Stock Market Today: June 23rd - 27th, 2025

Welcome to the trading week of June 23rd!

S&P 500 posts third straight losing day as traders eye Middle East tensions, Trump’s next steps: Live updates



The S&P 500 fell on Friday as investors monitored the latest developments out of the Middle East. Traders also contemplated the path of future interest rate cuts by Federal Reserve.

The broad market index declined 0.22% to end at 5,967.84, while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.51% and settled at 19,447.41. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ticked up 35.16 points, or 0.08%, closing at 42,206.82.

Chip stocks came under pressure following a report by The Wall Street Journal that the U.S. may revoke waivers for some semiconductor manufacturers. Nvidia was down more than 1%, while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing slid nearly 2%. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) was lower by nearly 1%.

The S&P 500 started off the trading session higher after Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said that the central bank could cut rates as early as July. “I think we’re in the position that we could do this and as early as July,” Waller said during a “Squawk Box” interview.

“That would be my view, whether the committee would go along with it or not,” he added.

This comes after Fed Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday the central bank was in no hurry to cut benchmark rates and will remain data dependent, especially as it remains unclear how President Donald Trump’s tariffs will impact the economy. The S&P 500 closed slightly lower that day following those remarks.

Trump ripped into Powell again Thursday, saying the Fed Chair is costing the U.S. “hundreds of billions of dollars” by delaying rate cuts. The president said ahead of the Fed’s decision Wednesday that “stupid” Powell “probably won’t cut” rates.

Tensions around the Israel-Iran conflict also remained high, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly ordering Jerusalem’s military to strike “strategic targets” in Iran, as well as “government targets.”

Trump is weighing direct U.S. involvement with a strike on Tehran, with the White House on Thursday saying that he will make a final decision within the next two weeks. Trump previously called for Tehran’s complete surrender, to which Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, labeled the notion “threatening and ridiculous.”

“With so much uncertainty going on in this world, who really wants to go long over the weekend,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research. He also pointed out that the S&P 500 is still trading at just around 3% below its recent 52-week high, saying that “prior highs act like rusty doors and require several attempts before finally swinging open.”

“If there’s a calming down of the geopolitical activities, then you know that could be helpful,” he continued.

For the week, the S&P 500 was about 0.2% lower. The 30-stock Dow eked out a 0.02% gain on the week, while the Nasdaq advanced 0.2%.

This past week saw the following moves in the S&P:


S&P Sectors End of Week:


Major Indices End of Week:


Major Futures Markets End of Week:


Economic Calendar for the Week Ahead:

 

Christmas in July: NASDAQ’s 12-Day Midyear Rally Could Deliver New All-Time Highs

Tech’s influence in the market continues to grow and the market’s focus in early summer often shifts to the outlook for second quarter earnings of technology companies. In anticipation of positive results, over the last three trading days of June and the first nine trading days in July, NASDAQ typically enjoys a rally. This 12-trading-day run has been up 31 of the past 40 years with an average historical gain of 2.5%. Look for this rally to begin around June 26 and run until about July 14.

After the bursting of the tech bubble in 2000, NASDAQ’s mid-year rally had a spotty track record from 2002 until 2009 with three appearances and five no-shows in those years. However, it has been quite solid over the last fifteen years, up thirteen times with just two losses. After struggling during the bear market in 2022, NASDAQ resoundingly snapped back the past two years recording gains of 4.1% and 3.8% in 2023 and 2024 respectively during its 12-day midyear rally. Based upon today’s closing price of 19546.27, NASDAQ could easily be at new all-time highs by its midyear rally’s end.

Volatile June Quad Witching Options Expiration

The second Quadruple Witching Week of the year brings on some volatile trading with losses frequently exceeding gains. NASDAQ has the weakest record on the first trading day of the week, down 23 times in 43 years. Quad-Witching Friday is usually better, S&P 500 has been up 12 of the last 22 years, but down 8 of the last 10.

Full-week performance is choppy as well, littered with greater than 1% moves in both directions. The week after June’s Quad-Witching Day is horrendous. This week has experienced DJIA losses in 29 of the last 35 years with an average performance of –0.81%. S&P 500 and NASDAQ have fared better during the week after over the same 35-year span. S&P 500 averaged –0.48%. NASDAQ has averaged -0.01%. Sizable gains in 2021 and 2022 during the week after improved historical average performance notably.



More Chaos, but That Shouldn’t Be a Surprise


Thursday, June 12, has been a tragic and exhausting day. It started with the terrible crash of an Air India flight in India, killing over 250 people—the worst aviation disaster in India since 1996. Then the day ended with Israel striking Iran, targeting their nuclear program and killing several top Iranian military officials (including the head of Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps).

This is coming on the heels of the Liberation Day tariff situation, which was subsequently reversed after the market went through a near bear market. The S&P 500 had just about been approaching its prior new high. And now this. However, as tragic as these events are, let’s keep some perspective, at least from a market standpoint.

It sounds like a lot and it is, but as my colleague Ryan Detrick says, chaos is normal. Here’s a chart he created that sums it all up nicely. Amid some of the worst events in history, stocks have continued to eventually move higher, suggesting all those scary times and lower prices were really good opportunities. They sure didn’t feel like it at the time, but they were.



That doesn’t mean you should ignore these events, as they can cause a lot of volatility in markets, and even the economy. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine tipped inflation over the edge, and we got the higher inflation in 40 years back in 2022—ultimately resulting in a bear market for stocks, with bonds failing to provide diversification. 9/11 was another tragic event that pushed the economy over the edge into a recession, and pulling the dot-com crash into its third year. But the reality is bad news eventually will give way to good news. What that chart above doesn’t show is all the good things that have happened throughout history and it is safe to say they dwarf the negatives. If anything, the fact that the line in the chart has moved up and to the right over time tells you about the dynamism of the US economy, and US companies in particular, as they navigate all sorts of crises.

Volatility Is Normal
Of course, investing in stocks doesn’t come easy, and the return premium you get for investing in stocks over bonds (and pretty much most other asset classes over time) in part reflects the fact that they are volatile. We just went through a near bear market in April, with the market dropping just about 19%. I have no idea what happens over the next few days, or even weeks, but I do know that another bout of volatility would not be surprising. A market correction of 10% happens most years, and sometimes more than once. They are more normal than you might think.



The table below shows geopolitical events that have occurred over the last 80+ years (note that they vary a lot in terms of scale), along with median performance of the S&P 500 over the following year. The median return is a bit lower than the historical average return overall. The average return is also weaker than the median return for these events, signaling some asymmetrical downside risk. But context here is very important.



As my colleague Barry Gilbert wrote after Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023, much of the negative market behavior after these geopolitical events is often not driven by the event itself. For example, the U.S.S. Cole bombing was coincident with the tech bubble bursting in 2000. What stands out from the chart is not so much the downside risk of geopolitical events, but the coincidence of drawdowns and recessions independent of geopolitical risks. If you look at the major drawdowns, most take place during or near a recession, including 1956, 1973, and 2000-2001.

But there are cases where geopolitical risk played some role in the decline. For example, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine worsened already building inflationary pressures, eventually contributing to an aggressive Federal Reserve and weighing on equity markets. But that has been the exception rather than the rule. Markets saw strong gains despite the start of the Iraq invasion in 2003 and Israel’s Six-Day War in 1967. And, of course, the bigger picture beyond the more tactical 12-month time frame is that the markets have always recovered (going back to the first chart).

Despite several Middle Eastern conflicts that did not lead to market drawdowns, the Yom Kippur War in 1973 played at least some role in the ensuing market sell-off. In October 1973, an Arab coalition led by Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack against Israel on Judaism’s holiest day, Yom Kippur. After detecting Soviet resupply to Syria and Egypt, the U.S. began a massive resupply of Israel. The oil cartel OPEC responded by declaring an oil embargo against the U.S. and other countries. In 1973, the U.S. had grown increasingly dependent on foreign oil. As a result of the embargo, oil prices tripled and the added strain on the economy was one of the causes of the recession.

Could oil prices surge again? Perhaps, but OPEC has plenty of capacity to ramp up production (and will be under immense pressure from the Trump administration to do so). US shale will also be bolstered by oil prices rising above $70/barrel, and that is another major potential source of supply. Of course, the scale of disruption matters here, as we saw after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Diversification Helps, Even More So Now
Diversification has not been a portfolio allocator’s friend over the last decade, but it’s proven its mettle this year after the Liberation Day tariffs. Uncertainty related to policy has been high this year, and as we’ve noted across several blogs this year, “when in doubt, diversify it out” (credit to my colleague Grant Engelbart for coining this). We do remain overweight equities, but are underweight small and mid-cap stocks, which helps reduce overall portfolio volatility. Also, since the beginning of the year (even prior to Liberation Day) we moved to a more neutral weight across US and international stocks.

One striking thing that’s happened post-Liberation Day is that even as stocks (and bonds) have more or less retraced their moves, the dollar has continued to weaken. During the early moments of the latest Middle East tensions, it was noteworthy that the dollar didn’t strengthen as much as it has during previous risk-off situations like these. S&P 500 futures plunged over 1.5% after the news came out, but even bond yields didn’t drop as much as you’d normally expect given the situation. Within a few hours of the strikes, the US dollar index was up less than 0.3% and the 10-year yield was down just 0.02%-points. It was clear that the typical “safe haven” bid for the US dollar and US Treasuries was missing. It’s hard to say whether there’s a structural shift—there’s enormous uncertainty around that. But if the dollar continues to weaken, that’s going to help international stocks relative to US stocks.

Even beyond stocks, one thing we have been discussing for a couple of years now is the need to diversify our diversifiers and go beyond bonds to diversify portfolio risk. Bonds may work well in a deflationary recession type environment, but not in one where we see more inflation volatility. And that’s certainly a possibility given potential supply shocks across the world (including tariffs, but also geopolitical tensions). This is why we are overweight low volatility stocks and include other non-correlated asset classes like gold and managed futures (which often includes commodities exposure) within our diversifier bucket. At the same time, we still have longer-term bonds as part of the mix.

Here’s a table Barry’s shared for some time now, showing which diversifiers worked (or didn’t) in major drawdowns since 1998’s 19.2% S&P 500 decline. What’s worked best has depended on the market environment. Most generally, bonds have fared well and commodities have fared poorly in downturns, but sometimes it’s been dramatically different, like in 2022 when inflation (and oil prices) spiked. Outside of 2022, it makes sense that commodities have underperformed—stock downturns often happen during periods of economic weakness, when lower demand weighs on commodity prices. But gold is not primarily an industrial commodity, so its pattern has been different.



From a portfolio perspective, the takeaways are that diversification is important, but it’s not enough to rely on a single source of diversification in a portfolio all the time. It’s important to understand what environment you’re in. And if the environment is uncertain, as we think the current one is, having exposure to different kinds of diversifiers can be beneficial.

The Carson Investment Research team has not changed its overall market outlook in response to the conflict, although we continue to monitor the situation closely. The economy is not as strong as it was a year ago, or even two years ago. The labor market is looking more shaky amid weak hiring, and elevated rates and tariff uncertainty has led to struggles within the housing and manufacturing sectors. As I wrote last week, our own proprietary leading economic index tells us that risks are higher than they were at the end of last year, and that’s something to be aware of. This is a big reason why we’re cautiously overweight equities, rather than pedal to the metal (as we were over the last two years). And why our portfolios are more diversified than they have been in the past.

 

Here are the percentage changes for the major indices for WTD, MTD, QTD & YTD in 2024-



S&P sectors for the past week-

 

Here are the current major indices pullback/correction levels from 52WK highs as of week ending 6.20.25-


Here is also the pullback/correction levels from current prices


Here are the current major indices rally levels from 52WK lows as of week ending 6.20.25-

 

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Here are the upcoming IPO's for this week-

 

Stock Market Analysis Video for June 20th, 2025
Video from AlphaTrends Brian Shannon


ShadowTrader Video Weekly 6/22/25
Video from ShadowTrader Peter Reznicek

 

StocksForumers! Come join us on our stock market competitions for this upcoming trading week ahead!-

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StocksForums Weekly Stock Picking Contest & SPX Sentiment Poll (6/23-6/27) <-- click there to cast your weekly market direction vote and stock picks for this coming week ahead!

Daily SPX Sentiment Poll for Monday (6/23) <-- click there to cast your daily market direction vote for this coming Monday ahead!

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It would be pretty sweet to see some of you join us and participate on these!

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend ahead!

 

And finally here is the most anticipated earnings calendar for this upcoming trading week ahead-
($MU $FDX $CCL $NKE $BB $CMC $KBH $FDS $SNX $WOR $AVAV $AYI $GIS $WBA $PAYX $JEF $CNXC $ATEX $AOUT $DAKT $NG $LNN $WGO $WS $MKC $APOG $HIVE $EPAC $FUL $OESX $MLKN $SCS)


If you guys want to view the full earnings post please see this thread here-

• Most Anticipated Earnings Releases for the week beginning June 23rd, 2025 <-- click there to view!

 

Top of the morning StocksForumers! Happy Monday to all of you and welcome to the new trading week and a frrrrrrrrrrrresh start. Here is a quick check on those futures as we are over an hour into the US cash market open.

GLTA on this Monday, June the 23rd, 2025!

 

Here are today's economic calendar events:

 

Here are today's analyst stock upgrades & downgrades:

 

Here are this morning's pre-market earnings results:

 

Morning Lineup - 6/23/25 - Anything Happen This Weekend?
Mon, Jun 23, 2025

We can all give good rationalizations of why futures have seen such a muted reaction to the Iran news over the weekend, but isn’t that the way hindsight always works? If you had asked anybody to predict how markets would react to a US bombing of targets in Iran, no one would have said a gain of less than 1% in crude oil and no change in S&P 500 futures.

This morning’s muted reaction to the weekend’s events is also a microcosm of the market’s YTD performance. Heading into the final week of the first half, there has been no shortage of market catalysts and subsequent volatility, but here we are with the S&P 500 little changed (up less than 1.5%) on the year. Since WWII, 2025 ranks as just the 12th time (out of 81) that the S&P 500 has been up or down less than 2% heading into the final week of the first half.

The chart below shows the S&P 500’s performance during the last week of the first half in each year since 1945. Overall, the median performance has been a decline of 0.13%, with positive returns just 51% of the time, so it hasn’t typically been a positive week for stocks. More recently, performance has been even weaker with negative returns in nine of the last eleven years and a median decline of 0.29%.

 

Here is a final look at today's market and futures maps, as well as how each sector performed individually at the close on Monday, June 23rd, 2025.

 

Top of the morning StocksForumers! Happy Tuesday to all of you and welcome to the new trading day and a frrrrrrrrrrrresh start. Here is a quick check on those futures as we are over an hour into the US cash market open.

GLTA on this Tuesday, June the 24th, 2025!

 

Here are today's economic calendar events:

 

Here are today's analyst stock upgrades & downgrades:

 

Here are this morning's pre-market earnings results:

 

Morning Lineup - 6/24/25 - Crude's Cruddy Reversal
Tue, Jun 24, 2025

Investors may have been puzzled by the lack of any material weakness to kick off the week yesterday, but news overnight of a ceasefire between Iran and Israel was likely what the market was sniffing all along. Following yesterday's intraday rebound, equity futures are indicated to open sharply higher, even as they have given up some of their prior gains. The key to watch today will be how the market trades throughout the trading session. Can it build on the early gains, or will investors look to take profits?

Besides the Mideast crosscurrents, investors will also have to contend with some economic reports, including the 10 AM releases of the Richmond Fed Manufacturing report (expected to weaken modestly) and Consumer Confidence, which is expected to build on last month's much better than expected report. Besides the data, several FOMC members are scheduled to speak, with the most notable being Chair Powell when he testifies at 10 AM to the House Financial Services Committee. We've already seen three members of the FOMC strike a more dovish tone than Powell (Bowman, Goolsbee, and Waller), so will he dig in his heels or strike a more dovish tone? There's only so long that tariff-induced inflation can be a 'tomorrow' story.

After rallying as much as 1.3% intraday yesterday on the back of a rally in crude oil, the S&P 500 Energy sector sold off over 4% on an intraday basis in what turned into a wild intraday range, even in a sector known for its volatility. The result was what technicians call an outside day, where the intraday high exceeds the intraday high of the prior session while the intraday low is below the prior day’s intraday low. Not only was yesterday an outside day for the Energy sector relative to the prior session, but it was also an outside day relative to the sector's range over the prior five trading days! This morning futures are continuing the weakness from Monday as WTI trades down over 3.5% to just under $66 per barrel.



Days when the Energy sector’s intraday range exceeds the trading range of the sector’s prior five trading days have been very uncommon. While there was another similar “Mega” Outside Day for the sector back in March, since 1990, there have only been six other such days. There was one in April 2024, but before that, you have to go back to October 2018 to find the next occurrence. The chart below shows each of those prior “Mega” Outside Days. Outside of the first two in May 2003 and March 2005, all of the other occurrences have taken place during the 10+ year period where the sector has essentially been rangebound as the sector is at the same levels now as it was in 2008.

 

Here is a final look at today's market and futures maps, as well as how each sector performed individually at the close on Tuesday, June 24th, 2025.