Stock market news for June 20, 2024

Gilead Sciences headed for its best day since 2022 after its HIV prevention drug succeeded in a late-stage trial.

The stock popped nearly 9%. If that holds through session close, it would mark the best day since later October 2022, when the stock jumped almost 13%.

Thursday’s pop comes after the company’s twice-yearly shot to prevent HIV was 100% effective in its third phase of the trial. Gilead now needs to replicate the results before seeking approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

— Alex Harring, Angelica Peebles

The Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) is at risk of posting a bearish “outside day” on Thursday if it closes below 17,796.88.

The tech-heavy index turned negative in intraday trading after hitting an all-time high early in the session, putting it on pace to break a seven-day winning streak, its longest since a nine-day rally in December.

Giants like NVIDIA (NVDA), Cadence Design Systems (CDNS) and Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) hit all-time highs this morning before turning negative. Both NVDA and CDNS are also pacing for outside days as of mid-afternoon trading.

An “outside day” is a two-day technical trading pattern in which the second day’s trading range fully engulfs the prior day’s range. Traders often use this pattern to predict reversals in an asset’s direction.

— Nick Wells

Nvidia has ascended to being the biggest of the tech giants, surpassing Microsoft earlier this week. The stock markets of several major world markets are also in the rearview mirror.

Deutsche Bank pointed out in its “chart of the day” that Nvidia’s market cap is bigger than the total value of the stock markets in each of France, Germany and the U.K., as measured in US dollars.

In fact, Nvidia’s market cap is bigger than the value of every individual stock market except India, Japan, China and the U.S., according to Deutsche Bank.

— Jesse Pound

U.S. stocks have benefited from a “steady flow [of] support” from declines in short selling over the past year, according to a JPMorgan note to clients on Thursday.

“One support for the U.S. equity market over the past year emanated from a decline in the short interest on the two biggest equity ETFs,” the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) and the Invesco QQQ Trust that tracks the performance of the Nasdaq-100 index, strategists led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou wrote. “[T]his short interest has been declining in a rather steady manner since the second quarter of 2023 making successive record lows,” they said.

Lower levels of short selling have helped boost prices “as short positions were gradually covered,” the bank said.

Short interest as a percentage of outstanding shares in the SPY and QQQ ETFs is close to 7% today, down from roughly 14% to 16% around the time of the regional bank crisis in the first half of 2023, a JPMorgan chart using data from S3 Capital showed.

— Scott Schnipper

Investors hoping for small cap stocks to make a comeback could be in for further disappointment, according to RBC Capital Markets head of U.S. equity Strategy Lori Calvasina.

“It’s almost like listening to children who aren’t listening to their parents and they’re just determined to hear what they wanna hear from the Fed and I think there’s gonna be some disappointment [on fed cut timeline],” Calvasina told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Thursday.

— Brian Evans

During Thursday’s trading session, 23 stocks in the S&P 500 hit new 52-week highs.

Names that hit this milestone included:

On the other hand, three stocks in the S&P 500 hit new 52-week lows. These included Warner Bros. Discovery, Dayforce and Albemarle.

— Lisa Kailai Han

The energy sector popped more than 2% Thursday while the S&P 500 dropped 0.3%.

Hess gained 3.1% for the day, while Exxon Mobil and Marathon Petroleum added 2.7% each.

Meanwhile, declines in the information technology sector led the broader market lower. The info tech sector shed 1.4%, with Enphase Energy and Jabil falling more than 8%.

Prominent chipmakers also in the red. Nvidia lost 2.7%, while Micron Technology and On Semiconductor lost 5.7% and 4%, respectively.

— Hakyung Kim

Here are some of the companies making big moves during midday trading:

• Accenture — The consulting company jumped 7% after reporting more than $900 million in generative artificial intelligence bookings for its third quarter.
• Gilead Sciences — Shares popped 9% after the biopharma company said a late-stage trial showed its drug, lenacapavir, demonstrated 100% efficacy for HIV prevention in women.
• Super Micro Computer — The stock added 3% following comments from Elon Musk that the company will help his AI firm, xAI, build a supercomputer.

— Michelle Fox

The S&P 500 briefly topped 5,500 on Tuesday as the market continues rallying to new heights.

More than three out of every five stocks in the broad index headed for gains in the session, helping it trade near that key level. Here’s the five best performers in the S&P 500 as of 12:15 p.m. ET:

— Alex Harring

The dollar rose to 158.49 against the Japanese yen on Thursday, its strongest level since April 29, when it traded as high as 160.03 against the yen.

The dollar strengthened Tuesday against the offshore Chinese yuan to 7.2879. This was its highest point against the offshore yuan since Nov. 14, 2023, when it traded as high as 7.3056. The stronger dollar and weak yuan led to the rupee falling to a near record low. The dollar surpassed its all-time closing high against the rupee of 83.6498 on Thursday.

— Hakyung Kim, Gina Francolla

Unemployment claims are pushing higher, with a near-term trend measure at its highest level in more than nine months.

Filings for jobless benefits totaled 238,000 for the week ended June 15, bringing the four-week moving average, which helps smooth out volatility in the numbers up to 232,750, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That was an increase of 5,500 from the previous week and the highest level since Sept. 2, 2023.

The four-week moving average of continued claims also popped, rising to 1.806 million, or the highest since Feb. 10.

—Jeff Cox

The bond market has recently seen signs of improvement, with the benchmark 10-year Treasury note yield recently giving back a chunk of its 2024 gains (yields move inversely to prices). However, these moves could be short lived, according to AmeriVet Securities’ Gregory Faranello.

“Dynamics have felt better to support the US Treasury market. But to be clear there’s been no definitive green light,” Faranello, the firm’s head of U.S. rates strategy, wrote in a note Thursday.

“Issuers remain extremely active, so more paper is hitting the market. Mortgage rates have come down but nothing demonstrative. The fiscal outlook in the United States hasn’t changed. And if you put the plethora of Fed speak in a blender before the holiday it’s been relatively consistent, in need of more data, and pointing toward ‘later this year.'”

“Let’s face it, the inflation data has softened short term. And to really get rates moving lower more aggressively it comes down to the employment market,” added Faranello.

— Fred Imbert 

Stocks opened higher Thursday, with the S&P 500 touching a new record.

The broad index added 0.16%, while the Nasdaq Composite jumped 0.3%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average inched down 40 points, or 0.1%.

— Samantha Subin

Initial unemployment claims were higher than expected last week while housing and manufacturing data pointed to a slowdown, according to multiple economic reports released Thursday.

• First-time filings for jobless benefits totaled 238,000 for the week ended June 15, down 5,000 from the previous week but above the 235,000 Dow Jones estimate, according to the Labor Department. Continuing claims totaled 1.828 million, up 15,000.
• Housing starts in May totaled 1.277 million, a 5.5% decrease and below the 1.38 million estimate. Building permits totaled 1.386 million, a 3.8% decline from a month ago and short of the 1.45 million forecast.
• The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Manufacturing Index for June was at 1.3 in June, down from 4.5 in May and below the 5.0 estimate. Prices indexes rose while employment improved but was still negative.

—Jeff Cox

Check out the companies making headlines before the bell:

• Accenture — The tech stock jumped 8.6%. While Accenture missed earnings and revenue expectations in its latest quarter, according to FactSet, the information technology company posted more than $900 million in new generative AI bookings.
• Trump Media & Technology Group — Shares tumbled nearly 12% after the company said Tuesday its registration of additional shares was declared effective by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The stock is down 36% so far this month.
• Nvidia — The chipmaker rose more than 3%, extending gains from Tuesday when it surpassed Microsoft to become the most valuable public company.

Read the full list here.

— Sarah Min

Darden Restaurants ticked nearly 2% higher in Thursday premarket trading as investors parsed a mixed earnings report.

The restaurant chain stock earned $2.65 per share on an adjusted basis, modestly ahead of the $2.61 consensus forecast from analysts polled by LSEG. But revenue came in at $2.96 billion for the three-month period, just under Wall Street’s prediction of $2.97 billion.

Also of note, Olive Garden’s same-store sales declined for a second consecutive quarter.

Darden shares have slipped about 7.5% so far this year.

— Alex Harring, Amelia Lucas

The Bank of England kept interest rates steady at 5.25% even after inflation U.K. inflation eased to the central bank’s 2% target. Seven policymakers voted to hold rates at their current level, and two were in favor of a cut.

The announcement comes after Switzerland announced its second race cut earlier in the day, while the Federal Reserve on June 12 kept rates unchanged.

— Fred Imbert