The calmest session for the S&P 500 in over a month.

Your Evening Briefing

October 21, 2025

US stocks go nowhere amid big rotation out of gold and into fake meat

A sense of calm returned to US stocks on Tuesday and was only briefly interrupted by a warning from US President Donald Trump that he may not meet with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping later this month after all.

The S&P 500 traded in its narrowest range in over a month to finish roughly flat, as did the Nasdaq 100. The Russell 2000, meanwhile, slumped about 0.5% on the session.

Consumer discretionary was the best-performing S&P sector ETF, while utilities was at the bottom of the leaderboard.

Stocks that moved higher:

  • Electric vehicle sales and elevated profits revved up GM in the third quarter, sending shares surging to an all-time high and giving the stock its best day since March 2020.
  • Beyond Meat had another insane day, soaring as its meme stock rally continued.
  • Warner Bros. moved higher after it said it’s had multiple takeover offers.
  • Amazon, with AWS back to business as usual following Monday’s massive outage, rose on news that it aims to automate 75% of its operations and avoid hiring 600,000+ people
  • Jet engine maker GE Aerospace lifted after its Q3 results came in better than expected across the top and bottom lines, thanks in part to continued strong air travel demand.

Stocks that moved lower:

  • As gold lost some of its shine, so did the shares of SPDR Gold Shares ETF, and miners such as Newmont Corp., Agnico Eagle, Wheaton Precious Metals, and Anglogold Ashanti.
  • But those stocks could also be the victim of the general reversal of high-volatility momentum trades, which saw members of Goldman Sachs’ baskets of “high beta momentum longs” and “non-profitable tech” stocks tumble, including D-Wave Quantum, Planet Labs, and Navitas Semiconductor.
  • Philip Morris sank on signs of cracks in its Zyn biz, despite an otherwise cheery earnings report.
  • Google tumbled after OpenAI announced it will release a Chrome-competitor browser, “ChatGPT Atlas.”

— Luke Kawa, Markets Editor & Toby Bochan, Managing Editor

Not so Gucci: Kering to sell its beauty arm to L’Oréal in a €4 billion cash deal

The Gucci owner is looking to shrink its mountain of debt, while its star brand continues to slide in sales. Read more.

Traders are getting more and more pessimistic about the government shutdown ending any time soon 

The market expects the shutdown to last well into November.

Read more.

TODAY’S
BIG MOVE

Image Credit (if any)

Beyond Meat’s meme stock rally continued after Monday’s frenzied session broke its records for volumes, options traded, and one-day gains. The plant-based meat company’s trading activity is beyond any meme stock move we’ve seen this year.

See the charts.

  • Warner Bros. Discovery just raised the price of HBO Max
    Effective immediately, the ad-supported tier is going up $1 and ad-free is increasing
  • OpenAI has an army of ex-investment bankers making financial models to train ChatGPT
    “Project Mercury” has more than 100 former investment bankers building financial models to automate away the jobs of junior bankers
  • Analysts expect iPhone revenue to return to growth this year and next
    The stock is expected to open near record highs this morning
  • A tale of two Teslas from two analyst notes by guys named Dan
    Ahead of Tesla’s third quarter earnings, Barclays’ Dan Levy and Wedbush’s Dan Ives weigh in
  • A study showed that mRNA COVID-19 shots could enhance cancer immunotherapy
    The results were presented by researchers from MD Anderson Cancer Center at the European Society for Medical Oncology conference in Berlin
 

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