S&P 500 ends Tuesday little changed as Trump's tariff policy keeps traders on edge: Live updates

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The S&P 500 ended Tuesday’s session near the flatline after President Donald Trump offered no exceptions to his Aug. 1 tariff start date.

The broad market benchmark inched down 0.07%, ending at 6,225.52, while the Nasdaq Composite added 0.03% and closed at 20,418.46. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 165.60 points, or 0.37%, settling at 44,240.76.

Traders had trouble keeping up with the conflicting signals from Trump on trade. Trump on Monday pushed the tariff deadline to Aug. 1 from July 9. Later that day, he said that the new deadline was “not 100% firm.”

However, on Tuesday, the president posted on Truth Social that there would be no change or extensions granted to the Aug. 1 date. The same day, Trump also announced a steep 50% tariff on copper imports.

Tuesday’s action follows Monday’s deep sell-off in which the Dow tumbled more than 400 points as Trump slapped 25% tariffs on South Korea and Japan. Trump hit at least 14 countries in total with new duties on Monday.

Investors are waiting for further clarity, with many expecting the ultimate tariff rates to not be as strict as what Trump has threatened.

“What we’ve seen since April has really been the markets getting past the idea that tariffs would have a particularly detrimental impact on growth, earnings, inflation, etc.,” said Bill Merz, head of capital markets research at U.S. Bank Wealth Management. “Investor sentiment has shifted a lot in a very short period of time and become more optimistic, as we can see in equity market pricing and how we’re right around all time highs across multiple indices.”

On the upside, Nvidia advanced 1%, getting closer to a $4 trillion market cap. But banks helped weigh down the market, after HSBC adopted a “more cautious stance” on larger banks. Shares of JPMorgan and Bank of America shed 3%, while Goldman Sachs slipped nearly 2%.

S&P 500 closes marginally lower

The S&P 500 closed marginally lower on Tuesday afternoon.

The broad market benchmark shed 0.07% to close at 6,225.52. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 165.60 points, or 0.37%, and settled at 44,240.76.

On the other hand, the Nasdaq Composite added 0.03% and finished at 20,418.46.

— Lisa Kailai Han

NRF says tariffs and other policies are creating anxiety and confusion

It remains tough to foresee the economic impact from tariffs and other government policies, even six months into 2025, according to National Retail Federation Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz.

“Anxiety and confusion have taken center stage in the economy and financial markets as uncertainty over public policy has intensified. It was difficult to judge how policy changes would impact the economy in early 2025 and it remains so now,” he said in a statement.

Investors are still grappling with the fast-moving tariff developments. President Donald Trump on Tuesday offered no exceptions to his Aug. 1 tariff start date. Meanwhile, Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed last week added to investor concerns about the fiscal trajectory of the country and future government borrowing.

“Economic fundamentals appear solid at this juncture, but uncertainty is pervasive,” Kleinhenz said. “There are many crosscurrents surrounding tariffs, immigration and deregulation, and everyone is sorting through what the tariff rates are going to be, how they will impact inflation for retail products and, importantly, how long they will be in place.”

— Yun Li

Copper posts best day since 1989

Copper futures posted the best day in nearly 40 years after Trump announced he would impose a 50% tariff on imports of the metal.

The copper futures contract for September soared 13% to close at $5.6855 per pound, the biggest single-day gain for the metal since August 1989.

— Spencer Kimball

The consumer will have to take some of the tariff increases, Evercore ISI analyst says

Consumers are going to have to absorb some of the costs from higher tariffs, according to Mark Mahaney, head of internet research at Evercore ISI.

Mahaney said he expects that price increases from tariffs can still come. He noted that a spike in costs that can be weathered by larger retailers such as Walmart, Home Depot and Amazon will be more challenging for smaller companies.

“10%, 20%, 30% — those are big increases. Retail is a thin margin business. So if you’re going to increase your cost of inputs, that’s going to be passed along, and those companies can only eat so much of that,” Mahaney told CNBC’s “Power Lunch” on Tuesday.

“Consumer is going to have to eat some of this,” he added. “We’re still in a wait and see mode. But this is more risk than we had a year ago. There’s more price risk here than we had a year ago.”

— Sarah Min

Bias is to the upside for regional bank earnings, Raymond James says

If the upcoming earnings season is going to show some warning signs about the economy, it likely won’t come from regional banks, according to Raymond James.

Analyst Daniel Tamayo said in a note to clients that he has a generally optimistic outlook on that group heading into earnings.

“We expect relative stability in EPS estimates with a bias to the upside during the July reporting season. Management commentary on credit has largely been stable during the quarter while a stronger likelihood of avoiding recession could lead to lower credit cost forecasts in the out quarters. We expect loan growth forecasts to remain mostly stable to slightly improved,” Tamayo said.

Similarly, Raymond James also forecasts fee-based revenues to be stable with potential upside, the note said.

As part of the outlook, Raymond James upgraded PNC Financial and Truist Financial to outperform from market perform.

— Jesse Pound

Loop Capital downgrades Shake Shack after stock’s recent surge

Shake Shack received a downgrade to hold from buy Tuesday morning by Loop Capital

Analyst Alton Stump maintained his price target of $127, which indicates a roughly 9.5% potential decline from the stock’s latest close.

Shares of the fast-food burger chain are up 7.4% this year. The stock saw a sell-off earlier this year amid the broader market slump and period of extreme tariff concerns, which Stump said “was unwarranted since SHAK sources nearly all its ingredients domestically.” Shake Shack had also posted disappointing second-quarter results and cut its full-year forecast.

“While we remain positive on Shake Shack’s near and long-term story and would be more constructive on the shares in the event of a material pullback, we believe SHAK’s current valuation accurately reflects the company’s attractive fundamentals,” he said in a note to clients.

— Pia Singh

Market turmoil could only arise this summer from a bigger shock that policy can’t fix, Deutsche Bank says

Deutsche Bank sees a lower likelihood of a summer crisis arising this year.

“In the current climate, as long as markets believe that policymakers are willing and able to adjust in response to turmoil, then that in itself should limit the extent to which markets can sell off aggressively,” wrote strategist Henry Allen. “That means for a summer crisis to prove longer-lasting, and for the current resilience to end, it would take something that affects the macro fundamentals, but policymakers can’t easily fix.”

Several factors that could trigger turmoil this summer include U.S. tariffs snapping back higher on Aug. 1, the market pricing out rate cuts due to the inflationary impact of tariffs, economic growth beginning to falter and oil prices spiking due to a geopolitical shock, the bank added.

— Lisa Kailai Han

Guggenheim downgrades Datadog, sees 30% downside ahead

There are headwinds ahead for Datadog, according to Guggenheim. The firm downgraded the software stock to sell from hold on Tuesday, noting that Datadog’s largest customer, OpenAI, is shifting towards more cost-efficient, in-house managed technologies.

“We don’t believe this is representative of broader enterprise trends; rather, OpenAI is an outlier in terms of its hypergrowth and associated infrastructure costs that become financially impractical via third-party solutions at scale.’ analyst Howard Ma said in a note to clients.

“OpenAI may have already started to move off Datadog for log management onto its internally built solution, followed by planned deprecation of other Datadog functionalities (e.g., metrics and traces),” he added. “We estimate this could result in 2H revenue risk, especially in 4Q where we’re modeling 17% growth in our plausible scenario.”

Ma’s $105 price target suggests 31% downside from Monday’s close.

— Michelle Fox

Latest round of tariffs are not a ‘done deal,’ says Bank of America

President Donald Trump’s most recent slate of tariffs are still a work in progress with more work to be done, according to Bank of America.

“We don’t think the tariffs announced yesterday are a done deal. Rather, the extension of the deadline from July 9 to August 1 suggests there is still room for negotiation,” BofA economist Antonio Gabriel wrote on Tuesday. “But if the tariffs are implemented, we estimate they should add about 0.1pp to inflation and subtract a similar amount from growth.”

— Brian Evans

Investor Keith Lerner reiterates bullish stance on equity market

Going forward, investor Keith Lerner believes that the market “deserves the benefit of the doubt.”

“This bull market has earned the benefit of the doubt, and even if it’s a slower trajectory higher and with some hiccups along the way, I still think the trend is one that moves up over the duration of the year,” the Truist Wealth co-chief investment officer said on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” Tuesday morning.

Lerner pointed to strong corporate earnings as a driving force behind the market’s current resilience.

— Lisa Kailai Han

Copper prices hit record after Trump announces 50% tariff

Copper futures hit a record high after Trump abruptly announced 50% tariffs on all imports of the metal during a White House Cabinet meeting.

The copper futures contract for September jumped 10.5% to $5.8955 per pound. Shares of copper miner Freeport-McMoRan jumped more than 5% in response the president’s announcement.

— Spencer Kimball

Elon Musk doesn’t like Dan Ives’ plan to fix Tesla

Elon Musk told Wedbush analyst Dan Ives to “shut up” after he laid out a plan to reign in the Tesla CEO.

Ives said Tesla’s board of directors should approve a pay package that would give Musk 25% voting control of the electric vehicle maker. But the package would come with strings attached.

The board would have oversight over Musk’s political activities and the CEO would be required to spend a certain amount of time at Tesla, Ives said in a post on X.

In response, Musk said: “Shut up, Dan.”

— Spencer Kimball

Stocks making the biggest moves midday

• Hershey — The candy company slid more than 3% following news that Wendy’s CEO Kirk Tanner will take the helm at Hershey, effective Aug. 18. He will replace Michele Buck, who has been with the company for the past two decades and has spent eight years as CEO.
• Chemours — The company rallied more than 9%, adding to its strong gains over the past month, after the Environmental Protection Agency withdrew new rules regarding the use of certain chemicals. Huntsman shares also gained 5.7%.
• Fair Isaac Corp. — Shares plunged nearly 12% after Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte said on social media platform X that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will allow lenders to use Vantage 4.0 Scores to assess credit risk. Vantage is a competitor to FICO scores, the industry standard to this point.

Check out the full list here.

— Fred Imbert

Jamie Dimon calls the U.S. tax policy changes an ‘important step’ for growth

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon gave a positive review of the U.S. tax policy changes signed by President Trump last week to CNBC’s Leslie Picker.

“The Administration and Congress took an important step by enacting long-term, internationally competitive tax policy that provides the predictability needed to support business confidence, investment and job growth,” Dimon told Picker.

The “big beautiful bill” extended some of the corporate tax benefits that were implemented during Trump’s first term and set to expire at the end of this year, and the bill also changed some rules around expensing new projects.

— Jesse Pound

Goldman Sachs downgrades gold mining stock Newmont

The rally for mining stock Newmont is due to cool off, according to Goldman Sachs.

The investment firm downgraded Newmont to neutral from buy, with analyst Hugo Nicolaci saying in a note to clients that the stock now looks fairly valued relative to the price of gold and its peers.

“On our LT gold price of US$2,850/oz NEM is trading on ~0.95x NAV, or pricing ~US$2,675/oz gold (peer average ~0.95x NAV and ~US$2,775/oz),” the note said.

Shares of Newmont are up more than 60% year to date.

— Jesse Pound

Bank stocks fall following HSBC downgrade

Bank stocks were lower on Tuesday, after HSBC downgraded some of the bigger names on Wall Street over a “more cautious stance” on larger firms.

Shares of JPMorgan Chase slipped more than 3%, alongside Bank of America. Goldman Sachs pulled back roughly 2%. HSBC analyst Saul Martinez downgraded all three stocks in a Monday note.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read the full story here.

— Brian Evans

Consumer survey shows inflation outlook back to pre-tariff level

Inflation expectations over the next year have returned to January levels, before President Donald Trump launched his global trade war that economists feared would spike prices, according to a New York Federal Reserve survey released Tuesday.

The central bank’s monthly consumer survey for June showed respondents expect inflation a year from now to be running at 3% rate, the same as in January and down from the peak of 3.6% in March and April.

However, respondents still expect hefty price increases for energy, rent, education and other items.

— Jeff Cox

Trump says there will be no extensions for Aug. 1 tariffs

President Donald Trump said on Truth Social that the Aug. 1 start date for the tariffs laid out in letters to countries on Monday is a firm timeline that will not change.

“There has been no change to this date, and there will be no change. In other words, all money will be due and payable starting AUGUST 1, 2025 – No extensions will be granted,” the post said.

— Jesse Pound

Tariffs raise near term risk to recent equities strength, says Wolfe Research

President Donald Trump’s latest moves on tariffs could be a catalyst for stocks to lose steam in the near-term, according to Wolfe Research.

“Investors seem to be dismissing the upside risk to inflation. But someone ultimately has to pay the tariffs—likely showing up in CPI, profit margins, or (realistically) a combination of both,” Wolfe Research chief economist Stephanie Roth wrote in a Tuesday note.

“While we still expect the economy to hold up, this raises near-term risks to the equity rally so far and reinforces our base case that the Fed stays on hold this year given the looming inflationary impact,” she added.

— Brian Evans

Oppenheimer remains bullish on U.S. stocks, prefers cyclical names

Oppenheimer Asset Management remains bullish on U.S. equities at this time, the firm’s chief investment strategist John Stoltzfus wrote in a Monday note.

Specifically, the firm prefers cyclical stocks over their more defensive counterparts. These cyclical sectors include information technology, consumer discretionary, communication services, industrials and financials.

“We anticipate continued positive corporate earnings growth, a key driver of equity valuations,” Stoltzfus wrote. “Our intermediate- and longer-term outlook for the U.S. economy and the stock market remains decidedly bullish. We believe U.S. economic fundamentals remain on solid footing. As the drag of tight monetary policy eases, job growth and consumption and business fixed investment demand should continue to exhibit resilience. In addition, should the economy appear to falter, the Federal Reserve has the ability to move swiftly to cut rates further to provide economic stimulus and reinvigorate demand.”

— Lisa Kailai Han

Stocks open little changed on Tuesday

Stocks were little changed to kick off Tuesday’s trading session.

The S&P 500 was marginally higher. The Nasdaq Composite added 0.3%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 61 points, or 0.1%.

— Lisa Kailai Han

Solar and bank stocks under pressure in premarket trading

Here are some of the biggest movers in premarket trading.

Sunrun, First Solar, Enphase Energy — Solar stocks were under pressure on Tuesday morning after President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for the roll back of green energy subsidies, including to “build upon and strengthen” some of the changes in the recent tax bill.

Datadog — The cloud security stock fell more than 2% after a Guggenheim downgrade to sell from neutral, citing risks from its exposure to OpenAI as a key customer.

JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America — Shares of the three major banks were set to open lower following downgrades from HSBC. 

Check out the full list of movers here.

— Jesse Pound

Nvidia gains 0.8% in Tuesday’s premarket session

Shares of Nvidia gained 0.8% on Tuesday morning.

This marked a reversal for the graphics processing unit manufacturer from Monday’s session, when it shed 0.7%.

Nvidia’s rebound was part of a broader move higher on Tuesday morning as stock futures clawed back some of their losses from the previous session.

— Lisa Kailai Han

Uncertainty around tariffs won’t stop stock market rally, Capital Economics says

The timeline for trade negotiations between the U.S. and other countries appears to have changed once again, but that likely won’t dent investor confidence, said Thomas Matthews, head of markets for Asia Pacific at Capital Economics.

“Our base case remains that the uncertainty around tariffs won’t be enough on its own to bring the US economy to a crashing halt. If so, its unlikely to be enough to dampen investors enthusiasm for US equities,” Matthews said in a note to clients.

However, the same may not be true for Federal Reserve officials.

“It’s been clear in recent weeks that many FOMC members are not confident cutting rates until the inflationary effects of tariffs are clearer, and we doubt they’ll cut this year. That would be bad news for Treasuries given current pricing. But it might, eventually, give the dollar a boost, even if whatever is behind its apparent risk premium takes longer to fade,” Matthews said.

— Jesse Pound

Amazon stock rises as Prime Day kicks off

Shares of Amazon rose slightly in Tuesday’s premarket session as the e-commerce seller’s annual four-day Prime Day sales event commenced.

The stock was last trading nearly 0.4% higher.

Amazon’s Prime Day promotion runs from July 8 to July 11 this year. This is the first year the event has run for four days; previously it was typically scheduled for two.

— Lisa Kailai Han

Equity setup looks bullish, according to Piper Sandler

The setup for equity markets continues to look bullish, Piper Sandler wrote in a Monday note to clients.

“The combination of better-than-expected economic data, easing global trade tensions, and supportive monetary policy is underpinning this bull market. Technically, our measures of market breadth and trends continue to show improvement on a week-over-week basis,” the bank said.

Piper Sandler added that small-cap stocks look especially compelling from here.

“Based on the broadening market breadth, we continue to believe that a catch-up trade is unfolding for SMID-cap stocks, with SMID-Caps outperforming over the last several weeks,” the bank wrote.

— Lisa Kailai Han

Asia-Pacific markets trade mixed as investors assess Trump’s steep tariffs

Asia-Pacific markets swung between gains and losses Tuesday as investors assessed U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest tariff threats on 14 trading partners.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 benchmark ended the day 0.26% higher at 39,688.81 while the broader Topix index moved up 0.17% to 2,816.54.

In South Korea, the Kospi index increased by 1.81% to close at 3,114.95 while the small-cap Kosdaq added 0.74% to 784.24.

Mainland China’s CSI 300 index advanced 0.84% to end the day at 3,998.45 while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index increased by 1.09% to 24,148.07.

Over in Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 benchmark ended the day flat at 8,590.70 after the Reserve Bank of Australia unexpectedly stood pat on interest rates at 3.85%.

Meanwhile, India’s benchmark Nifty 50 and the BSE Sensex were flat as of 1.50 p.m. Indian Standard Time.

— Amala Balakrishner

Lower Treasury yields are fuel for a ‘melt-up in risk assets,’ HSBC strategist says

Lower yields on U.S. Treasury debt have proven the latest fuel for a “melt-up in risk assets,” and the looming tariff deadlines are “unlikely to matter much,” HSBC chief multi-asset strategist Max Kettner wrote to clients on Monday, before President Trump released letters announcing sharp tariffs on Japan, South Korea and others starting in August.

Melt-up ingredients range from “the big beautiful bill, some U.S. trade deals (e.g. Vietnam, potentially), a U.S. labour market that’s been defying the doom-and-gloom calls — not only last month but in the entire second quarter” to lower Treasury yields that are “still being far away from the Danger Zone.”

Possible “pain trades,” which would move against conventional wisdom and harm portfolios positioned the other way, include a stronger U.S. dollar, U.S. and global economic growth that fail to soften and flatter government bond yields in developed markets, London-based Kettner wrote.

Kettner worked to dispel doubts about U.S. stocks, saying: tariffs may have an effect on corporate profits, but will be mitigated by the weaker U.S. dollar, helping large cap companies but especially megacap stocks the most; policy uncertainty is likely to dissipate relative to the second quarter; the U.S. stock market is expensive relative to the rest of the world “because it makes the most money … compared to history, as well as compared to the largest equity markets globally on a crosssectional basis, the U.S. looks fairly valued.”

— Scott Schnipper

Dividend growth slowed in the second quarter, S&P Dow Jones Indices found

Companies tightened their purse strings over dividend increases in the second quarter amid worries over the economy, according to a report from S&P Dow Jones Indices.

Dividend net changes – that is, increases minus decreases – for U.S. domestic common stocks rose $7.4 billion in the second quarter of this year. That compares to a $16 billion increase in the year-ago period and a $15.3 billion gain in the first quarter of 2025.

“Dividend growth has continued, but is noticeably slower than had been hoped for, though it is in line with expectations given the economic certainties,” said Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices, in an e-mail.

He added that while this uncertainty doesn’t seem to have stopped increases, it seems to have capped the size of these hikes.

Silverblatt noted that dividend increases may be limited as companies take a wait-and-see approach toward global government policy that’s constantly changing and worries over employment and inflation.

He also said that the third quarter is expected to start with an improvement from major banks, which have lifted their dividends in light of the Federal Reserve’s stress test results.

— Darla Mercado

Trump announces steep tariffs on 14 countries

U.S. President Donald Trump announced new tariffs on 14 countries to go into effect Aug. 1 that were more severe than investors were expecting. Those countries hit by new tariffs are Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Serbia, South Africa, South Korea, Thailand and Tunisia.

The countries were hit with import duties that are similar to, and in some cases even higher than, what Trump first announced back in April in his so-called “reciprocal” tariffs. Japan, for example, was hit with a 25% levy that’s a little bit above the 24% rate Trump initially said in April. Malaysia was hit with a 25% tariff rate, also higher than the previous 24% level.

— Sarah Min, Kevin Breuninger

Stock futures open lower

Stock futures opened lower Monday night.

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures declined by 87 points, or 0.19%. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures dipped 0.16% and 0.15%, respectively.

— Sarah Min