Fed’s Bostic sees one rate cut, notes negativity among business leaders
Atlanta Federal Reserve President Raphael Bostic said Tuesday he sees an interest rate cut likely to happen before the end of the year despite a lingering air of uncertainty through the economy.
Bostic told reporters that when the Fed in March last updated its individual outlook for the interest rate trajectory, “I put one cut for the year, so I still think there’s space for that, and a lot of it will depend on how the uncertainty resolves itself. So I’m just going to stay diligent and take things out as they happen.”
The Fed meets in two weeks and will update its economic projections then. At the last update, officials indicated the likelihood of two cuts happening, through a lot has changed since then.
In an essay penned for the Atlanta Fed website, Bostic noted a high level of apprehension from business leaders in the region.
“Surveys and our staff’s one-on-one interviews with business leaders across the Southeast found sentiment turning increasingly negative in the spring,” he wrote. “The prospect of potentially higher costs has led many business leaders to pause new major investments and continue their cautious ‘not-hiring-but-not-firing’ approach to their workforce.”
— Jeff Cox
Joby rallies after announcing intention to explore Saudi Arabia opportunities
Joby Aviation shares surged more than 13% after the company announced it entered a memorandum of understanding to explore opportunities for entering the Saudi Arabia market.
The eVOTL air taxi maker entered the agreement with Abdul Latif Jameel, a network of businesses, according to a joint press release. There is potential for delivery of up to 200 Joby aircrafts in the coming year, it said.
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Joby Aviation, 1-day
Joby shares are now up more than 3% in 2025.
— Alex Harring
Stocks open little changed
Stocks were relatively unchanged on Tuesday morning.
The S&P 500 ticked lower by about 0.1% shortly after 9:30 a.m. ET, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also lost 20 points, or about 0.1%.
— Sean Conlon
Dollar General, Constellation Energy, Hims & Hers among stocks making biggest premarket moves
A sign for a Dollar General store is seen on May 28, 2025 in Chicago, Illinois.
Scott Olson | Getty Images
Check out the companies making headlines before the bell:
- Dollar General — Shares of the discount retailer popped more than 10% after the company lifted its annual sales outlook, saying its updated guidance assumes that current tariff rates will remain through mid-August. Dollar General also beat on top and bottom lines for the first quarter. The company reported earnings of $1.78 per share on revenue of $10.44 billion, exceeding estimates of $1.48 per share and $10.31 billion, per LSEG.
- Hims & Hers Health — The telehealth platform added more than 5% after the company said it will acquire European counterpart Zava. The deal will grow Hims & Hers Health’s active customer base by about 50%.
- Constellation Energy — Shares of the energy giant jumped 9% after Meta signed a 20-year agreement to buy nuclear power from Constellation Energy. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, will buy roughly 1.1 gigawatts of energy from Constellation’s Clinton Clean Energy Center in Illinois beginning in June 2027. Shares of energy stocks Vistra Energy and NRG Energy rose 5% and 2%, respectively, in sympathy with the news.
For the full list, read here.
— Pia Singh
U.S. reportedly looking for countries to provide their best trade offers by Wednesday
The U.S. wants countries to give their best offers on trade by Wednesday, Reuters reported Tuesday.
Reuters, which cited a draft letter to negotiating partners from the office of the United States Trade Representative, said the letter reveals that the Trump administration is asking countries to list their best proposals in various areas, such as tariff and quota offers for buying U.S. industrial and agricultural products as well as ways to alleviate any non-tariff barriers.
Though it is unclear which countries would receive the letter, Reuters said that the U.S. will assess countries’ responses within days and present “a possible landing zone,” which may include a reciprocal tariff rate.
The administration continues “to make very good progress” on trade negotiations and is “close to the finish line on a couple” deals, Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday.
Trump’s pause on his “reciprocal” tariffs is set to expire in early July.
— Sean Conlon
JPMorgan turns bearish on Bumble
Displays in Times Square outside the Nasdaq MarketSite are pictured as dating app operator Bumble Inc. (BMBL) made its debut on the Nasdaq stock exchange during the company’s IPO in New York City, New York, U.S., February 11, 2021.
Mike Segar | Reuters
Bumble has lost its buzz, according to JPMorgan.
Analyst Cory Carpenter downgraded the dating app to underweight from neutral. Carpenter’s $5 price target suggests shares can fall 12.9% from Monday’s close.
“We believe Bumble offers a differentiated, women’s first dating experience, but [management] efforts to reinvigorate growth are in the early innings and key competitor Hinge is taking share,” Carpenter wrote to clients in a Tuesday note. “We expect BMBL revenue and payer declines to accelerate in the near-term, with a return to growth unlikely until 2027.”
Bumble shares dropped more than 5% in Tuesday’s premarket. The stock has sunk more than 29% in 2025, on track for its fourth-straight losing year.
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Bumble, 1-day
Citi raises Broadcom price target ahead of earnings
Citi sees more room for Broadcom to run into the semiconductor stock’s Thursday earnings report.
Analyst Christopher Danely hiked his price target by $66 to $276, which now implies upside of about 11% over Monday’s close. He also has a buy rating.
Danely said the company should be able to produce a beat-and-raise when reporting earnings given the health of its artificial intelligence business.
“We expect AVGO to report results above consensus, driven by continued AI strength,” Danely said in a Monday note to clients. “With its non-AI semi business … down roughly 40% from the peak, we believe the business should recover from the current levels and offset most of the gross margin dilution from its AI business.”
Shares have climbed more than 7% in 2025, outperforming both the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) and S&P 500.
— Alex Harring
Constellation Energy surges on Meta power deal
The cooling towers of the Three Mile Island Nuclear power plant is seen on October 30, 2024 in Middletown, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Danielle DeVries | CNBC
Shares of Constellation Energy rallied 11% in the premarket after the company reached a 20-year deal to sell nuclear power to Meta Platforms. The tech giant will purchase about 1.1 gigawatts of power from Constellation’s Clinton Clean Energy Center in Illinois starting in 2027.
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CEG rallies
— Fred Imbert, Pippa Stevens
Asia-Pacific markets trade mixed as investors assess dismal China factory activity
Workers work on a production line manufacturing smart automotive central control navigation products at a factory of Beidou Intelligent Connected Vehicle Technology Co. (BICV) in the High Tech Industrial Development Zone in Suqian, Jiangsu Province, China April 9, 2025.
China Daily | Via Reuters
Asia-Pacific markets traded mixed Tuesday after China’s manufacturing activity in May shrank at the fastest pace since September 2022, a private survey showed.
The Caixin/S&P Global manufacturing purchasing managers’ index came in at 48.3, missing Reuters’ median estimate of 50.6 and dropping sharply from 50.4 in April, as a sharper decline in new export orders highlighted the impact of prohibitive U.S. tariffs.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index led gains in the Asia-Pacific region, ending the day 1.53% higher at 23,512.49 while Mainland China’s CSI 300 added 0.31% in choppy trade to close at 3,852.01.
Over in Japan, the Nikkei 225 benchmark pared gains to end the day flat at 37,446.81, while the broader Topix index fell 0.22% to 2,771.11.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 benchmark advanced 0.63% to end the day at 8,466.70, after briefly hitting a near four-month high earlier in the session.
The country’s seasonally adjusted current account balance for the first quarter of 2025 came in at a deficit of 14.7 billion Australian dollars ($9.53 billion), exceeding the AU$13.1 billion deficit forecast by economists polled by Reuters, but an improvement from the AU$16.3 billion deficit in the previous quarter’s revised reading.
Meanwhile, India’s benchmark Nifty 50 moved down 0.64%, while the BSE Sensex lost 0.88% as at 1.33 p.m. Indian Standard Time.
South Korean markets were closed for polling day.
— Amala Balakrishner
U.S. small-cap stocks unlikely to outperform large caps, no matter what, Capital Economics says
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on June 2, 2025.
NYSE
Even if concerns that a U.S. economic slowdown will turn into a recession turn out to be unfounded, small-cap stocks in the U.S. are unlikely to outperform larger companies, according to Capital Economics chief markets economist John Higgins.
Small-cap stocks haven’t rebounded as much as large-cap indexes since the market bottom in early April, as shown in equal-weighted indexes that give the same importance to each stock, regardless of their market value, Higgins said. What’s more, small-cap underperformance has been only a U.S. phenomenon, not a global one.
Even fading worries about the U.S. economy are unlikely to drive small caps higher relative to large caps, Capital Economics says.
“We suspect the underperformance will continue as enthusiasm for AI grows again,” the researcher wrote. “That view is informed by the experience of the dotcom era: the underperformance of [small-cap] equities then only ended in mid-1999, the year before the bubble burst.”
— Scott Schnipper
Big cybersecurity ETFs close at recordsStock Chart IconStock chart icon
The Amplify Cybersecurity ETF (HACK) and the First Trust NASDAQ Cybersecurity ETF (CIBR) over the past five days
Both ETFs also touched fresh 52-week highs on Monday.
Names lifting the ETFs included CrowdStrike, up about 1.7%; Rubrik, up 4.6%; and Zscaler, up 6.3%.
— Darla Mercado, Gina Francolla
Stocks making the biggest moves after the bell: EchoStar, Credo Technology and more
These are the stocks moving the most in extended-hours trading:
EchoStar — The telecommunications stock popped 5% after EchoStar disclosed that it would not make around $183 million in cash interest payments on a series of Dish’s notes. EchoStar said that this non-payment was made in light of recent uncertainty raised by the Federal Communications Commission.
Pegasystems — Shares added 2% after the software firm raised its full-year earnings guidance to $3.94 per share, ex-items, versus its prior guidance of $3.10 and FactSet’s estimate of $3.40. Pegasystems also updated its full-year revenue guidance to $1.7 billion, up from its previous forecast of $1.6 billion and FactSet’s $1.62 billion estimate.
Credo Technology — The data infrastructure stock soared 13% after the company reported fiscal fourth-quarter non-GAAP earnings of 35 cents per share, exceeding the 27 cents per share analysts polled by FactSet had expected. Credo’s $170 million revenue also beat the estimated $159.6 million.
— Lisa Kailai Han
Stock futures are little changed