Stock market today: Nasdaq leads market decline as tech stocks get hammered for second day

Yahoo Finance’s Francisco Velasquez reports:

Nvidia’s (NVDA) upcoming earnings day may boil down to one key question: Will China be part of its outlook?

“If NVDA were to include China in its guidance, we believe it would contribute an incremental $2-3 billion in revenue,” KeyBanc Capital Markets analyst John Vinh wrote in a new note.

Vinh expects strong Q2 results, driven by demand for Nvidia’s Blackwell GPUs. But he warned that guidance for Q3 could be conservative, given uncertainty around US export licenses to China.

Still, KeyBanc reiterated its Overweight rating and lifted its price target to $215 from $190, pointing to Nvidia’s central role in the AI boom and supply-demand dynamics that remain firmly in its favor.

Read more here.

Tuesday’s market action was all about isolated selling in some of the market’s biggest winners.

Wednesday’s early session has brought more of the same, as Big Tech is clearly leading the selling action once more.

After a nearly 10% drop on Tuesday, Palantir (PLTR) fell another 7% in early trade. Meanwhile, AI chip leaders Nvidia (NVDA) and Broadcom (AVGO) each dropped more than 3%.

President Trump on Wednesday called on Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook to resign as the public pressure on the central bank continues to build.

“Cook must resign, now!!!” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social Wednesday morning with a link to a Bloomberg report on a letter sent by Bill Pulte. The Federal Housing Finance Agency head has reportedly urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Cook over a pair of mortgages.

Pulte wrote in a letter dated Aug. 15 that Cook “falsified bank documents and property records to acquire more favorable loan terms, potentially committing mortgage fraud under the criminal statute.”

The President’s call for Cook to resign comes as pressure on the Fed continues amid ongoing changes on the Fed’s Board of Governors.

Read more here.

US stocks were mixed on Wednesday after a bruising day for tech stocks, as investors weighed the latest retail earnings and waited for Federal Reserve minutes to provide clues to interest-rate cuts.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) was up about 0.1%, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) slipped about 0.2%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) fell roughly 0.4%, after weakness in the likes of Palantir (PLTR) and Nvidia (NVDA) dragged on the broader market on Tuesday.

Target (TGT) is tapping a homegrown talent as its next CEO at one of the most pivotal moments in its 63-year history.

The discounter announced that longtime CEO Brian Cornell’s heavily groomed No. 2, Michael Fiddelke, will take over as CEO on Feb. 1, 2026. Cornell, who has been CEO of Target since August 2014, will slide into the executive chair position for an undetermined period of time. Fiddelke joined Target in 2003 as an intern and rose through the ranks to CFO and then COO.

“I’ve had this conversation with the board for a number of years, and I’ve been in the role for 11 years. I’m going into my 12th now. I will actually turn 67 early next year, and I think it’s time for me to step back, recharge, spend a lot more time with my family, a lot fewer nights in hotels, and be a great supporter of Michael and the team for the rest of my life,” Cornell told me by video call while sitting next to Fiddelke at the company’s Minneapolis headquarters.

Fiddelke added, “I bleed Target red after 20 years here, and there’s nothing more important to me than working with the incredible team that we have to chart the next chapter for Target. I mean, I’ve seen us in that 20 years at our best. I’ve seen us not at our best. When we’re at our best, we are pretty darn tough to beat.”

To students of Target history such as myself, this decision isn’t a surprise. For one, Fiddelke has been Cornell’s right-hand man for several years now. It has become quite apparent over the past year that he was grooming Fiddelke to take over while also working behind the scenes to get board buy-in. I have gotten to know Fiddelke in recent years. He is a nice fella and has indeed earned the opportunity to sit in the CEO seat.

If this was any other time for Target, the decision would probably be celebrated. It’s not often an intern at a company becomes its CEO. The only comparable story I can think of is Walmart (WMT) CEO Doug McMillon going from truck loader at the retailer to CEO.

But Fiddelke will unlikely have a honeymoon period, seeing as he has been there at Target during its past 24 months of struggles (which includes a weak second quarter). People I have talked to wanted an outsider as Target’s next CEO, fresh eyes to come in and fix what is wrong (not unlike when Cornell was brought in back in 2014 — his career was mostly spent at Walmart and PepsiCo (PEP)). Fiddelke will be seen as a continuation of a strategy that hasn’t been working.

I asked him on the call how candid he plans to be in the early going on the strategy review, which is what all new leaders do. He sounded like he was ready to divert from Cornell’s playbook and shake things up. He will have to do just that, and quickly, to win over a likely skeptical Wall Street.

Here’s a look at some of the top stocks trending in premarket trading:

Estée Lauder (EL) stock fell 8% before the bell on Wednesday after the beauty group forecast annual profit below Wall Street estimates, as it grapples with persistent weakness in the US and China markets and tariff uncertainty.

Micron Technology, Inc. (MU) shares slipped 2% in premarket trading Wednesday following news that the US government is looking into taking equity stakes in computer chip manufacturers that received CHIPS Act funding to build factories in the US.

Toll Brothers (TOL) stock fell 3% before the bell after beating Wall Street estimates for its third quarter earnings. A slowdown in new orders weighed on the stock, sending shares down.