Stocks end down

The three major indexes ended Monday in the red.

The Dow and S&P 500 lost 1.5% and 1.8%, respectively. The Nasdaq Composite slid 2.6%.

— Alex Harring

Stock chart icon

PM PEP PG JNJ intraday chart

This was in contrast to a broad risk-off move that sent stocks such as Broadcom and Ford lower.

— Lisa Kailai Han

AI darling Nvidia pulled back nearly 10% on Monday as the broader market sold off after President Trump confirmed tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico would begin on Tuesday.

Shares are continuing a slide from last week that was tied to margin concern.

Stock chart icon

Nvidia stock.

Apple has become the safe-haven play of the “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap tech stocks since the DeepSeek emergence, according to Ben Reitzes, head of technology research at Melius Research.

“The companies that benefit from lower cost to compute because of the DeepSeek innovations and other models, like Apple, benefit,” Reitzes said Monday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “And what we think is gonna happen is more AI use is also gonna lead to more use on the edge and prompt you to upgrade iPhones.”

Earlier in a note to clients, Reitzes explained that Apple’s services business margin should benefit from lower costs of running AI in the cloud, since Apple did not commit to huge levels of capex compared to its peers. If consumer and enterprise AI usage pops due to lower costs, more inferencing will occur on iPhones, requiring more powerful iPhone models, he said.

“Obviously, we got to worry about tariffs though, and Tim Cooks done a pretty good job navigating, and we’ll have to see how that goes,” Reitzes added as a surprising part of Apple’s stock story.

Apple shares are down 3.5% this year, the least of the losses suffered by the rest of the Magnificent 7 names.

— Pia Singh

Tether, the company behind the largest dollar-backed stablecoin on the market, said it has appointed a new chief financial officer to lead a full audit of its reserves.

“Tether is making a firm commitment to completing a full audit, a crucial step in raising industry standards and strengthening regulatory engagement,” the company said in a press release Monday. The company already provides quarterly attestations with accounting firm BDO, but “a full audit will ensure greater financial integrity and verification of reserves,” it added.

Tether’s USDT makes up about 67% of the stablecoin market, followed by Circle’s USDC, which comprises about 26%. While it is the oldest and, to many, the most reliable stablecoin, it has been heavily scrutinized over the years for its lack of transparency about what is in its reserves.

The new pro-crypto government could spur a stablecoin boom in 2025. Last month, Congress introduced the GENIUS Act, a proposal for a regulatory framework for stablecoins, that could serve as the next catalyst for the crypto market if it moves forward and has big implications for the issuance and use of USDT in the U.S.

— Tanaya Macheel

Shares of electric vehicle maker Tesla slid 4.4% Monday afternoon, reversing an earlier pop in the stock.

At its high of the day, Tesla jumped roughly 3.7%, catching a tailwind from a Morgan Stanley analyst report that dubbed the stock as a “top pick” in U.S. autos. The firm said it saw more than 50% upside, offering a price target of $430.

Stock chart icon

Tesla shares in the past day

Tesla’s losses came as the three major averages sold off sharply on confirmation from President Trump that the 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico would indeed be implemented on Tuesday.

— Darla Mercado

The Nasdaq Composite fell below its 200-day moving average Monday afternoon, the first time the index fell below that level on an intraday basis going back to Aug. 5, 2024. The last time the tech-heavy index closed below its 200-day moving average goes even further back, on Oct. 30, 2023.

The index was also 9.6% off its most recent high.

Stock chart icon

Nasdaq Composite

President Trump confirmed that the 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports will still go into effect Tuesday. The stock market appeared to add to its losses following his remarks.

“Very importantly, tomorrow, tariffs, 25% on Canada and 25% on Mexico, and that will start,” Trump said during a press conference.

Some were hoping tariffs would be milder than the original 25% after Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Sunday that the situation was still “fluid.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Sunday that Mexico had offered to match the U.S. tariffs on China, potentially as a way to get out of the tariffs set to be imposed against them on Tuesday.

— Yun Li

Evercore ISI issued a tactical underperform call on shares of Best Buy ahead of its earnings on Tuesday, pointing to headwinds such as market share losses and a most likely cautious 2025.

Analyst Greg Melich noted that Best Buy has lost share in the TV and major appliances space to vendors such as Walmart, Costco and Home Depot. He blamed Best Buy going back to charging for application installation as a likely culprit for these share losses.

“For fiscal 2025e we have earnings up slightly on a slightly positive comp due to the expected stabilization/recovery in big ticket discretionary products — most likely 2H weighted, and buybacks. We model margins flat y/y. We think the company’s guide will be conservative,” he wrote.

Melich added that Best Buy’s medium-term hope lies in an “accelerated resumption” of the product replacement cycle.

“The hope is that the replacement cycle is pushed forward or innovation in personal tech is coming through by 1H25,” the analyst said. “Innovation has been MIA since the start of the pandemic, mostly due to a chip shortage.”

Shares of Best Buy have popped 16% over the past 12 months.

— Lisa Kailai Han

The shine is coming off U.S. stocks after their consistent outperformance of global markets in recent years, according to BCA Research.

BCA downgraded their recommendation for U.S. equities to underweight from neutral. The firm also upgraded euro area stocks to overweight from neutral.

“In our view the biggest mispricing in markets now is the ebullient growth expectations embedded in US asset prices. As these expectations are not met, US equities will underperform even amid a broader risk asset decline,” the firm said in a note to clients.

Political changes and cleaned-up corporate balance sheets make Europe more attractive than it was in the 2010s, while the U.S. faces a weakening economy and an uncertain outlook under President Trump, according to BCA.

“In the US, economic uncertainty brought about by Trump’s policies have reversed the surge in animal spirits that followed the US election,” the note said.

— Jesse Pound

President Trump said Monday he is imposing tariffs on “external product” effective April 2.

“To the Great Farmers of the United States: Get ready to start making a lot of agricultural product to be sold INSIDE of the United States. Tariffs will go on external product on April 2nd. Have fun!” the president said in a social media post.

It is unclear which products would be affected and if he was referring to the “reciprocal” tariffs on U.S. trading partners.

— Yun Li

A person talks on the phone outside a T-Mobile location in New York City on Feb. 13, 2025.

Danielle DeVries | CNBC

Fifty-five stocks in the S&P 500 were trading at new 52-week highs on Monday.

Names that hit this milestone included:

• T-Mobile US trading at all-time highs back to the MetroPCS initial public offering in April 2007
• Gilead Sciences trading at levels not seen since August 2015
• Raytheon Technologies trading at all-time highs back to when the United Technologies name was adopted in 1975
• Intercontinental Exchange trading at all-time-high levels back to its IPO in November 2005
• Mastercard trading at all-time-high levels since its IPO in May 2006
• AutoZone trading at all-time-high levels back to its IPO in April 1991
• Darden trading at all-time-high levels back to its IPO in 1995
• 3M trading at levels not seen since September 2021
• Simon Property trading at levels not seen since December 2018
• CME trading at all-time-high levels back to its IPO in December 2002

On the other hand, just five stocks were trading at their 52-week lows: Align Technology, Bio-Techne, Teleflex, Enphase Energy and First Solar.

— Christopher Hayes, Lisa Kailai Han

Here are some stocks making big moves in midday trading:

• Intel — Shares rose more than 2% after Reuters, citing two sources familiar with the matter, reported that chipmakers Nvidia and Broadcom are running manufacturing tests with Intel. The tests signal that both companies are heading closer toward committing hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of manufacturing contracts to Intel, Reuters said.
• Chinese automakers — U.S. shares of Chinese electric vehicle brands fell on the heels of their latest deliveries reports. Shares of Xpeng slid more than 4%, and Nio dropped more than 5%, while Li Auto plunged more than 10%.
• Nvidia — The artificial intelligence chip darling’s stock shed more than 6%, marking an about-face from the nearly 4% gain it saw during Friday’s session. The move comes after The Wall Street Journal reported late Sunday that Chinese buyers are circumventing U.S. export controls to order the company’s Blackwell chips.

Read here for the full list.

— Sean Conlon

The exterior of a Dollar General convenience store on August 30, 2024 in Austin, Texas.

Brandon Bell | Getty Images

Deutsche Bank downgraded Dollar General to hold from buy, citing tough fundamentals and an increasingly competitive retail landscape facing the discount chain.

Along with the lower rating, analyst Krisztina Katai took her price target of $90 down to $80, which suggests just 7.8% potential upside ahead. Dollar General shares are down 2.2% this year.

“We think the winners of 2024 (WMT / COST) are well-positioned for continued success and share gains, while the dollar store channel faces mounting challenges from intensifying competition and pricing pressures, resulting our downgrade of DG,” Katai wrote in a Monday note to clients.

Katai said Dollar General’s increased markdowns, wage pressures, moderating traffic and softer comparable sales growth are risks, and said margin headwinds will likely continue through 2025. Dollar General’s “lagging e-commerce presence is a growing concern” as retailers continue to focus on digitization and convenience, the analyst added.

— Pia Singh

A weak manufacturing report Monday could signal an even sharper economic contraction in the first quarter, according to the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow tracker.

The measure of incoming economic data now points to a 2.8% annualized decline for the January-through-March period, following an update after the morning’s ISM Manufacturing Index. The ISM measure still indicated a modest expansion in factory activity, but internal measures on new orders and employment indicated underlying weakness that could hamper consumer spending and private investment.

GDPNow is volatile, particularly earlier in the quarter. Goldman Sachs said that even with the manufacturing concerns, the firm left its Q1 GDP tracker unchanged at a 1.6% growth rate.

— Jeff Cox

Investors need to stay alert as political themes such as tariffs remain likely to shake up financial markets, according to Jay Woods, chief global strategist at Freedom Capital Markets.

“Another expected week of volatile headlines should keep traders on their toes,” Woods said. “While politics and the market don’t always have major correlations, that hasn’t been the case yet as we started Trump 2.0.”

— Alex Harring

A Southwest Airlines plane on the tarmac at the Miami International Airport in Miami, Florida, on Feb. 19, 2025.

Joe Raedle | Getty Images

Southwest Airlines is getting far too expensive, even after shares have lost value so far this year, according to JPMorgan analyst Jamie Baker.

Baker downgraded the stock to underweight from neutral and kept his $25 price target, which implies a potential 19.5% drop for the stock from its latest close. In a Monday note to clients, the analyst cited Southwest’s “surging valuation premium” and his desire to rebalance his rating following rumors that Southwest Airlines may acquire budget airline Sun Country. 

“We remain convinced that Southwest’s best margin and ROIC days lie in the past. While we’re all for well-managed turnarounds, the ask at Southwest (if one embraces the concept of returning to the industry’s margin perch) is herculean in nature, in our view,” Baker said. “At 15x/13x forecasted 2025/2026 EPS, there’s simply no other airline equity in our coverage universe that comes anywhere close.”

Southwest shares are down about 7.6% this year, and down 6.4% over the past year.

— Pia Singh

Nvidia‘s slide led the Nasdaq Composite into the red on Monday.

Shares of the chip giant slid 4%, making it the worst performer in the concentrated Nasdaq 100 and broad S&P 500. Its decline explains why the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite was lagging the two other major indexes in Monday morning trading.

Stock chart icon

Nvidia, 1-day

Nvidia’s drop mitigated gains seen within other notable tech names. Tesla, the megacap tech stock that has been beaten down this year, popped 2% after Morgan Stanley told clients to expect a rebound ahead. Palantir, another retail investor favorite that has struggled recently, climbed more than 3%.

— Alex Harring

Factory activity in the U.S. eased slightly in February, still indicating modest expansion despite executive worries over the effects of tariffs, a survey Monday showed.

The Institute for Supply Management’s monthly manufacturing index registered a 50.3 reading, down just 0.6 percentage points from January and slightly below the 50.6 Dow Jones estimate. The index represents the share of companies reporting expansion, so anything above 50 indicates growth.

Within the survey, the new orders index tumbled to 48.6, a decline of 6.5 points, while the employment index fell to 47.6. On the inflation front, the prices index jumped 7.5 points to 62.4.

Commentary in the survey showed anxiety about looming tariffs.

“The incoming tariffs are causing our products to increase in price. Sweeping price increases are incoming from suppliers. Most are noting increases in labor costs,” a respondent in the machinery sector said.

— Jeff Cox

Stocks kicked off Monday’s session in the green.

The Dow and S&P 500 each added 0.4% shortly after 9:30 a.m. ET. The Nasdaq Composite popped 0.5%.

— Alex Harring

Anheuser-Busch beers are displayed on a shelf in San Rafael, California, on March 14, 2024.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Drinks maker Anheuser-Busch InBev looks attractive after its latest quarterly results, according to Deutsche Bank, which believes the cash king is poised for further returns ahead.

The firm upgraded AB InBev, the world’s largest brewer, to buy from hold and increased its price target by $20 to $75. That new target implies 25.3% potential upside.

“Big beer is back,” analyst Mitch Collett said in a Monday note to clients. “We believe ABI is steadily building a track record of strong delivery, despite prior exogenous challenges, that should command a higher multiple.”

Collett said AB InBev offers an “attractive combination” of exposure to early-stage beer markets, digital leadership in the beer market, improving sales in the U.S. and strong cash delivery. The analyst assumes the company will return $30 billion worth of cash to shareholders during fiscal 2026 through 2028, or roughly 25% of its market cap.

“Despite enduring a number of external challenges in recent years ABI has now delivered 13 consecutive quarters of organic EBITDA growth at or above the company’s medium term guidance of 4-8%,” Collett added.

AB InBev shares are up 19.5% this year. The company posted a 3.4% increase in fourth-quarter revenue to $14.84 billion, while LSEG analysts expected a 2.9% decline to $14.05 billion. Its total volumes declined over its full-year period, however.

— Pia Singh

New Tesla cars are displayed at a Tesla dealership in Corte Madera, California, on Dec. 20, 2024.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

These are some of the companies making notable moves in premarket trading:

• Tesla — The electric vehicle stock jumped nearly 3% after Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas named embattled Tesla a new top pick in U.S. autos, with expectations of a roughly 50% bounce in store.
• Southwest Airlines — Shares slid 2% after JPMorgan downgraded the airline carrier to an underweight rating from neutral. Analyst Jamie Baker wrote that the stock’s valuation was too high, and that he “remained convinced that Southwest’s best margin and ROIC [return on invested capital] days lie in the past.”
• Allegro MicroSystems — Shares rallied 15% after Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, said the chipmaker has drawn takeover interest from ON Semiconductor. Other potential suitors interested in expanding their automotive capabilities could also emerge, the report said. Shares of ON Semiconductor gained about 1%.

Read the full list here.

— Sarah Min

Lionel Bonaventure | Afp | Getty Images

Crypto exchange operators rallied in premarket trading, after President Trump over the weekend gave new details on the widely anticipated U.S. strategic crypto reserve.

Shares of Coinbase jumped 9%, while Robinhood climbed 6%. Bitcoin proxy MicroStrategy gained 13%.

In addition to bitcoin, Trump announced the reserve will also include ether as well as smaller, higher-risk assets XRP, Solana’s SOL token and Cardano’s ADA. It was also the first time President Trump has specified his support for a crypto “reserve” versus a bitcoin “stockpile.”

— Tanaya Macheel

Tesla shares jumped more than 3% in Monday’s premarket after Morgan Stanley said to expect a rebound.

Analyst Adam Jonas named the electric vehicle maker as his new top pick in the U.S. autos sector. Additionally, he has an overweight rating and price target reflecting upside of more than 46%.

Stock chart icon

Tesla, 1-day

Jonas’ call comes amid a rough patch for shares, with the stock down more than 27% in 2025.

“TSLA FY25 deliveries could potentially decline YoY, creating an attractive entry point to our preferred embodied AI name,” Jonas wrote in a Sunday note to clients. “Tesla’s YTD auto deliveries have been mostly below expectations, but not particularly narrative changing. Tesla’s softer auto deliveries are emblematic of a company in the transition from an automotive ‘pure play’ to a highly diversified play on AI and robotics.”

— Alex Harring, Pia Singh

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick speaks in the Oval Office of the White House next to U.S. President Donald Trump, on the day Trump signs executive orders for reciprocal tariffs, in Washington on Feb. 13, 2025.

Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

Don’t expect headwinds from U.S. tariffs to go away just yet, even after Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested levies on Mexico and Canada imports could be lower than 25%, according to Adam Crisafulli of Vital Knowledge.

“Avoiding draconian duties on Mexico and Canada would certainly be positive, but the tariff overhang is far, far from over, with a slew of announcements/actions due out over the course of this month and beyond. The China tariffs seem very likely to go into effect on Tues, and Beijing is apparently preparing a series of retaliatory steps aimed primarily at the US agricultural industry,” he said in a note.

— Fred Imbert

Wall Street analysts in January and February cut their bottoms-up, first-quarter earnings estimates for S&P 500 companies by more than the 5-, 10-, 15- and 20-year averages, FactSet senior earnings analyst John Butters wrote Friday.

First-quarter estimates dropped a combined 3.5% in the first two months of the year, more than the five- and 10-year average decline of 2.6%, the 15-year average of 2.5% and even the 20-year average of 3.1%, FactSet said.

Analysts lowered their full-year earnings estimates by a combined 1% in January and February, larger than the 5-, 10- and 15-year average.

The hardest-hit industry groups in the first quarter were materials (-16.2%) and consumer discretionary (-8.8%) stocks.

— Scott Schnipper

Cryptocurrencies rallied on Sunday after President Donald Trump announced the creation of a strategic crypto reserve for the U.S. that will include bitcoin and ether, as well as XRP, Solana’s SOL token and Cardano’s ADA.

Bitcoin rose 10% to $94,343.82, after dipping to a three-month low under $80,000 on Friday. Ether, which has suffered some of the biggest losses in crypto year to date, gained 13%. XRP surged 33% after the announcement, while the token tied to Solana jumped 25%. Cardano’s coin soared more than 60%.

This is the first time President Trump has specified his support for a crypto “reserve” versus a “stockpile.” While the former assumes actively buying crypto in regular installments, a stockpile would simply not sell any of the crypto currently held by the U.S. government.

For more, read our full story here.

— Tanaya Macheel