Traders work at the New York Stock Exchange on June 25, 2025.
NYSE
The S&P 500 slipped Tuesday to kick off the second half of 2025 after the broad market index notched another record to close out a stunning quarter.
The S&P 500 shed 0.2%, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.9%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, however, gained 388 points, or 0.9%.
Electric vehicle maker Tesla fell more than 5% after President Donald Trump suggested in a post on Truth Social that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) should look into the government subsidies that CEO Elon Musk’s companies have received.
Musk has criticized Trump’s sweeping “big, beautiful bill,” calling it “utterly insane and destructive” over the weekend. In response to the president’s recent post, Musk wrote in a post on X: “I am literally saying CUT IT ALL. Now.” This isn’t the first time Trump and Musk have sparred over the administration’s spending plans. A feud broke out between the two earlier this year.
Stocks showed little reaction to comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who confirmed at a panel at the European Central Bank’s Forum on Central Banking in Portugal that the central bank likely would have cut rates again by now were it not for tariffs. He added that any future move would depend on the data and didn’t answer directly regarding whether or not July would be too soon.
“In effect, we went on hold when we saw the size of the tariffs and essentially all inflation forecasts for the United States went up materially as a consequence of the tariffs,” Powell said.
Wall Street is coming off another record setting session after came after Canada walked back its digital services tax in an attempt to facilitate trade negotiations with the U.S. Ottawa’s move to rescind the new levy comes after Trump said on Friday he would be “terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada.”
Traders are hoping for deals between the U.S. and its trading partners, as Trump’s 90-day reprieve on his steepest tariffs is set to expire next week. While Zachary Hill, head of portfolio management at Horizon Investments, doesn’t believe the market expects “very much,” volatility could still be on the horizon.
“If you did see some reimposition of the reciprocal tariff rates that were announced on ‘liberation day,’ I don’t think that would be well received by investors in the near term. Is it a catastrophe or something that’s going to cause a reaction of similar magnitude of what we saw in early April? No, I don’t think so, but we are pretty fully valued here,” he said. “Investors have definitely increased positioning over the last couple of weeks, so I do think that’s a potential vulnerability.”
Stocks made an impressive comeback after suffering steep declines in April, after Trump’s sweeping tariff policy pushed the S&P 500 near bear market territory. The major averages have since made a sharp turnaround, with the broad market index closing the second quarter with a 10.6% gain and the Nasdaq up nearly 18% in the period.
