S&P 500 Falls 2%; Caterpillar Reports Downbeat Q1 Results

U.S. stocks traded lower this morning, with the Dow Jones index falling over 600 points on Wednesday.

Following the market opening Wednesday, the Dow traded down 1.63% to 39,867.25 while the NASDAQ dipped 2.71% to 16,987.60. The S&P 500 also fell, dropping, 2.07% to 5,445.87.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Health care shares fell by just 0.3% on Wednesday.

In trading on Wednesday, consumer discretionary dipped by 3.5%.

Top Headline

Caterpillar Inc. CAT reported downbeat first-quarter 2025 results.

Total sales and revenue for the quarter declined 9.8% year-over-year to $14.25 billion, missing the consensus of $14.66 billion. CAT's adjusted earnings were $4.24 per share, compared to $5.60 a year ago and below the consensus of $4.35.

Caterpillar expects second-quarter sales and revenues to be similar to 2024. The adjusted operating profit margin is expected to be lower than YoY, mainly due to lower price realization before considering tariff impact.

Equities Trading UP

Regulus Therapeutics Inc. RGLS shares shot up 130% to $7.76 after the company announced it entered into an agreement to be acquired by Novartis AG for $7 in cash per share.
Shares of Jeffs’ Brands Ltd JFBRgot a boost, surging 71% to $1.45 after the company announced the sale of its Smart Repair Pro business for $11.8 million.
INVO Fertility, Inc. IVF shares were also up, gaining 63% to $2.61 after the company announced fourth-quarter results.

Equities Trading DOWN

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E-Home Household Service Holdings Limited EJH shares dropped 53% to $0.3574.
Shares of GeneDx Holdings Corp. WGS were down 36% to $75.14 after the company posted first-quarter results.
Wabash National Corporation WNC was down, falling 26% to $7.33 after the company reported worse-than-expected first-quarter financial results and issued FY25 guidance below estimates.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 1.1% to $59.75 while gold traded down 0.6% at $3,313.80.

Silver traded down 2% to $32.925 on Wednesday, while copper fell 6.1% to $4.5770.

Euro zone

European shares were lower today. The eurozone's STOXX 600 slipped 0.2%, Germany's DAX 40 fell 0.4% and France's CAC 40 declined 0.2%. Spain's IBEX 35 Index fell 1.9%, while London's FTSE 100 fell 0.1%.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mixed on Wednesday, with Japan's Nikkei gaining 0.57%, China's Shanghai Composite falling 0.23%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index gaining 0.51% and India's BSE Sensex falling 0.06%.

Economics

The U.S. economy shrank at an annualized rate of 0.3% during the first quarter of 2025, following a 2.4% growth in the prior quarter.
Private business in the U.S. created 62,000 workers to their payrolls in April following a revised 147,000 payrolls in the earlier month.

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