S&P 500 slips as stocks signal pullback

U.S. stocks slid in early trades on Tuesday, May 20, 2025, with the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq opening lower.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened nearly 50 points down, while the S&P 500 slipped 0.3%. 

Stocks’ struggles in early trades on Tuesday hinted at possible cool down, with Nasdaq Composite also opening down 0.4%. The largely uninspired trading comes after Wall Street optimism helped major indices higher, with the S&P 500 notching six straight days of gains. A pullback would see U.S. stocks snap its winning streak.

Performance across the equities market on Tuesday contrasted with investor reaction on Monday. 

Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan, told investors and clients when speaking at the bank’s investor day that the market was dangerously complacent.

According to Dimon, who said JPMorgan will allow clients to buy Bitcoin (BTC), noted the prevailing geopolitical and macroeconomic risks aside, people haven’t really witnessed effective tariffs.

“The market came down 10%, [it’s] back up 10%. That’s an extraordinary amount of complacency,” he noted.

The JPMorgan CEO’s comments came as the credit ratings firm Moody’s downgraded the U.S. But despite Moody’s downgrade of U.S. credit rating, most market experts are bullish. 

Wells Fargo, for instance, has advised investors to buy American and other developed markets’ stocks and reduce exposure to emerging markets. The firm’s take is that emerging markets stocks do not have the same long-term potential as the large and mid-cap shares from the U.S. and other developed markets.

The firm also sees commodities and some fixed income assets as better bets for investors looking to reduce risk.

In the major stock movement, Home Depot shares rose slightly despite the home improvement chain posting mixed earnings. While revenue rose 9.4% year-over-year to $39.86 billion, net earnings per share fell 4.95% to $3.45, off consensus expectation of $3.59. The surge in the company’s stock nonetheless helped the Dow slightly up.

U.S. Treasury yields remained elevated, though slightly pulled back from levels seen in the previous session. The 30-year Treasury yield hovered around 4.961%, off Monday’s surge past 5%. Meanwhile, the 10-year yield hovered around 4.493% and the 2-year Treasury yield was at 3.987%.

Cryptocurrencies were looking to continue higher as BTC traded near $105k, up 2.2% in the past 24 hours. Among altcoins, Ethereum (ETH) hovered near $2.5k.  Elsewhere, gold was up 0.15% at $3,237.