Midday Market Brief: Eurovision

While the US awaits some key data and decisions this week, Europe wasted no time putting its imprint on the week.

US stocks were mostly muted on Monday, likely due to both factors. Here in the US, the main events to come will both hit on Wednesday: the consumer price index report for May and the Fed’s decision on interest rates. Of course, those two happenings are intertwined, as the Fed has been very clear lately about any data that has suggested a slowdown in inflation — namely, “Great, we’ll need to see more of that.”

But Europe’s chilling effect may be even more powerful on Monday. Far-right parties made substantial gains in the European Parliament elections, which has boosted some uncertainty about what that means for the region’s future stances on protectionism, immigration, and the green-energy transition. Most of the big European currencies were down, while the dollar was up strongly.

Movers & Shakers

Here are some of the stocks making news today:

• Nvidia, which could pretty much make this list every day, was up 1.4% in its first day of trading after effecting its 10-for-1 stock split. Speculation arose over the weekend that the stock could soon replace Intel in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, while Barron’s published a bullish view of the stock.
• Crowdstrike shares rose 9.6% on news that it was one of three stocks that would join the S&P 500. KKR and GoDaddy also made the cut.
• Southwest jumped 8.4% after activist investor Elliott Management announced a $2 billion stake in the airline and called for its CEO to be replaced and for an overhauling of the board.
• Apple was off slightly, down 0.4%, as investors awaited details of its AI plans at today’s developers conference.