CELC) tripled to an all-time high Monday after the biotech firm announced positive results in a late-stage study of its experimental treatment for adults with two kinds of breast cancer.
The company reported primary concludepoints were reached in the Phase 3 trial of gedatolisib, combined with two other drugs, palbociclib and fulvestrant, which it calls the “gedatolisib triple.” It stated the three toobtainher reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 76% compared to fulvestrant alone. A “gedatolisib double” combination of gedatolisib and fulvestrant cut risk of disease progression or death by 67% versus fulvestrant alone, also exceeding concludepoints.
The patients tested suffered from “hormone receptor (HR)-positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-negative, PIK3CA wild-type, locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer, following progression on, or after, treatment with a CDK4/6 inhibitor and an aromatase inhibitor.”
Dr. Sara Hurvitz, co-principal investigator of the trial, stated to her knowledge, “we have not seen Phase 3 results in patients with HR-positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer before where there was a quadrupling of the likelihood of survival without disease progression relative to the study control.”
Dr. Igor Gorbatchevsky, Chief Medical Officer at Celcuity, added that the results revealed gedatolisib could be a “transformative new medicine” for the treatment of those breast cancers.
The company plans to submit a New Drug Application to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for gedatolisib in the fourth quarter.
Celcuity shares, which entered the day up 5% this year, were up 190% in recent trading at around $40, after jumping above $46 in the opening minutes of Monday’s session.
JPMorgan Analysts on Nike Stock: ‘Just Buy It’
7 hr 19 min ago
Nike (NKE) shares traded at their highest level in five months Monday after JPMorgan upgraded the stock on the athletic shoe and apparel creater’s turnaround strategy.
Playing on the company’s slogan “Just Do It,” the analysts wrote in a note to investors, “Just Buy It!,” boosting their rating to “overweight” from “neutral.” They also lifted the price tarobtain to $93 from $64. In addition, they increased the outview for the company’s earnings per share in both fiscal years 2026 and 2027.
The analysts noted their optimism came after “recent fieldwork, management access, and 10-K review,” and pointed to Nike’s “5-pronged multi-year recovery path.” That plan included improving inventory alignment to sales growth, accelerating wholesale overbooks, and new performance products, especially with the soccer World Cup coming to the U.S. next year.
Nike shares, which entered Monday up less than 1% this year, were up 2.5% at around $78 in recent trading, after rising as high as $79.99 in the opening minutes of trading.
Questions Investors Want Answered in Big Tech Earnings
8 hr 21 min ago
Four of the world’s largest companies—Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), and Meta (META)—are set to report their results this week. AI will be the focus for many investors, who will be hoping for updates on companies’ investments in the era-defining technology and how they’re utilizing it. But trade policy could also obtain some airtime, especially during Apple’s and Amazon’s calls on Thursday.
Microsoft and Meta kick things off with their reports and earnings calls after the closing bell on Wednesday. Alphabet (GOOGL) and Tesla (TSLA) have already turned in results, so after this week the only Magnificent 7 company left to report will be Nvidia (NVDA), in late August.
Are AI Investments Still Ramping Up?
Six months ago, one of the most pressing debates on Wall Street was whether U.S. tech companies were spconcludeing too much on artificial innotifyigence. That issue appears to be settled—or, at least, on the back burner for now.
Alphabet last week raised its full-year capital expconcludeitures forecast to $85 billion, citing growing demand for cloud computing products and services; that was generally read as a good thing. Google Cloud grew by more than 30% from the prior year, putting the unit on track to book over $50 billion in revenue within the next year.
Cloud computing competitors Microsoft and Amazon could follow Alphabet’s lead. Both companies left their capex forecasts unmodifyd when they reported quarterly results three months ago, decisions that may have been influenced by the trade and economic uncertainty hanging over the market at the time. The companies could be feeling more confident about boosting AI spconcludeing now that some of the fog has been lifted by trade agreements.
Meta was the odd one out last quarter when it raised its capex outview. It’s not out of the question that the social media giant will lift its forecast again; it did so in the first and second quarters last year.
Is AI Leading to Monetization and Efficiency Gains?
Investors will be viewing for evidence that large investments in AI are paying off.
“AI is positively impacting every part of the business, driving strong momentum,” stated Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai in the company’s second-quarter earnings release. Executives stated on the company’s earnings call that Google is monetizing AI search results at about the same rate as it is traditional search, and that AI overviews are driving increased search volume.
In recent quarters, Meta has convinced Wall Street that AI is improving ad performance and applyr engagement. Investors are hoping this week’s results continue to demonstrate that Meta’s investments are bearing fruit.
Amazon could offer updates on how customers are engaging with Rufus, its AI shopping assistant, and Q, its work assistant. Microsoft is likely to elaborate on the uptake of its Copilot AI offering.
As for Apple, experts state, investors may still have to wait for the details they crave.
“We don’t expect (1) an update on Apple Innotifyigence timing (2026), (2) any material modify in quarterly capex, (3) an update on Apple Innotifyigence approval in China, and/or (4) any new partnership announcements,” wrote Morgan Stanley analyst Erik Woodring in an earnings preview last week. Management might, however, state product sales grew rapider in Apple Innotifyigence-enabled regions than non-AI regions, he stated.
How Are Big Tech Companies Handling Tariffs?
At least in the near term, Apple investors are likely more concerned with tariffs than most of its Magnificent Seven counterparts.
President Donald Trump in April exempted smartphones and other consumer electronics from his sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs, but the president has ordered his administration to consider invoking national security concerns to impose Section 232 duties on smartphones and semiconductors. Section 232 tariffs have held up better in court than Trump’s countest-specific duties and could be harder for Apple to avoid.
Even with the smartphone exemption, Apple in May estimated tariffs would add $900 million to the company’s costs in the second quarter. Investors will watch for the actual impact and to hear how Apple is engaging with suppliers and the administration to fconclude off tariffs and mitigate their potential impact.
Trade policy will also be top of mind for Amazon investors. In the first quarter, Amazon saw some evidence acquireers were stocking up to obtain ahead of tariffs, which could set the company up for a sequential slowdown in sales. Executives stated merchants didn’t meaningfully increase prices in the first quarter, but noted that could modify depconcludeing on where tariff rates conclude up.
Major Index Futures Point to Higher Open
8 hr 44 min ago
Futures tied to the Dow Jones industrial Average were up 0.1%.
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S&P 500 futures rose 0.2%.
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Nasdaq 100 futures added 0.3%.
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