Corporate earnings dominated trading on July 21, with General Motors and 3M both beating Wall Street's second-quarter estimates and raising full-year guidance. The broader market nonetheless closed slightly lower, with the S&P 500 down 14.41 points, or 0.2%, to 7,443.28, the Dow Jones Industrial Average off 307.16 points, or 0.6%, to 51,839.26, and the Nasdaq Composite little changed, down 12.17 points to 25,508.07. Healthcare and industrial shares weighed on the index even as several high-profile earnings beats offered pockets of strength.
General Motors and 3M Deliver Strong Beats
General Motors reported second-quarter earnings of 3.57 dollars per share on revenue of 48.03 billion dollars, comfortably ahead of analyst estimates of 3.20 dollars per share and 47.01 billion dollars in revenue. The automaker also raised its full-year outlook for adjusted earnings and free cash flow, sending shares up more than 2% in premarket trading. Industrial conglomerate 3M posted adjusted earnings of 2.40 dollars per share against a consensus of 2.25 dollars, with revenue of 6.50 billion dollars topping the 6.41 billion dollar estimate, and lifted its full-year adjusted earnings per share guidance to a range of 8.80 to 8.95 dollars. Both results added to a run of solid industrial and consumer-facing earnings this reporting season, offering a counterpoint to the more cautious tone coming out of some AI-exposed technology names.
Halliburton Beats but Middle East Exposure Bites
Halliburton also topped expectations, reporting earnings of 0.55 dollars per share against a 0.54 dollar estimate and revenue of 5.71 billion dollars versus 5.50 billion dollars expected. Shares nonetheless came under pressure, as the oilfield services company flagged a nearly 11% drop in Middle East revenue to 1.3 billion dollars, attributed to reduced regional activity amid the ongoing U.S.-Iran conflict. The result illustrated a broader theme running through the earnings season: companies with meaningful Middle East operations are increasingly citing the conflict as a drag on results, even as those with limited regional exposure continue to post solid numbers.
Nvidia's Nebius Stake Sends AI Cloud Shares Soaring
Shares of Nebius, the Amsterdam-based AI cloud infrastructure company, surged nearly 19% after a regulatory filing disclosed that Nvidia holds a 9.3% passive stake in the firm. The position, built through roughly 1.19 million common shares plus warrants tied to Nvidia's previously announced 2 billion dollar strategic investment, underscored the chipmaker's expanding footprint across the AI infrastructure supply chain. The two companies are also collaborating on areas including AI factory design, fleet management and inference deployment, reinforcing investor interest in so-called neocloud providers that lease AI computing capacity to enterprise customers.
Middle East Risk Still Weighing on Sentiment
Beyond individual earnings reactions, the broader market remained cautious as the U.S.-Iran conflict continued to influence oil prices and Treasury yields. More than fifteen S&P 500 companies reported results on the day, keeping traders occupied with company-specific catalysts even as macro risk stayed elevated in the background. With earnings from some of the largest technology companies still to come later in the week, positioning remained tactical, favoring names with clear evidence of demand strength over speculative growth stories. The mixed session underscored how stock-specific catalysts can diverge sharply from index-level moves during a heavy earnings stretch.
Daily market analysis by BCM Markets.