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Stock Market Live June 4: S&P 500 (VOO) Flat After Weak Jobs Report

Joel South

Published: June 4, 2025 9:06 am

Last Updated: June 4, 2025 1:16 pm

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Evercore Says Wells Fargo Stock is Worth $88

1:15 pm

S&P 500 component company Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) is getting a boost from fellow banker Evercore ISI today, as the latter raises its price target on Wells Fargo stock to $88, with an outperform rating on the shares.

The Federal Reserve has lifted its $2 trillion asset cap on Wells Fargo, in place in 2018. Evercore calls this “particularly constructive on the longer term outlook” for shares as a bigger Wells can produce bigger profits.

Oil Prices Float Higher, Then Lower

11:59 am

U.S. inventory data this morning showed a larger than expected 4.3 million barrel decline in crude oil inventories for the week ended May 30, building on a 3.3 million decline the prior week. Oil prices rose initially on the report, but Bloomberg is now reporting that Saudi Arabia intends to keep increasing oil production as it fights to regain market share. The Kingdom plans to add 411,000 barrels per day in August, says the news agency.

Brent crude prices are now down about 1.2% and WTI crude down 1% in response to the news.

 

Bad Employment News Drives Investors to Buy Bonds, Stocks

11:26 am

After the weak ADP jobs report, investors are flocking to buy bonds today — and stocks, too. On the bonds front, yields for 10-year and 30-year U.S. Treasuries both dropped about eight basis points, to 4.377% and 4.900%, respectively. (When prices go up because of heavy buying, bond yields fall).

Stocks look more popular today as well, and the Voo is up nearly 2% in late morning trading. Presumably, all of this is because a weak jobs report might help convince the Fed to lower interest rates this year.

This article will be updated throughout the day, so check back often for more daily updates.

The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO) is trading flat — both up and down exactly 0.0% — premarket after payrolls processing firm Automatic Data Processing (Nasdaq: ADP) reported this morning that private payrolls grew by only 37,000 in May, well short of the 110,000 jobs forecast, and below the 60,000 jobs created in April as well.

ADP data show this was the weakest month for job creation in the U.S. since March 2023.

The Voo currently sits less than 3% below its all-time high of 563.67, hit on February 19. Today’s setback might not last, however, and the index and the ETF could well regain their former high later in the week, when the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the results of its own jobs survey (which often differs from the data ADP puts out). Consensus estimates say the DOL report will show 125,000 new nonfarm job created in May, when it reports in Thursday.

That’s a lot like what the ADP data was supposed to show today, though… and didn’t.

Earnings

S&P 500 component company Dollar Tree (Nasdaq: DLTR) did its best to imitate rival Dollar General‘s (NYSE: DG) yesterday-earnings beat this morning, and almost succeeded. Q1 profits beat expectations at $1.26 per share, but sales fell short at $4.6 billion. Dollar Tree’s forecast for the rest of the year shows a similar dynamic, with earnings probably ahead of consensus, but sales below expectations.

Fellow S&P 500 component CrowdStrike (Nasdaq: CRWD) also beat earnings with a Q1 profit of $0.73, and met sales targets of $1.1 billion for the quarter. Guidance for the rest of the year is for better-than-expected profits, but weaker-than-expected sales.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE: HPE) — you guessed it, also an S&P 500 component — reported $0.38 per share in profit for its fiscal Q2 last night, better than expected. Sales also exceeded expectations at $7.6 billion. 2025 guidance was ahead of expectations as well.

Analyst Calls

Taiwan’s President Capital Management upgraded two defense contractors, RTX Corp (NYSE: RTX) and Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), both to “buy.” Both companies are part of the S&P 500 index.