Stocks Surge in May Rally, Nasdaq Leads with 8% Gain as Tech Dominates

Solar stocks are on track to record their best month since 2013.

The Invesco Solar ETF (TAN) has surged around 26.5% in May as of Friday afternoon trading. If that holds through the closing bell, it would mark the fund's best month since September 2013, when it climbed around 27%.

Enphase Energy led the group with a rally of more than 110% in May. SolarEdge followed, jumping nearly 79%.

— Alex Harring

Gap's same-store sales growth of 2% fell short of Wall Street's 3.1% expectation, offset by a lower-than-expected tax rate. It did match consensus expectations for earnings per share of $0.38. Gross margin of 40.5% came in slightly above Wall Street consensus.

J.P. Morgan analysts noted that 35% of Gap's total sales mix, driven by Gap and Banana Republic, is generating same-store sales growth, far lower than the 90% of the portfolio that drove same-store sales growth over the prior three consecutive quarters.

"We rate GAP Neutral. While CEO Dickson has implemented a foundation of improved merchandising & marketing across all four brands, we see a mixed portfolio of results, with Gap brand outsized strength offset by Athleta ongoing challenges, in addition to mixed recent performance at Old Navy," the J.P. Morgan report said.

— Ananya Chetia

On Friday, 14 stocks in the S&P 500 reached new all-time highs.

Tickers that hit this milestone included:

• Morgan Stanley trading at all-time highs back to its merger with Dean, Witter, Discover & Co in 1997
• FedEx trading at all-time high levels back to its IPO in April 1978
• JB Hunt Transport trading at all-time high levels back to its IPO in 1983
• Apple Inc. trading at all-time high levels back to its IPO in December 1980
• Broadcom LTD trading at all-time high levels back through Avago history and its IPO in August 2009
• CrowdStrike trading at all-time highs back to its IPO in June 2019
• Datadog trading at all-time highs back to its IPO in September 2019
• Dell Technologies trading at all-time highs back to its relisting in December 2018
• Hewlett Packard Enterprise trading at all-time high levels back to its split from HPQ in October 2015
• Micron trading at all-time highs back to IPO in June 1984
• NetApp trading at all-time highs back to its IPO in November 1995
• Palo Alto Networks trading at all-time highs back to its IPO in July 2012
• Qualcomm trading at all-time highs back to its IPO in September 1991
• SanDisk trading at all-time highs back to its completed separation from Western Digital in February 2024

Just six stocks in the index traded at new 52-week lows: Conagra Brands, Molson Coors, Marsh & McLennan, Boston Scientific, Universal Health and Rollins.

— Christopher Hayes and Lisa Kailai Han

Check out the companies making the biggest moves midday:

• Energy stocks — The group fell for a fourth straight day after President Donald Trump said he was close to making "a final determination" on a deal to end the U.S.-Iran war. OneOK led the S&P 500 energy sector lower, losing more than 3%. Chevron and Exxon Mobil were down 0.8% each. Occidental Petroleum shed more than 1%.
• Nextpower — The solar utility stock jumped 13% after the company announced it acquired battery storage company Prevalon Energy for about $365 million. Nextpower also raised its full-year revenue guidance.
• Dell Technologies — The laptop maker surged 29% after raising its full-year guidance. Dell sees $17.90 in adjusted earnings per share, with between $165 billion and $169 billion in revenue. Analysts polled by LSEG sought $13.09 per share on $142.5 billion in revenue. Friday's gain puts the stock on pace for its second-best day ever.

Read the full list here.

— Fred Imbert

How strong has Apple been lately?

There have been 20 trading days in May, including Friday. Apple set a new all-time intraday high in 16 of them, including today. On a closing basis, Apple set new record closes in 16 out of the last 19 days, through Thursday.

As of midday trading Friday, Apple was ahead almost 15% in the month of May — more than double the 6.9% gain seen in April.

Farewell Tim Cook. The Apple CEO steps down on Sept. 1.

— Scott Schnipper

President Donald Trump on Friday morning said he is meeting in the Situation Room "to make a final determination" after listing everything that Iran must do for him to approve a deal to end the war.

It was not immediately clear from Trump's statement on Truth Social which of his make-or-break conditions are already part of a preliminary agreement that U.S. and Iranian negotiators are currently working on to pause the three-month-old war.

Iran "must agree" to never have a nuclear weapon, and the Strait of Hormuz must be "immediately open" to unrestricted shipping traffic, Trump demanded in the post.

He also said that the retaliatory U.S. naval blockade against Iran in the Gulf of Oman "will now be lifted," though it was unclear if he meant that that step would only be taken if the prior conditions were met. Read more.

— Kevin Breuninger

Eli Lilly's stock gained 4% on Thursday after CVS Caremark agreed to provide coverage of the obesity drug Zepbound. Barclays analyst Emily Field said she anticipates some pricing concessions were made to secure the deal, however, "we expect this to follow the same playbook we've seen in obesity thus far wherein volume increases more than offset price declines."

"LLY has been very consistent in its messaging that whilst pricing in the anti-obesity medication space is expected to remain deflationary over time (although 'there is a floor'), any step-down in price has been more than offset by an increase in volume," she said.

The stock has had a very strong May, with shares gaining more than 20%. Field remains bullish, with a $1,400 price target — that's 24% above where shares closed Thursday.

— Christina Cheddar Berk

UBS has downgraded Best Buy Co. to neutral from buy, revising its price target to $86 from $85.

The investment bank based its rating on balanced risk-reward following the sharp reaction to the first quarter results of the specialty retailer. "The shares tend to move in stops-and-starts. We think that will continue to be the case, especially as the company moves closer to its CEO succession in November," according to UBS.

Best Buy reported better-than-expected earnings on Thursday, mentioning that some of its biggest growth drivers were tied to gaming and computing. It had previously announced that Jason Bonfig will be stepping in to take over the current CEO's role later this fall.

UBS analysts expect outsized earnings growth of over 7% for the retailer as its top-line growth accelerates. The shares now trade 12 times the forward P/E, the firm noted.

— Deena Zaidi

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite hit new highs shortly after the opening bell on Friday.

The broad market index and tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.2% apiece. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 70 points, or 0.2%.

— Sean Conlon

Costco CEO Roland Vachris said Thursday that the company will return the value of the tariff refunds it receives to its customers, though he did not specify how this will be done or how much Costco expects to receive in refunds.

"As we've done in the past when legal challenges have recovered charges passed on in some form to our members, our commitment will be to find the best way to return this value to our members through lower prices and better values," he said during the company's quarterly earnings call.

President Trump's emergency tariff powers were struck down by the Supreme Court in February. More than 330,000 U.S. importers have paid $166 billion in invalidated emergency tariffs, U.S. Customs trade chief Brandon Lord told a court in March.

The Federal Reserve has estimated that Trump's tariffs made goods more expensive in the economy. Between last November and February, tariffs raised the price of core goods in the personal consumption expenditures price index by 0.8%.

— Tobias Burns

A Blue Origin rocket's explosion during a ground test at a Cape Canaveral, Florida facility is sending shares of space companies lower in premarket trading on Friday.

AST SpaceMobile, a satellite designer and manufacturer, tumbled 14.5%. The company has a partnership with Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos' space technology company. Before the fall on Friday, AST was up 25% on the week.

EchoStar, a satellite communications company, was off more than 4%. Rocket Lab, a spacecraft manufacturer, slipped 4.5%.

In a post on X, Bezos said there were no injuries among personnel, and vowed to keep working despite the setback. "Very rough day, but we'll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying," he wrote. "It's worth it."

— Davis Giangiulio

Elon Musk's SpaceX is looking for a valuation of at least $1.8 trillion for its IPO, according to a Bloomberg report.

The outlet previously reported that the company was seeking a valuation north of $2 trillion, but has since scaled back its plans after consultations with advisers and investors, the report said. However, Bloomberg noted that its valuation could go higher again if it receives positive feedback on its roadshow, a tour where a soon-to-be public company presents its plans to investors.

Traders on prediction market platform Polymarket think there's a 90% chance SpaceX's market cap after its first day of trading will close above $1.8 trillion. They also place 77% odds it will close above $2 trillion.

— Davis Giangiulio

Amazon and Alphabet are likely to rally as their cloud businesses grow, outpacing the Street's expectations, according to Truist.

The bank raised its price target on Amazon to $320 from $310 per share, implying 17% upside from Thursday's close.

Truist also raised its price target on Alphabet to $430 from $415, or 10% above the price at which shares close on Thursday. It has a buy rating on both stocks.

"Looking at backlog (as of 3/31)+recent deals, [consensus], revenue [estimates]...are below what they should be," analyst Youssef Squali said Friday in a note to clients. "Net net, both companies should grow faster for longer but on higher Capex. These investments are increasingly de-risked though considering the triple digit rise in [remaining performance obligations]."

Google Cloud revenue growth should accelerate to mid-80% by the end of this year, up from 63% in the first quarter, according to Truist. By comparison, the Street is expecting the company's revenue to deaccelerate.

The analyst also said that Wall Street is underestimating AWS' capex and revenue growth for fiscal year 2027.

Shares of Google-owner Alphabet are trading up 25% since the beginning of the year.

Amazon stock is up 19% in 2026.

— Liz Napolitano

Check out the companies making the biggest moves premarket:

• Dell Technologies — The laptop maker surged almost 37% after raising its full-year guidance. Dell sees $17.90 in adjusted earnings per share, with between $165 billion and $169 billion in revenue. Analysts polled by LSEG sought $13.09 per share on $142.5 billion in revenue.
• Computer stocks — Shares of other companies involved in computer hardware and services rose, boosted by Dell's earnings. Hewlett Packard Enterprise was up more than 17%. Super Micro Computer rose nearly 10%, while HP was up almost 7%.
• American Eagle Outfitters — Shares of the teen apparel retailer dropped about 11%. Comparable sales at the company's American Eagle banner fell 2% in the first quarter, while analysts polled by StreetAccount were looking for 3.1% growth. Guidance for the second quarter also disappointed, as the company called for operating income of $45 million to $50 million, versus the FactSet consensus estimate of $65.3 million.

Read more here.

— Davis Giangiulio

Asia-Pacific markets rose on Friday, with South Korea's Kospi hitting a fresh intraday record and Japan's Topix reaching a new all-time high, as investors looked past renewed military activity involving Iran and focused on gains in technology shares and record closes on Wall Street.

South Korea's Kospi jumped more than 3% to close at 8,476.15, hitting a new intra-day high before paring gains slightly. The small-cap Kosdaq was down 2.68% to 1,074.8.

Japan's Nikkei 225 was up 2.53%, ending the trading day at 66,329.5 while the Topix rose 1.41% to a new record high of 3,957.17.

Shares of Samsung Electronics surged over 5% after the company said it had begun shipping samples of its latest high-bandwidth memory chip to its customers globally.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.62% to close at 8,731.7. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index added 0.55% in the final hour of trade, while the CSI 300 lost 0.45% to 4,892.12. India's Nifty 50 dipped 0.5%.

— Lee Ying Shan

Shares of Innovent Biologics rose 10% after the company entered into a deal with pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to develop oncology medicines.

Innovent will receive an upfront payment of $650 million and is eligible for up to $9.85 billion in development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments, bringing the total value of the deal to up to $10.5 billion.

"Additionally, Innovent will receive up to double-digit royalties on sales of each product if approved," the company said, adding that closing of the transaction is subjected to regulatory approvals.

Read the full story here.

— Justina Lee

Shares of LG Electronics surged as much as 23.95% after the company announced a series of automotive innovations built with technology from Alphabet Inc.'s Google.

The South Korean company said its new range of solutions is built on Android automotive operating systems.

The technology would support automakers to "significantly reduce the cost of deploying multi-display in-cabin systems."

Read the full story here.

— Justina Lee

Shares of Samsung Electronics rose as much as 6.51% after the company said it had begun shipping samples of its latest high-bandwidth memory chip to its customers globally.

Samsung's 12-layer HBM4E chip, which it described as an industry first, can reach speeds of up to 16 Gigabits-per-second "with improved energy efficiency and thermal performance."

The South Korean chipmaker added that there are plans to expand the lineup to include an 8-layer 32GB and a 16-layer 64GB configuration, depending on customer requirements.

Read the full story here.

— Justina Lee

Asia-Pacific markets traded higher on Friday as investors weighed fresh military activity involving Iran against signs that Washington and Tehran were moving closer to a temporary agreement to halt their three-month conflict.

Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 0.88%, while the Topix added 0.53%. South Korea's Kospi jumped 2.68%, while the small-cap Kosdaq was up 0.25%. Shares of Samsung Electronics surged as much as 6.51% after the company said it had begun shipping samples of its latest high-bandwidth memory chip to its customers globally.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.72%.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index added 0.68%, while the CSI 300 rose 0.38%.

Iran's armed forces reportedly fired missiles at unspecified targets late Thursday, according to state media outlet Fars.

— Lee Ying Shan

Following Thursday morning's release of April's personal consumption expenditures price index, or PCE, a former Trump economist is making the case for the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates this year.

April's PCE index reading showed that headline inflation was the highest since May 2023. For the core PCE reading, which excludes volatile food and energy costs, the annual level was the peak since November 2023.

"And, of course … these equity averages are at all-time highs; credit spreads are super tight; the dollar is high, but not excessively high. There's no tightening of financial conditions, and the inflation numbers — the three- and six-month change show inflation moving up towards 4%. So, what's going to force that back to 2%? It won't happen magically," said Joe Lavorgna, SMBC Americas chief economist and former counselor to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on CNBC's "Fast Money" Thursday afternoon.

He added: "If the economy is growing reasonably well and inflation is moving further away from target, why wouldn't [Fed chair Kevin Warsh] be hiking?"

— Lisa Kailai Han

These are the stocks moving the most in extended-hours trading:

• Dell Technologies — The laptop maker surged 38% after raising its full-year guidance.
• American Eagle Outfitters — Shares of the teen apparel retailer dropped about 11%. Comparable sales at the company's American Eagle banner fell 2% in the first quarter, while analysts polled by StreetAccount were looking for 3.1% growth.
• Gap — The clothing retailer tumbled 14% after cutting its sales outlook for the year, now expecting companywide sales to grow between 1% and 2%.

Read the full list of stocks moving here.

— Lisa Kailai Han

Stock futures opened little changed on Thursday evening.

Shortly after 6 p.m. ET, futures tied to all three major averages were trading near flat.

— Lisa Kailai Han