Stock Market Live May 22: Debt Up, S&P 500 (VOO) Down

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

The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO) opened modestly higher on Thursday but quickly turned negative and is now down 0.2%, after plunging Thursday on bad news for the U.S. national debt.

In a party line vote Thursday, Republicans voted through President Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” on, a budget bill that aims to lower taxes and increase spending, with the effect that the deficit will expand by trillions of dollars, and the further effect of ballooning the national debt.

Bond investors reacted to the nation’s increasingly tenuous financial position by selling bonds, pushing bond yields higher. The 30-year Treasury now yields 5.1%, its highest level since October 2023. The 10-year Treasury yields 4.6%.

And as treasury bills offer increasingly generous returns, stocks are becoming correspondingly less attractive investments.

Earnings

S&P 500 component companies Ralph Lauren (NYSE: RL) and Williams-Sonoma (NYSE: WSM) both beat analyst forecasts on both top and bottom lines this morning. Canadian bank Toronto-Dominion (NYSE: TD) reported stronger than expected earnings as well, with revenues significantly ahead of estimates.

Analyst Calls

Speaking of banks, investment bank Needham upgraded videoconferencing star Zoom Communications (Nasdaq: ZM) to buy with a nice, round $100 price target. “The company is at an interesting inflection point where revenue headwinds from Online are easing” and pricing power is growing “due to new embedded AI functionality as evidenced by the latest price increase for Online taking effect June 1st,” said Needham. Moreover, “dilution from stock-based compensation has peaked and the share count can decrease with buybacks moving forward.”

Conversely, DZ Bank this morning downgraded another tech favorite. Cybersecurity company CrowdStrike Holdings (Nasdaq: CRWD) is cut to sell with a $370 price target.

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