The shares opened higher on Monday, but lost steam to the closure. Without getting in the way of economic data, market participants turned to busy revenue calendars and most of the time liked what they saw.
Verizon Communications (VZ) jumped to 4.0% after wireless providers reported higher than expected revenue and revenues than expected. The company also raised the bottom edge of its full-year revenue forecast.
And in Verizon’s revenue call, Chief Financial Officer Tony Skiadas said the communications lifted free cash flow guidance and reflected “an estimated profit of $1.5 billion to $2 billion from the recently enacted (one big beautiful invoice) tax law.”
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Verizon’s post-revenue earnings have become the best Dow Jones stock today. Overall, the Blue Chip Dow Jones industrial average fell to closure, dropping 0.04% to finish at 44,323.
Meanwhile, the broader S&P 500 (+0.1% at 6,305) and the more tech Nasdaq composite (+0.4% at 20,974) each closed new records on Monday.
Cleveland-Cliffs CEO joins Team Trump
Elsewhere on the revenue calendar, Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF) surged 12.5% after Steelmaker reported the final beat of inline sales in Q2, partly due to rising steel prices.
In early June, the Trump administration raised its steel and aluminum imports from 25% to 50%, with the exception of the UK.
These tariffs have “played a key role in supporting the domestic steel industry,” said Lourenco Goncalves, CEO of Cleveland-Cliffs, in the company’s revenue call.
Goncalves also took a while to give two cents on interest rates, joining President Donald Trump’s demand for significant interest rate cuts and the new Fed chair.
The CEO said that despite rising automobile production in the US, the steel-dependent industry is still behind. But Goncalves believes that once the central bank starts cutting interest rates, it will “take off again,” making it more affordable for people to buy cars.
“Even though there are no indications that tariffs govern inflation, the Federal Reserve continues to keep interest rates unnecessarily high,” he said.
Goncalves added that “previously (Fed) Chairman Jerome Powell is gone,” adding that interest rates will fall and “the automobile sector will take off again.”
The block will be the latest S&P 500 stock
In the non-harvest news, Block (XYZ) won 7.2% after S&P Global tapped its payment processor onto the latest S&P 500 shares.
Block will replace the Energy Stock HESS (HES), acquired by Oil Major Chevron (CVX), at the S&P 500 ahead of the opening bell on Wednesday, July 23rd.
“As there are trillions of passive dollars being invested in products tracking the S&P 500,” adds to a large market index, it’s a big deal for stocks,” says Dan Burrows, a contributor to Kiplinger.
In fact, the world’s largest ETF, the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO), has nearly $683 billion in its managed assets.
Caydee Blankenship, research analyst at CFRA, said Block inclusion “emphasizes the widespread adoption of digital payments and how the FinTech industry has transformed its traditional banking model.”
She also believes FinTech will “benefit from friendly regulations from the Trump administration and create opportunities for growth across the digital payments ecosystem.” This includes the Genius Act, which creates a regulatory framework for Stablecoins.
