Stock Market Today: Uptrend on the chart; Dollar General higher

Updated 2:43 p.m. EDT

Traders would look at this chart and say, "yup, that's an uptrend."

Specifically, we're looking at the intraday gyrations of the S&P 500 Index over the past week or so, and the past two days have done almost nothing but move higher.

Last week's trading was choppier. Lots of ups followed by downs. Not much movement overall.

Zooming out, you can see how choppy the market has been, specifically for the past two to three weeks, which I've highlighted in blue.

Now, there's a chance that traders get really bullish and stocks break out to new highs. We're just 170 points, about 3%, below the all-time high. 

But as Helene Meisler has been suggesting over on TheStreet Pro, there's a high likelihood that we begin to see an increase in volatility. That could mean more choppiness. Or it could mean bigger swings up and down.

Time will tell.

Generally, more than 70% of stocks are higher, too, with Nvidia  (NVDA)  and Tesla  (TSLA)  being the strongest of the megacap names.

Why is the market higher? Well, one reason is that we were Jolted into it. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics released the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or Jolts, number, and it was stronger than expected.

For April, the latest job openings level was 7,391,000, around 200,000 above the previous month. 

That's good news, showing that the labor market is holding up through the tariff talks and budget negotiations. 

At last check the Dow was up 0.58%, the S&P 500 added 0.62% and the Nasdaq Composite tacked on 0.86%.

Treasury yields rose on the news as traders raised money to buy riskier stocks. The 10-year U.S. Treasury is currently yielding 4.46%.

Updated 11:05 a.m. EDT

Stocks gently higher; Dollar General jumps 

In the first hour and a half stocks are gently higher, with the Dow ticking 0.11% into the green, the S&P 500 up 0.28% and the Nasdaq Composite up 0.61%.

Topping the S&P gainers is retailer Dollar General,  (DG)  which for the first quarter ended May 2 reported profit rose nearly 8% to $1.78 a share, net sales added 5.3% to $10.44 billion and same-store sales advanced 2.4%. 

The Goodlettsville, Tenn., discount retailer also raised its outlook.

In a statement the company said: "While the company’s first-quarter 2025 financial results exceeded its internal expectations, uncertainty exists for the remainder of the year regarding the potential impact of tariffs on the business, and particularly on consumer behavior.

"The tariff environment remains highly dynamic, and the specific tariffs applicable to goods imported by the company and its suppliers into the U.S. continue to evolve."

It added that the stronger outlook "assumes the company will be able to mitigate a significant portion of the potential impact to its cost of goods from tariffs at currently implemented rates, but that consumer spending could be pressured by tariff-related price increases."

DG shares at last check were up 13%.

Constellation Energy  (CEG)  shares are close to 2% higher as the Baltimore energy supplier inked a 20-year deal to provide nuclear power from an Illinois plant to Meta Platforms. 

Urvi Parekh, head of global energy at the parent of Facebook and Instagram,  (META)  said in a statement that "securing clean, reliable energy is necessary to continue advancing our AI ambitions.” 

Stock Market Today

It's Tuesday, and it's time to look at the markets.

Today, we're expecting earnings from CrowdStrike  (CRWD)  after the close. After the close the $117 billion market-cap company is expected to report earnings of 66 cents a share. 

CrowdStrike is working closely with Microsoft  (MSFT)  on threat-actor detection. According to TheStreet Pro's Stephen "Sarge" Guilfoyle, the two companies claim to have already deconflicted more than 80 adversaries, including state-sponsored actors from China and Russia.

This comes just a little late for me. A former coworker's LinkedIn account was recently hacked, and an unsuspecting me gave my phone number to the hackers. 

I am now deluged with spam texts asking if I'm free for dinner and whether this is my number. So far, this phishing scheme is just annoying. But the big surprise was that I thought LinkedIn was more secure than Twitter (I know, X) or Facebook. It's not. Beware.

Let's look at today's markets.

Stock market futures are marginally lower. Yesterday was a low volume day, and there isn't much news on the horizon today to spark trading activity. The big question is whether today will be like yesterday, where we start lower but rally to close up on the day. 

Additionally, as I reported yesterday, the number of stocks that were up was about the same as the stocks that were down. Kind of a dull day, unless you owned steel stocks or big tech.

Here's a chart of the futures. Following the market close on Monday, futures began trading lower but bottomed around 4:30 a.m. EDT and have been rallying into Tuesday's market open.

Bonds, which remain higher, are beginning to struggle.

Gold and crude oil are higher.