S&P 500 Hits New High On Trade Deals; Vistra, Veeva, Axon Enterprise In Focus

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0:25Ed Carson:Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Stock Market Today for Wednesday, July 23rd. It's Alyssa Coram here. And more new highs for the stock market with fresh trade news. We also have some big earnings reports out after the close. And joining me now to break down the action from today's session and take a peek at those earnings out after the bell is my colleague, Ed Carson. Ed, what do you have for us today? Yeah, I want to take a look at Vistra, Viva Systems, and Exxon Enterprise. All right, we'll take a look at those stocks as well as Google and Tesla here in a bit. But first, let's take a look at the major indexes.

1:03Ed Carson:So the Nasdaq today up six-tenths of a percent. The S &P 500 was stronger and the new all-time high there for the S &P up 0.8 % on the day. Meanwhile, the Dow was up 1.1%, a little break out there. And the Russell 2000 up about 1.5%, also a strong move here. So, Ed, we've seen the NASDAQ for the most part in this rally since late April be in the driver's seat. But it seems like today the strength really was elsewhere. Yeah, and that's not so bad. I mean, the NASDAQ might have been getting a little stretched. And yeah, yesterday morning was a little scary, but it closed fine, I mean, ultimately.

1:48And today, a lot of gross stocks that were hammered Tuesday morning, rebounded, maybe fully recaptured their losses or even moved higher. So the NASDAQ is still basically at record highs. The S &P is at record highs. The Dow is just a smidge below record highs. And the Russell 2000, I'd say I was still a laggard, but up around like five-month high. So it seems pretty broad-based, pretty positive action out there today. There was a trade deal last night. We don't have all the details yet, but a Japan trade deal. And now there's rumors and reports that a similar trade deal might be with the European Union.

2:26I mean, the tariffs would be higher than they have been, but lower than Trump has threatened to impose. So the markets are rallying on that. So there's just the markets are still in good shape.

2:38Ed Carson:Yeah. And in terms of the NASDAQ with the tech focus here, I mean, we're going to have earnings from all sorts of sectors and industry groups continuing to roll out. But between this week and the next week or two seem to be the really tech heavy focus, or at least the heavy hitters that will be reporting. Yeah, the heavy hitters and have a huge influence, all these big hyperscalers, including Google tonight. And yeah, and along with that, with the Fed and some Trump tariff deadlines, I mean, you can understand there'd be a reason to say, like, let's be a little cautious right in the here and now.

3:11I mean, people should be pretty heavily invested. But, you know, you could just say, well, with all these things that could happen to individual stocks or the sector of the market. But yeah, there's reasons to be just a little cautious about new action. But things have been going very well. It seems like every time there's a potential headwind, the market just sort of blows right through it or at least holds firm and then blows through it. Yeah.

3:35Ed Carson:And I think that's a really great distinction that you're making cautious in terms of new buys, right? If you've been fully invested, maybe you have 20 % plus gains on some of your holdings. If they're holding key levels, then hopefully you can let those positions run because all of these headlines that we're talking about or potential catalysts for market moves could continue to be in the market's favor, right? or we could see some sort of pullback. So we'll be open to either scenario. All right, Ed, let's move on and quickly take a look at the 10-year yield. Give us an update on what we're seeing.

4:15I mean, it rebounded a little bit, but not that much. And if it had fallen further, I mean, that might have provided a further catalyst to gold or other things. But it's basically sort of in a range. It fell a lot, bounced somewhat, bounced back a little bit. It feels like a basketball sort of bouncing up and the bounces are getting a little smaller, honestly. We'll see a lot of news in the next week or so, but it seems pretty normal and the markets are taking it in stride.

4:43Ed Carson:Well, you mentioned gold, so let's go there. And full disclosure, I do own a little GLD, down 1.2 % on the day for the week, still up about 1.2 % as this base formation continues. Yeah. So if you were interest rates rising and maybe more certainty on trade, those are things that might be a little negative for gold, which sort of is on there as sort of a hedge against inflation, against uncertainty. And there was a little less of that kind of today. So just down a little bit, but it's still acting very well. Okay, well, we'll see if we get a breakout. It's been consolidating for a couple of months at this point.

5:24Ed Carson:We'll just have to see. But the trading ranges have narrowed lately a little bit here. OK, let's also take a look at growth stocks, which you mentioned, some that slipped yesterday, particularly intraday rebounding today. That can be seen here in the IBD50 ETF, which outperformed quite nicely today at up almost 1.9 percent. Yeah, and it reclaimed all the losses from yesterday. Yeah, we're not. I think part of what made Tuesday disappointing is it came after Monday's downside reversal. So people from that high to the low, but ultimately we're basically at record closes here. So that, you know, that just changes things or at least closes for the last several years.

6:07So, you know, things are going really well, pretty well. This is one reason why you don't want to get super concentrated in all that, because then that thing is scary. Individually, some of these losses, OK, there were a few names that went really hard, but generally the losses were maybe serious, but not crazy. But if it wasn't super concentrated in all speculative growth in AI, Tuesday morning may not have been that big of a deal. But yeah, we came right back here in any case.

6:35Ed Carson:Okay. Let's now take a look at the equal-weighted ETFs to give us some added perspective here. Here's RSP, which is the equal-weighted S &P 500 ETF, slightly outperforming the S &P today and getting close to a breakout over this long range. But you could also view the recent action, you know, this little digestion that we've seen as a breakout area. Yeah. And so yesterday was a great day for RSP. So outside of a lot of it, the market was strong. And today it was more broadly strong. And then this didn't give anything back, continues to lead. So a lot of breadth. This has not been leading the market.

7:17You can see that relative strength line has generally lagged because tech has still been so strong for the most part. But it's just having a good week so far.

7:26Ed Carson:Yeah. And we're almost to our stocks. But first, let's compare QQQ, the NASDAQ 100, with QQEW, its equal-weighted counterpart. The Q's up a half a percent today, while QQEW lagged a little bit, but it looks like it's at its highest levels in a while here. Ed, what's your assessment of that broader tech landscape when you're taking out those heavy weightings of the mega caps? Yeah, and since QQEW was up yesterday, it's doing well. And so there is some breadth to that. Again, we're seeing a lot of breadth in the market, which is really nice to see. This podcast is brought to you by MassMutual. For 175 years, MassMutual has been there for policy owners, financial professionals, and communities through economic shifts and societal change.

8:18Ed Carson:In a world that changes fast, strength and stability still matter, especially when it comes to helping people secure their future and protect the ones they love. Learn more at MassMutual.com. That's MassMutual.com. Okay, so next on our list, let's check out VST. This is Vistra in the Utility Electric Power Group, thought of as an AI play here, really, up 5.8 % on the day. Not the best close if you're talking about just the trading range from the day, but perhaps the true range if you're taking into account where it climbed from the prior day's close. I would say a somewhat decent close here. Ed, what say you about this action?

9:09Yeah, and if you look at CEG, which was much more disappointing, actually, in terms of because it clearly came off of a couple of levels. But yeah, VST, there was a lot of positive news. There was some earnings from other folks. There was a lot of power-friendly news out there. Yeah. So this one came up, and as you say, on the true range, not too bad on that. It closed right below the$225 buy point. You could see that as sort of a high handle to this consolidation. And, you know, a little disappointing in that front. You'd like to see it move out there. People could have bought it, and it could still work fine.

9:48You can see they could buy it in the coming days if it comes up. Their earnings are coming up not too long from now, so there may not be a lot of time for cushion. And this stock can show some big drops around earnings, also some big gains. Look, I mean, in AI, everything's AI now. It feels like there's just such a demand for power. There was a big power auction. So that was one reason. That's basically why Vistra was up, that there's just electricity prices are still skying high. And that seems to be something that's going to be, prices are going to stay high for a long time because there's just such a voracious demand for power.

10:22Ed Carson:And in this theme, like you said, there were a lot of stocks on the move today. We looked at CEG. Another one that we've looked at sort of in the same vein is your NRG here up 4.3 % on the day. And then we also had earnings coming out from GE Vernova, GEV. I do own this one, up almost 15 % on the day. So, yeah, this AI power generation theme definitely powered higher on the day. All right. We'll keep tabs on VST to see if it can hold above that 200 level. Meanwhile, let's go to Viva Systems, working on a very orderly base here, Ed. Yeah, very orderly. I mean, it just is great. There was sort of this long base and it gapped up.

11:13It's like, well, do I really want to buy this? The relative strength line hadn't been that great for a long time, even though there'd been a trend up. But longer term, it hadn't really been outperforming. Okay. So it's like, well, I'm not convinced. And so it's just been beautiful about what it's doing. It's basically gone sideways since then. So now it's done better. The 10-week line catching up. It's been very tight. so I think if it gets any higher than where you know the highs from the last couple of days you could probably be buying that or you could just wait for the breakout just so again a sort of a deeper longer less exciting you know messier base and then a really tight base on top of that fairly classic the revenue growth is accelerated earnings growth is strong so it seems to be improving here they're doing something sort of breaking away from a relationship with sales force Obviously, there's pros and cons to doing something like that.

12:05But I think there's some momentum behind this name that certainly hasn't been there for a while, for the stock at least.

12:15Ed Carson:Okay. Well, we'll keep an eye on that 290 level for this stock. And let's check out Axon. Moving in the wrong direction, Ed, down 2.2 % on the day. round tripping a breakout and then some. Yeah. And I think the issue here is that there's some warning signs ahead of time. Okay. There was the sell off right at the top. Fine. Okay. You're going, okay. That's it. That's fine. It's holding the 21 day line. So I get it that nobody does that, but it's still not a great sign, but that one. And I think that came when Arrival really sold off. But nonetheless, at this point, you were taking a pretty decent gain, probably like I'm sort of eyeballing it, maybe like a 15 % gain thereabouts.

12:59And it was basically down to 2%. It was below the 50-day line. I think for sure, by that point, you would have wanted to sell a lot of it, if not getting out entirely. And then it wedged up, but it wedged up in low volume, and it just couldn't get back above the 50-day line. And yesterday, it basically came right down to it again. It seems like yesterday, if you had still held onto anything, it seemed like yesterday would have been a time because it was that 15 % gain was 1%. And now it's below there. This could easily set up again. But when you also combine with earnings, and we've seen that this stock can surge on earnings, but also completely crash on earnings.

13:36So that's just something in there. You know, it's losing sight now at the 50 day line. It didn't really bounce back. And now it's falling further when the market is hitting record highs. And all that's, you know, it's just It's not, there's just been some warning signs. This is why you probably want to be scaling out and doing something to make sure to preserve a profit. Because anybody who had that decent gain, you know, over a few weeks had opportunities to exit this position.

14:03Ed Carson:Yeah, some really great post analysis there, Ed, of how to handle a trade. Love it. Okay, let's check out those stocks with earnings out after the bell. Tesla, do we have any of the numbers yet, Ed? Yeah, I think the earnings were roughly in line. I haven't seen the details because there's a lot of possible wildcards that could be in or out of it. Revenue, I think, was a little better than expected. That's not the main event. I mean, this is whatever it goes up or down over the next hour. It won't really matter. We're going to be, I mean, I haven't looked at the details. We'll see what they have to say in the release about this.

14:38But it's really, what does Elon Musk have to say on the earnings call? And that will start at 530 Eastern. What do they have to say on the earnings call about robotaxis and other things? and how do investors react to that. There is, you know, there are potentially actionable things. The relative strength line hasn't been great. So we'll just have to see. I wouldn't get excited either way, however this goes for the next 45 minutes.

15:00Ed Carson:Either way. Because we know, like he's excited either way. The bears would be excited, like, you know, to see some negative action here. So I guess - But I wouldn't, yeah. If it went down 2 % before Musk was talking, I wouldn't be like, oh boy it's all doomed no right no it's gonna come right back yeah anything can happen and we know that you and our news team are going to be all over covering that earnings call live we have a live blog so to speak on investors.com so check that out because uh kit norton our reporter covering tesla you uh alan another one of our editors i know you guys are going to be all over it.

15:45Ed Carson:So everyone should check that out. All right, let's go to Google. Parent Alphabet. Looks like the stock, as of this moment, down a little over 1%. Ed, what are you seeing here? But first, a quick look, looked like it beat on views. They were going to step up their spending. So maybe that's a concern. So I haven't looked at all the details and anything. I just saw that headline numbers were strong. This is basically just maybe going to dip back into a buy zone. I guess it got technically at the very time back into it. So have to see how that goes. Coming down a little bit right now. And in terms of the implications or the ripple effect of what Google management says on the call, what are you keeping an eye out for?

16:30Ed Carson:What themes are you keeping tabs on? Things about the advertising, which matters for meta and Amazon, AI spending and monetization, which matters from Amazon Meta and Microsoft. And, of course, it matters for NVIDIA and AMD and Arista Networks. So, you know, what they have to say will have a big influence going forward there. And Waymo, maybe? And Waymo. I don't know how much they'll actually say. I don't know if they often say that much on the call because sometimes they'll talk about these benchmarks. I don't know if they'll provide a lot of new information. But anything they say there, and along with Tesla, will matter for Uber, obviously.

17:11At some point, this may matter for the bottom line, but not so much there. There are a lot of big movers. These aren't moving too much, but there's some others. Just IBM, that one. Again, I don't know anything what's happening here. IBM is down, going to go through the 50-day line. I don't know what's T-Mobile. That's a strong move to start. That one looks like it'll get above the 200-day line. Service now.

17:32Ed Carson:6 % as of right now. For our Spotify listeners, Ed. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. And ServiceNow looks like 6%, 7%. So that one's going to get back. I mean, sold off. I don't know if it would be actual, but certainly get back into the system. And then Chipotle. Chipotle is not doing particularly well. That's down 10%, 11%. It hasn't been doing well anyway, and it's not bouncing back here. Okay. Thanks for that brief look. And then IBM, which we peaked in on down a little over 4%, but we'll have to see. We know, Ed, that overnight action does not always translate to the regular session the following day.

18:14Ed Carson:So that's why it's always great to keep tabs on investors.com and to tune into IABD Live in the mornings. You are our Thursday host, so you will be steering the ship and walking us through all the important earnings reactions and stock moves. So we look forward to that in the morning. Thank you and thanks everyone for tuning in. And like I said, IABD Live, that's coming up tomorrow morning, investors.com slash IABD Live for all the details starting 10 minutes before the opening bell. We'll see you there. But before then, we have a podcast episode because it is Wednesday. So today, Wednesday, 5 p.m.

18:54Ed Carson:Eastern, check out our YouTube channel for this week's episode of the Investing with IABD podcast hosted by Justin Nielsen. This week's guest is Jason Shapiro of the Crowded Market Report. So what are those areas where you can get ahead of the crowd and not get into crowded trades? We'll get Jason's take. So that's coming up at 5. Thanks, everyone. And we'll see you right back here tomorrow.

19:49Ed Carson:We'll see you next time. medical surgical products and supply chain solutions serving all points of care. With a focus on what healthcare needs next, Medline strives to make healthcare run better. See how Medline is woven throughout healthcare and learn more at Medline.com.