Stock market news for June 3, 2024

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower on Monday, kicking off the first trading session of June as investors fretted over the U.S. economy.

The 30-stock Dow pulled back 115 points, or 0.3%, to close at 38,571.03. The S&P 500 ticked up 0.11% to finish the session at 5,283.40, while the Nasdaq Composite added 0.56% to 16,828.67.

— Brian Evans

Markets are more wary of interest rates staying elevated than necessary, according to UBS.

Mark Haefele, CIO of the firm’s global wealth management division, said the market is now only anticipating 35 basis points of rate cuts in 2024. Meanwhile, he said the UBS base case is 50 points.

“Markets have become too cautious on the potential for easing this year, in our view,” he told clients.

— Alex Harring

Andrew Left, the founder of Citron Research, told Bloomberg News that he re-shorted GameStop Monday after seeing stocks surge on Keith Gill’s social media posts.

In 2021, Citron Research was forced to close out its short position in GameStop at a loss and said it would no longer publish short reports and would focus on long opportunities for investors.

Left also revealed that he shorted GameStop in May and has covered the position.

— Yun Li

May’s strong performance should bode well for equities this month, according to Canaccord Genuity.

“From a historical perspective, strong market performance in May generally leads to a positive June,” analyst Michael Welch wrote in a Tuesday note. “Since 1957, when the SPX is up 4% or more in May, the month of June has been positive eight out of nine times by a median of 1.4%.”

Although the final week of May saw the S&P 500 decline by about 0.5%, ending a five-week win streak, the broad-market index posted its best performance in May since 2009 with a 4.8% gain, Welch said. He added that on Friday, the percentage of S&P 500 Index components trading above their 10- and 50-day moving averages rose to 50.3% and 51.3%, respectively, removing the oversold conditions.

— Pia Singh

The Atlanta Federal Reserve’s closely watched gauge of economic growth took another sharp dive Monday following disappointing news out of the manufacturing sector.

GDPNow, the central bank branch’s tracker of incoming data, reduced the pace of expected second-quarter growth down to 1.8%, from 2.7%. The big step down followed the ISM Manufacturing Index reading for May. At 48.7%, the index was below Wall Street expectations and indicative of further contraction.

This was the second big plunge for GDPNow in the past several days, as the tracker slid 0.8 percentage point on Friday following weak consumer spending data out of the Commerce Department.

The U.S. economy grew at a 1.3% annualized pace in the first quarter.

—Jeff Cox

Mexico’s peso slid more than 3% against the U.S. dollar during Monday trading after the Latin American country elected its first female president.

Left-leaning climate scientist Claudia Sheinbaum won the presidential election, according to the electoral institute’s rapid count estimate published late Sunday night.

The currency has weakened around 3.5% against the dollar since the start of the year.

— Sean Conlon

These are some of the stocks making notable moves midday:

• Spotify — The music streaming company climbed 4% following its announcement of premium subscription price increases in the U.S. in July.
• Paramount Global — The media company advanced more than 7% after CNBC’s David Faber reported the firm and Skydance have agreed to terms of a merger.
• Cava — Shares shed about 5% after being downgraded at JPMorgan to neutral from overweight. 

Click here for the full list.

— Alex Harring

Shares of Paramount rose nearly 7% on Monday as the media company appears to be close to finalizing a deal with Skydance and private equity firms RedBird Capital and KKR.

CNBC’s David Faber reported Monday, citing sources, that the deal is likely to be announced soon, pending the approval of Paramount controlling shareholder Shari Redstone.

Wells Fargo analyst Steven Cahall said in a note to clients that the reported details of the offer should “make everyone reasonably happy.”

“Should Shari accept the Skydance deal on the board’s recommendation then this week could see the full details come to light, and then the market can judge for itself how Skydance’s strategic plan looks vs the $15/sh cash-out offer. We think alternative bids like Sony/APO were deemed too risky on regulatory grounds, and in the end may have resulted in desired improvements to Skydance’s offer,” the note said.

— Jesse Pound

The Consolidated Tape Association, the organization used by major exchanges to jointly provide real-time stock quotes, further explained what caused the technical issue Monday.

It said there was an issue with limit up and limit down price bands that could be related to a new software release. A total of 40 tickers were affected by erroneous price bands due to this software release between 9:30 a.m. and 10:27 a.m., the organization said in a statement. The CTA previously had said 49 stocks were affected and later corrected the number.

— Yun Li

U.S. crude oil fell more than 3% to trade below $75 per barrel on Monday, as OPEC+ announced plans to phase out voluntary production cuts totaling 2.2 million barrels per day.

A coalition of eight OPEC+ members led by Saudi Arabia and Russia announced Sunday that they would begin phasing out those cuts over the course of 12 months starting in October.

Under the plan, more than 500,000 barrels per day would return to the market by December, and 1.8 million barrels per day would come back by June 2025.

“Some people read the OPEC statement, particularly the part about the adding barrels back from the voluntary cut, as bearish,” said Helima Croft, head of global commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets.

“They were pretty clear that this is going to be data dependent,” Croft said. “As we get to the end of August, if the fundamental picture looks worse than what we have now, they would pause that addition.”

— Spencer Kimball

Despite all the buzz around Ozempic and new anti-obesity GLP-1 treatments, many patients would still prefer to pop a pill rather than give themselves a once-a-week injection. Unfortunately, finding a safe and highly effective pill has been elusive. That is why investors are very excited by new clinical data from Structure Therapeutics on Monday.

Shares are up more than 60% in trading after a midstage clinical trial showed weight loss of 6% after patients enrolled in the study took its GSBR-1290 for 12 weeks. Notably, the result is competitive to an experimental pill Eli Lilly is developing.

— Christina Cheddar Berk

The iShares MSCI India ETF (INDA) headed for its best day in more than two years.

The fund rose more than 3% in Monday’s session, clinching a new 52-week high. If that gain holds through session close, it will mark the best day since March 9, 2022, when the exchange-traded fund gained more than 4%.

Monday’s moves follow the latest election in the country. Exit polls suggest Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his alliance were poised for a third straight term in power, which is considered rare.

The U.S. manufacturing sector showed a greater level of contraction than expected in May, according to an Institute for Supply Management report Monday.

The ISM manufacturing index was at 48.7 on the month, representing the share of businesses reporting expansion. A number below 50 indicates contraction.

Within the ISM business survey, the prices index fell 3.9 points to 57, while the employment index rose 2.5 points to 51.1, breaking into expansion territory.

— Jeff Cox

The S&P 500 opened higher on Monday, with shares of Nvidia also climbing to start the first week of June trading.

The broad market index added 0.3%, while the Nasdaq Composite added 0.7%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 22 points, or 0.06%. Shares of Nvidia, meanwhile, climbed nearly 4%.

— Brian Evans

Check out the companies making headlines before the bell:

• Spotify — Shares of the music streaming service rose 4.8% after it announced Monday it will raise prices for Spotify Premium subscriptions in the U.S. starting in July.
• MarineMax — MarineMax, a recreational boat and yacht services company, popped 19% on a report that OneWater Marine is in talks to buy the company for $40 a share in cash. Bloomberg first reported the deal, citing people with knowledge of the matter.
• Cava — The Mediterranean fast-casual restaurant chain slipped nearly 2% following a downgrade by JPMorgan to neutral from overweight. 

For the full list, read here.

— Pia Singh

The market is still in the beginning stages of the bull market, according to Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research.

“I think it’s actually fairly early on,” Yardeni said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “Some people are talking about it being midcycle … or getting near the end of the story, but I don’t think that’s the case.”

Yardeni said continued strength in productivity is likely. While he sees similarities between now and the 1920s with technology-led improvements in the standard of living, he is not necessarily forecasting another crash like there was almost a century ago.

As part of his “Roaring ’20s” outlook, Yardeni expects the S&P 500 to finish 2024 at 5,400; 2025 at 6,000; and 2026 at 6,500. His year-end 2024 forecast implies 2.3% upside from Friday’s close.

— Alex Harring

Shares of waste-disposal firm Stericycle soared more than 7% in premarket trading following news that Waste Management would acquire the company for $7.2 billion.

Waste Management will acquire Stericycle for $62 per share, representing a roughly 20% premium over Stericycle stock’s Friday close.

— Brian Evans

GameStop shares were up more than 74% amid speculation that Keith Gill, who inspired the 2021 short squeeze, could have a big position in the video game retailer.

Gill, who goes by DeepF——Value on Reddit and Roaring Kitty on YouTube and social media site X, posted a screenshot of what could be his portfolio, showing more than five million GameStop shares worth $115.7 million. The image also showed 120,000 call options in GameStop.

European markets started the month higher Monday, extending last week’s rally as investors look ahead to the European Central Bank’s latest interest rate decision later this week.

The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was up 0.63% at 8,326, Germany’s DAX was 0.79% higher at 18,648 and France’s CAC was up 0.72% at 8,050. Italy’s MIB was 0.8% higher at 34,762.