Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 had a six-session win streak going, but on the seventh day it rested. There were no gains today as the stock market operated in consolidation mode following the massive run from the April 7 low. The Dow and Nasdaq followed suit, posting modest losses of their own, while the Russell 2000 was flat.

There wasn't any U.S. economic data of note to drive things, and the corporate news was limited. There was some added attention on President Trump's visit to Capitol Hill to discuss his objectives for the reconciliation bill with House GOP members. Reportedly, he told them not to mess with Medicaid cuts and rebuked the efforts by the SALT Caucus to raise the deduction limit beyond the $30,000 currently proposed, telling them to "let it go."

There was some chatter that neither camp was fully swayed by the president's exhortations, so there was a component of uncertainty around the reconciliation bill that contributed to the consolidation effort.

Overall, there wasn't much conviction in today's selling action. Eight S&P 500 sectors finished lower, but only one -- energy (-1.0%) -- declined at least 1.0%. Losses for the remaining sectors ranged from 0.2% to 0.8%. The three winning sectors -- utilities (+0.3%), health care (+0.3%), and consumer staples (+0.2%) -- reflected a more defensive-minded tape.

Market breadth skewed negative. Decliners led advancers by an 8-to-5 margin at the NYSE and by a roughly 11-to-10 margin at the Nasdaq.

Dow component Home Depot (HD 377.05, -2.21, -0.6%) was among the decliners, losing ground after a mixed Q1 report that featured an EPS miss, a revenue beat, a reaffirmation of FY26 guidance, and a declaration that the company does not plan to raise prices due to tariffs.

Alphabet (GOOG 165.32, -2.55, -1.5%) was another decliner amid its I/O event; meanwhile, Tesla (TSLA 343.82, +1.73, +0.5%) slotted into the advancers column but finished well off its session high of $354.98. Mega-cap stocks, in general, were softer today, which fit with today's consolidation bias, but they showed some vigor in the closing stages to help the indices come back from lower levels as the closing bell approached. The Vanguard Mega-Cap Growth ETF (MGK) declined 0.5% after being down 1.2%.