S&P 500 eases with Eli Lilly; Nasdaq manages record closing high

NEW YORK – The Dow and S&P 500 eased on Thursday, as shares of Eli Lilly dropped after data from its oral weight loss drug disappointed, while the Nasdaq eked out a record closing high.

Just before the session’s end, US President Donald Trump said he will nominate Council of Economic Advisors Chairman Stephen Miran to serve out the remaining term of Federal Reserve Governor Adriana Kugler.

Miran is due to serve in the role until January 31, 2026, while Trump continues a search for a permanent replacement.

Earlier, investors digested a Bloomberg report that Fed Governor Christopher Waller was Trump’s top candidate for the US central bank’s chair post.

Trump has been critical of current Chair Jerome Powell for holding off on cutting borrowing costs.

Eli Lilly, which also raised its full-year profit and sales forecast, fell after the orforglipron drug data. The stock ended down 14.1%.

Shares of Fortinet also fell, with the stock finishing 22% lower, after the cybersecurity firm gave a revenue forecast below Wall Street estimates.

“The market rally is beginning to look a little bit tired here. We ran up on earnings, and of course, the market was basically ignoring a lot of the tariff news,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York.

Trump’s higher tariffs on imports from dozens of countries kicked in on Thursday, raising the average US import duty to its highest in a century.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 224.48 points, or 0.51%, to 43,968.64, the S&P 500 lost 5.06 points, or 0.08%, to 6,340.00 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 73.27 points, or 0.35%, to 21,242.70.

The S&P 500 has hit 15 record closing highs this year, while the Nasdaq has posted 17 all-time closing highs so far in 2025.

Among other decliners, chipmaker Intel was down 3.1% after Trump called for the immediate resignation of new Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, calling him “highly conflicted” due to his ties to Chinese firms.

Helping the Nasdaq, Apple shares rose 3.2% after the latest tariff salvo from Trump largely exempted industry heavyweights from his threat to impose 100% levy on chips and semiconductors.

The US president announced a tariff of about 100% on imports of semiconductors, but said it would not apply to companies that are manufacturing in the US or have committed to do so.

Rate cut expectations remained largely the same after the day’s data on the labor market.

Weekly initial jobless claims rose 7,000 to a seasonally adjusted 226,000, the highest level since the week ended July 5 and slightly above the 221,000 estimate of economists polled by Reuters, according to the data.

Market expectations for a September rate cut of at least 25 basis points from the Fed stood at 93.2%, down slightly from the 94.6% in the prior session and well above the 37.7% from a week ago, according to CME’s FedWatch Tool.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.01-to-1 ratio on the NYSE. There were 232 new highs and 80 new lows on the NYSE.

On the Nasdaq, 1,944 stocks rose and 2,622 fell as declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.35-to-1 ratio.

Volume on US exchanges was 17.40 billion shares, compared with the 18.23 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.

(Additional reporting by Nikhil Sharma and Pranav Kashyap in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel and Aurora Ellis)