Stocks rose higher Monday as investors looked ahead towards a busy week of mega-cap tech earnings and the final days before the U.S. presidential election. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped over 270 points, while the S&P 500 Index and Nasdaq Composite each added about 0.3%.
Here's how the market settled on Monday:
S&P 500 Index (NYSE: SPY): +0.27% or +15.40 points to 5,823.52
Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DIA): +0.65% or +273.17 points to 42,387.57
Nasdaq Composite Index (NASDAQ: QQQ): +0.26% or +48.58 points to 18,567.19
In the News:
JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) filed lawsuits on Monday in at least three federal courts against customers who allegedly stole thousands of dollars from ATMs through a technical glitch that went viral on TikTok and other social media platforms in August that allowed them to withdraw money before a check bounced.
A case in Texas involves a dependent that owes the bank $290,939.47 after an unidentified accomplice deposited a counterfeit $335,000 check, according to JPMorgan. Other lawsuits in Florida and California include customers owing the bank between $80,000 to $141,000.
Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) and CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD) have sued each other over the global online outage in July sparked by the cybersecurity software firm's update that caused the airline to cancel 7,000 flights. In the suit filed by Delta on Friday, the airline accused CrowdStrike of breach of contract and negligence.
"CrowdStrike caused a global catastrophe because it cut corners, took shortcuts, and circumvented the very testing and certification processes it advertised, for its own benefit and profit," Delta wrote in its complaint. "If CrowdStrike had tested the Faulty Update on even one computer before deployment, the computer would have crashed."
In its own suit, CrowdStrike dismissed Delta's claim that its software was responsible for the mass flight cancellations, and is asking the court to limit what it owes to the airline based on their service agreement.
McDonald's (NYSE: MCD) shares rose higher on Monday after the fast-food giant announced its popular Quarter Pounder burger will return to the roughly 900 restaurants -- about a fifth of the company's U.S. operations -- linked to the deadly E. coli outbreak this week. McDonald's will offer the burgers without onions for the foreseeable future as health authorities continue to investigate the source of the outbreak.
"The issue appears to be contained to a particular ingredient and geography, and we remain very confident that any contaminated product related to this outbreak has been removed from our supply chain and is out of all McDonald's restaurants," said Cesar Pina, chief supply chain officer for McDonald's North American operations, in a letter quoted by CNBC.
Robinhood (NASDAQ: HOOD) announced Monday that users in the United States can begin trading the 2024 presidential election ahead of November 5, trading either a Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump contract. The trading is offered through its Robinhood Derivatives unit and ForecastEx, owned by Interactive Brokers (NASDAQ: IBKR).
"We believe event contracts give people a tool to engage in real-time decision-making, unlocking a new asset class that democratizes access to events as they unfold," the company said in a statement.
Analyst Ratings:
Stifel analyst Mark Astrachan downgraded Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL) shares to Hold from Buy on Monday and cut the firm's price target to imply a more than 5% upside from Friday's close, citing slowing organic sales growth.
"We view fundamentals as more-than-solid, evidenced by ~4% volume growth following ~3% growth in 1H24, making Colgate one of the best-performing large-cap consumer staples companies," Astrachan wrote in a note to clients. "That said, comparisons are increasingly challenging, and we anticipate organic sales growth to slow from high single-digits in recent years."
Wells Fargo analyst Steven Cahall named Spotify (NYSE: SPOT) as a top stock pick on Monday, maintaining the firm's Overweight rating on the audio streaming platform and raised its price target to imply about 24% upside from Friday's close.
"Incremental Premium gross margins imply that Spotify's evolving product mix and Label relationships are improving the bottom-line," Cahall wrote in a note to clients. "SPOT is also efficiency-focused on overhead costs. These are all the components of a premium growth stock."
For Tuesday:
Market participants will turn their attention towards earnings from companies including Ford (NYSE: F), Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL), PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL), Royal Caribbean Cruises (NYSE: RCL), McDonald's and Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) on Tuesday, alongside September's job openings report.