Post-Bell | Wall Street Ends on Muted Note. UnitedHealth up 1.5%; Novo Nordisk Rises 4%; APLD Soars 16%; Opendoor Jumps 19%; Bullish down 9%

Wall Street's main indexes closed roughly flat on Monday, after struggling for direction while investors awaited a raft of corporate earnings reports from major retailers for more signs about the state of the economy and the Federal Reserve's annual symposium in Jackson Hole.

Market Snapshot

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 34.30 points, or 0.08%, to 44,911.82, the S&P 500 lost 0.65 point, or 0.01%, to 6,449.15 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 6.80 points, or 0.03%, to 21,629.77. Opendoor Technologies Inc up 19%, APPLIED DIGITAL CORP up 16%, Oscar Health, Inc. up 6%, Bullish fell 9%, Circle Internet Corp. fell 5%.

Market Movers

Dayforce jumped 26% after Bloomberg reported that private-equity firm Thoma Bravo was in talks to acquire the HR management software company. The deal could close in the coming weeks, the report said, which cited people familiar with the matter. A sale price wasn't disclosed. Dayforce and Thoma Bravo didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Barron's.

UnitedHealth was up 1.5% after shares of the health insurer jumped 12% Friday for their best daily percentage gain since March 24, 2020, when they rose 13%, according to Dow Jones Market Data. UnitedHealth rose 21% last week, the stock's best weekly performance in more than 16 years. Boosting the stock was the disclosure that Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway had purchased roughly 5 million shares in the company, worth about $1.6 billion.

Novo Nordisk rose 3.7% in U.S. trading after the Danish drugmaker said its weight-loss medicine Wegovy was approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat liver disease. The company also said it would begin selling its Type 2 diabetes treatment Ozempic directly to consumers at $499 per month, half the U.S. list price of the medicine.

GoodRx Holdings, Inc., meanwhile, jumped 37% as the prescription medication platform announced it would partner with Novo Nordisk to offer both Wegovy and Ozempic pens for $499 per month.

Intel fell 3.7% after it rose almost 24% last week, the chip maker's best weekly performance since January 2000, according to Dow Jones Market Data. A report from Bloomberg said the Trump administration was in talks to have the U.S. government potentially take a stake in Intel. On Monday, Bloomberg reported the U.S. was discussing whether to take a stake of about 10% in Intel.

Solar stocks rose, building on big gains Friday. First Solar was up 10% and Sunrun climbed 11%. Enphase Energy rose 2.8%. The Trump administration released new guidance on clean energy tax credits Friday that were better than feared for solar companies.

Meanwhile, Nextracker, which makes equipment and software that allows solar panels to track the movement of the sun, rose 12% to $67.70 after the stock was upgraded to Buy from Neutral with a $74 price target at Guggenheim. "Of all the subsectors in energy transition impacted by Friday's surprise release of updated safe-harbor rules from the [Internal Revenue Service], we think that tracker companies are positioned to benefit the most," the analysts wrote in a research note.

Duolingo rose 13% after KeyBanc Capital Markets upgraded the stock to Overweight from Sector Weight and Citi Research initiated coverage of the language-learning platform with a Buy rating. Investors' fears about generative artificial intelligence encroaching on Duolingo's market have been overblown, the analysts agreed.

TeraWulf Inc. was up 4.6%, extending its rally from Friday as Alphabet's Google raised its stake in the company. Google will provide an incremental $1.4 billion backstop to help fund the expansion of TeraWulf's Lake Mariner data center campus in New York. Google, in exchange, will receive warrants to buy 32.5 million shares of TeraWulf.

Market News

Nvidia Says Blackwell GPUs Coming to GeForce Now Cloud Gaming Service

NVIDIA said on Monday that its Blackwell line of GPUs will be coming to its GeForce Now cloud gaming service.

The update will bring Nvidia's GeForce RTX 5080-class GPUs to the cloud, including its NVIDIA DLSS 4 Multi-Frame Generation, which allows streaming content at a 5K resolution.

The GeForce Now library will now have more than 4,500 games to play, including some AAA-rates games, Nvidia added.

Palo Alto Networks Pops as Results, Guidance Top Estimates; Founder Steps Down

Palo Alto Networks shares rose 6% in extended trading on Monday after the cybersecurity company posted fiscal fourth-quarter results and guidance that topped/missed expectations.

For the period ending July 31, the Nikesh Arora-led firm earned an adjusted $0.95 per share on $2.5B in revenue, up 16% year-over-year. Product revenue rose 19% year-over-year to come in at $573.9M, while subscription and support revenue rose 15% year-over-year to $1.96B. Next-generation security annual recurring revenue came in at $5.6B, above the $5.55B estimate.

Nio Expands to Its First Americas Market as the Global Footprint Grows

NIO Inc. announced on Monday that it is planning further expansion. The Chinese electric vehicle maker plans to enter Singapore, Uzbekistan, and Costa Rica in 2025 and 2026 to grow its global footprint further.

In Singapore, Nio will partner with Wearnes Automotive, a leading luxury automotive retailer in the Asia-Pacific region. Starting in 2026, the two parties will introduce its small, smart high-end EV, Firefly in Singapore, marking the launch of Nio's first-ever right-hand drive model.