Stocks eke out small gain to start second half of 2023, Tesla rises 6%: Live updates

Stocks clinched a small gain to close out Monday's shortened session, which marked the start of a new trading month, quarter and half of 2023.

The Dow finished 0.03% higher, while the S&P 500 added 0.12%. The Nasdaq Composite ended 0.21% up.

The market closed at 1 p.m. Monday and is closed all day Tuesday for the Fourth of July holiday.

— Alex Harring

Cruise lines were among the biggest winners during the first half of 2023.

Carnival soared nearly 134% and Royal Caribbean rallied about 110%, while Norwegian Cruise Line gained almost 78%.

Carnival recently reported a smaller-than-expected loss for its second quarter and issued strong guidance. The stock was also upgraded in recent weeks by Jeffries and JPMorgan.

The sector is the last in the travel industry to recover from the Covid pandemic. However, despite the year's big rally, shares of all three cruise lines are still below their 2019 levels.

— Michelle Fox

Strong delivery numbers from Tesla over the weekend signal that the electric vehicle maker is at an "inflection point" for the bulls, according to Wedbush Securities' Dan Ives.

"It was a jaw dropper relative to many expecting softness," he told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" on Monday. "Those price cuts, that was the poker move that they needed to make to put an iron fence around their install base."

Tesla shares jumped nearly 6% Monday after reporting better-than-expected delivery and production numbers for the recent quarter. Ives said that Tesla is at its "AWS moment," expecting a combination of growth from superchargers and batteries. He added that Wall Street isn't giving the company enough credit on the artificial intelligence front.

"For the bulls, I think this is really an inflection point," he said. " It feels like right now they're just getting stronger, and in terms of electric vehicles, it's Tesla's world, everyone else is paying rent."

— Samantha Subin

Oppenheimer technical analyst Ari Wald thinks the market could get a boost from broader participation going forward.

"We remain encouraged about emerging strength in the areas that have limited market participation," he said in a weekend note. For instance, the equal-weighted S&P 500, Russell 2000, and Russell 1000 Value have each reversed their short-term downtrend, by our analysis. The market implications are bullish because leaders and laggards rally together."

— Fred Imbert

Fundstrat founder Tom Lee has grown more bullish on stocks, seeing the S&P 500 reaching a record high before the end of 2023.

The widely followed strategist raised his year-end target for S&P 500 to 4,825, from 4,750. The forecast represents an 8% gain from Friday's close of 4,450.38 and a new all-time high above the previous record of 4,821.

Lee's forecast is also well above the average year-end forecast of 4,227 from Wall Street strategists, according to CNBC Pro's market strategist survey, which rounds up the top 15 strategists' predictions.

— Yun Li

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway ended the first half of 2023 with double digit gains, inching closer to a new record high.

The conglomerate's Class A shares have climbed 10.5% so far this year. The stock underperformed the S&P 500, which rallied nearly 16% this year, but it significantly outpaced the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average, which gained just 3.8%. Berkshire is now just 5% below its all-time high of $544,389.30 reached on March 29, 2022 on an intraday basis.

The "Oracle of Omaha" has stayed active this year, adding exposure to some of his favorite stocks like Occidental Petroleum and five Japanese trading houses.

Berkshire's cash hoard swelled to $130.6 billion at the end of the first quarter. Berkshire repurchased $4.4 billion worth of stock in Q1, the most since the first quarter of 2021.

— Yun Li

Goldman Sachs thinks inflation could fall at a faster-than-expected pace through the rest of the year, giving the Federal Reserve some breathing room on monetary policy.

The firm cut its full-year forecast for core inflation as gauged by the personal consumption expenditures price index, the Fed's preferred measure. It now sees a level of 3.5%, down 0.2 percentage point from before.

Goldman economist Spencer Hill cited four reasons for the move: a 9% decline in used car auction prices, negative summer seasonality, tumbling apartment rental prices, and a labor market coming back into balance between supply and demand.

Should inflation move down that far, it "would validate the Fed's plan of slowing the pace of monetary tightening and would further reduce the odds of back-to-back hikes in July and September, in our view," Hill wrote.

—Jeff Cox

The energy sector enjoyed a big rebound in 2022 with oil and gas prices climbing, but that reversed sharply in the first half of 2023.

The Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund had a return of -5.4% in the first half. Shares of Chevron fell more than 12%. Occidental Petroleum, a major holding of Warren Buffett, sank roughly 6.7%.

And West Texas Intermediate crude, which traded above $90 per barrel late last year, ended June near $70 a barrel.

— Jesse Pound

If history is a guide, equities should continue to move higher in July. The month as been the best one of the year since 2009 for both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq and the second best month for the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The S&P has a monthly average gain for July of 3.29% since 2009, while the Nasdaq has rallied an average 4.10%. The Dow's average monthly gain of 2.76% for the month is only slightly lower than the 2.89% it gained in November, the blue chip index's best month of the year since 2009.

None of the indexes has had a decline for the month of July since 2014.

— Robert Hum, Michelle Fox

Bitcoin is trading at the $30,000 level, a key marker it struggled to hold in the second quarter, to begin July and the third quarter. It has a good setup heading into the second half, with optimism around the recent ETF applications' ability to force at least some regulatory clarity for the crypto industry.

Fairlead Strategies' Katie Stockton said there's upside to about $36,000 from current levels, she told CNBC's "Squawk Box" Monday. However, a still challenging macro backdrop could dampen its potential upside.

Bitcoin became a leading indicator for stocks in 2022. Its correlation with the S&P 500 has dropped in recent days to its lowest level since 2021, however.

For more on what's ahead for bitcoin in the third quarter, check out our Quarterly Investment Guide here.

— Tanaya Macheel

It's a low-volume day on Wall Street as investors look toward the 1 p.m. early market close and Tuesday holiday.

With just over an hour left in the shortened trading day, slightly less than 18 million shares have exchanged hands in the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), which tracks the S&P 500. For comparison, that's less than a fifth of Friday's total volume of nearly 105 million.

— Alex Harring

If consumer discretionary stocks in the S&P 500 had outperformed the benchmark in the first half by only two times, they'd have risen 31.82%. Instead, consumer discretionary companies did 51 basis points better, soaring 32.33%.

That was even more than the Nasdaq Composite's first-half rally of 31.73%, and trailed only the similarly explosive gains of 42.06% in the S&P 500 information technology index and 35.58% in S&P 500 communications services stocks.

The leaders in the consumer sector show we wanted cruises and we wanted homes. Three of the four top performers were cruise lines: Carnival and Royal Caribbean both more than doubled, soaring 134% and 110%, respectively, in the half. Norwegian Cruise Line jumped 78%.

Three homebuilders were among the top 10 best performers. Pulte rose 71%, Lennar and NVR each by 38%.

EV leader Tesla took the number two spot, climbing almost 113% in the first six months of 2023.

— Scott Schnipper

Health care stocks were struggling in a low-volume trading day on Monday.

The iShares U.S. Healthcare ETF (IYH) was down about 1% in midday trading, on an abnormally low number of shares traded. The fund often sees more than 1 million shares traded but could fail to hit 100,000 shares on Monday.

Among the IYH's top holdings, Johnson & Johnson was underperforming with a decline of 1.4%.

— Jesse Pound

Technology stocks stole the show in the first half of 2023, rallying on the promise of artificial intelligence and a rotation back into the sector after a rough 2022.

The moves boosted the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite 31.7% for its best start to the year since 1983, while the Nasdaq 100 clutched its largest first half gain on record.

Semiconductor stocks reigned among the biggest Nasdaq 100 winners. Nvidia surged more than 189% to post the largest first-half gain as Wall Street labeled it a dominant AI chipmaker. Advanced Micro Devices jumped about 76%, while Marvell Technology and Broadcom surged more than 55% each.

Struggling big technology stocks rounded out the top ten best performers, with Meta Platforms soaring 138.5% to post the second-biggest move in the index. Tesla bounced 112.5%, while Amazon gained 55.2%.

Not every company benefited from the market's broad uptrend in the first half. China-based e-commerce stock JD.com suffered the most extreme losses in the index, sinking 39%. Solar stock Enphase Energy also underperformed, tumbling nearly 37%. Some other prominent losers included healthcare and pharmaceutical stocks Moderna, Walgreens Boots Alliance and Amgen, along with a handful of consumer staple names.

— Samantha Subin

Investors have signaled a steadier hand for Wall Street heading into the second half of the year.

The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) has declined more than 36% from the start of the year, as investors have seemingly become more comfortable with the current trajectory after notching a positive first half of the year.

The VIX is a touted as a key gauge of market variability and investor fear. Investors had been eyeing a breakdown in the VIX to potentially signal a breakout for the S&P 500 after falling to its lowest level since November of 2021 in April.

Still, fully interpreting what the VIX could be signaling often proves difficult, given that it measures near-term put and call options activity for the S&P 500.

— Brian Evans

Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading.

• Electric vehicles — Electric vehicle makers such as Rivian Automotive surged following Tesla's better-than-expected second-quarter production and delivery numbers. Rivian jumped 14%, Fisker rose 4% and Lucid Group advanced 5%.
• XPeng — The U.S.-listed shares of XPeng climbed more than 4%. The Chinese electric vehicle maker returned to growth for car deliveries. In the second quarter, it delivered 23,205 vehicles, a 27% quarter-over-quarter increase.
• Tesla — Shares of the the Elon Musk-led electric vehicle company jumped 6% after delivery and production numbers beat analysts' expectations. The second quarter of 2023 marked the fifth in a row when Tesla reported a higher level of vehicles produced compared with deliveries.

See the full list here.

— Sarah Min

Tesla just exceeded Wall Street's expectations for vehicle deliveries in the second quarter.

"Tesla has been in the process of transitioning to a more even delivery schedule throughout the quarter in order to ease logistics and operational constraints, but the report suggests that Tesla was able to close the quarter more strongly than we and consensus had expected," Goldman Sachs analyst Mark Delaney said.

Meanwhile, storied Tesla bear Toni Sacconaghi Jr. questioned how much further the company will squeeze margins after transitioning to a focus on producing large vehicle volumes.

"The key question for investors is what might margins be, amid significant price cuts but continued cost improvement?" Sacconaghi said.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read the full story here.

— Brian Evans

Friday's bounce to close out the first half saw 76 stocks in the S&P 500 jump to fresh 52-week highs.

The broad-market index jumped 1.2% on Friday. The tech sector was the strongest performer, up 1.8%, buoyed by Apple, Fortinet, On Semiconductor and Palo Alto Networks – all of which popped to all-time highs that day.

With all 11 sectors positive, an array of stocks in different corners of the market also jumped to new highs, including Chipotle Mexican Grill, McDonald's, Eli Lilly and Cintas.

— Darla Mercado, Chris Hayes

The S&P 500 opened near flat as traders kicked off the new trading month, quarter and half of year.

The S&P 500 was down just 0.1%. The Dow shed 0.2%, while the Nasdaq Composite added 0.1%.

— Alex Harring

Tesla shares jumped nearly 7% in the premarket after reporting better-than-expected delivery and production numbers for the second quarter.

The positive news from the electric vehicle maker lifted shares of competitors before the bell, with Rivian shares last up 2.9%. Fisker and Lucid jumped 4.4% and 2.2%, respectively.

China-based Xpeng popped about 7% after beating its delivery forecast and logging a 27% quarter-on-quarter increase. Nio, Li Auto rose more than 4% each on solid delivery numbers.

— Samantha Subin

On the first trading day in July, the S&P 500 was up 29 times out of the last 33 years, according to the Stock Trader's Almanac. On average, it gained 0.5%.

Monday marks the first trading day of the month. It's also a holiday-shortened session.

— Sarah Min

These are some of the stocks making the largest moves before the bell:

Tesla — Tesla shares popped nearly 7% after the electric vehicle company posted second-quarter delivery and production numbers that topped Wall Street's expectations. Deliveries rose 83% year over year.

Electric vehicle stocks — Electric vehicle stocks rose broadly after Tesla posted strong-than-expected production and delivery numbers for the second quarter. U.S.-listed shares of Nio and Xpeng jumped about 5% and 7.8% in the premarket. 

Apple — The iPhone maker's stock dipped 0.4% following a report that Apple plans to scale back Vision Pro headset production. Apple shares closed above a $3 trillion market cap on Friday.

Read the full list of stocks moving in the premarket here.

— Samantha Subin

Information technology stocks accounted for approximately 62% of the S&P 500's advance in the first half of the year, according to data analyzed by Bespoke Investment Group.

The S&P 500 sector's gain alone was 62.1% of the total add seen by the broad index in the half, which concluded with Friday's close. The sector finished the first half of 2023 up 42.1%, led up by a nearly 190% jump in Nvidia shares. By comparison, the broad index added a relatively modest 15.9% in the same period.

Health care weighed the most in the half, accounting for 2.1% of the index's performance after finishing the half 2.3% lower.

— Alex Harring

U.S. Treasury yields rose Monday as investors weighed the outlook for the economy and interest rates after last week's inflation data and comments from Fed Chairman Jerome Powell.

At 4:23 a.m. ET, the yield on the 10-year Treasury was up by around three basis points at 3.8545%. The 2-year Treasury yield was trading more than eight basis points higher at 4.9589%.

Yields and prices move in opposite directions. One basis point equals 0.01%.

— Sophie Kiderlin

Sentiment among Japan's businesses improved in the second quarter, according to the Bank of Japan's quarterly Tankan survey.

The headline index, measuring big manufacturers' mood stood at +5 in June, rebounding from a +1 reading in the first quarter, and also higher than the +3 expected by economists polled by Reuters.

The sentiment index for large non-manufacturers climbed slightly to +23, up from +22 in March and hit its highest level since June 2019.

A positive reading on the Tankan indicates improving business sentiment in the sector, while a negative reading indicates the opposite.

— Lim Hui Jie

China's factory activity grew at a slower rate in June, according a private survey by Caixin/S&P Global.

The country's manufacturing purchasing managers' index fell to 50.5 in June, down from 50.9 in May, but slightly higher than the 50.2 expected by economists polled by Reuters.

China's National Bureau of Statistics reported last week that the country's official manufacturing PMI was at 49.0 in June — compared with 48.8 in May.

— Lim Hui Jie, Clement Tan

The Monetary Authority of Singapore named Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong as Chairman of its Board of Directors effective July 8.

Wong is also the country's finance minister, and will replace Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who held the role for 12 years since May 2011. Shanmugaratnam will step down on Jul 8, the release said.

Singapore's Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong will be appointed Deputy Chairman of the MAS Board.

— Jihye Lee

Private surveys for factory activity in ASEAN countries showed an mixed picture in Southeast Asian markets.

The S&P Global ASEAN Manufacturing purchasing managers' index saw conditions for the manufacturing sector improve mildly in June, posting a 51 reading, lower than 51.1 seen a month ago.

"The region continues to fair well despite the post-COVID boom subsiding," Maryam Baluch, Economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence said, adding that lingering global economic uncertainty and rate hikes "worldwide map a challenging road ahead."

Indonesia's manufacturing PMI expanded to 52.5 in June from 50.3 in May.

Thailand's manufacturing output also remained in expansion territory, with its PMI reading at 53.2 in June — a slowed growth from a reading of 58.2 a month ago.

Meanwhile in Vietnam, its factory activity remained in contraction territory for the fourth straight month at 46.2, the private survey showed, slightly up from 45.3 in the previous month.

In the Philippines, manufacturing firms saw a fractional rise in output amid softer expansion in new orders, marking the weakest output growth in 10 months.

Its PMI reading came in at 50.9 in June, lower than the previous reading of 52.2.

— Jihye Lee

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will meet with senior Chinese officials this week in Beijing.

The Treasury said Yellen will discuss "how the U.S. and China can "responsibly manage our relationship, communicate directly about areas of concern, and work together to address global challenges."

The department said it would provide further details on her trip at a later date.

— Christine Wang

Enthusiasm around artificial intelligence and the potential of generative AI contributed to the market's gain so far in 2023.

As the second half begins, and technology stocks sit well above where they started the year, some investors have begun to question where to find the next opportunities to play the booming trend.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more on how investors who missed the boat can bet on AI in the second half here.

— Samantha Subin

Wall Street just wrapped up a banner start to the year. This is where all the majors averages stand as the third quarter and second half begins.

Dow Jones Industrial Average:

• Gained 2.02% last week to notch its best weekly performance since March its best weekly performance since 3/31/2023 when it gained 3.22%, and 4^th positive week in 5.   
• Jumped 4.56% in June for its best monthly performance since November 2022
• Notched third consecutive positive quarter second quarter for its third consecutive
• Up 3.80% for the year

S&P 500:

• Gained 2.35% last week for its sixth positive week in seven
• Rose 6.47% in June for its best monthly performance since October 2022
• Added 8.30% in the second quarter for its best quarterly performance since the fourth quarter of 2021
• Up 15.91% this year, notched its best first half since 2019

Nasdaq Composite:

• Added 2.19% last week for its ninth positive week in 10
• Jumped 6.59% in June for its best monthly gain since January
• Gained 12.81% during the second quarter, notched back-to-back positive quarters for the first time since its five-quarter streak ending in the second quarter of 2021
• Up 31.73% in 2023 to notch its best first half since 1983

— Samantha Subin, Chris Hayes

Tesla over the weekend reported second-quarter vehicle production and delivery numbers that surpassed analyst expectations.

The company on Sunday said it posted 466,140 deliveries and produced a total of 479,700 vehicles.

The figures mean deliveries rose 83% year-over-year for the electric vehicle maker as it increased manufacturing capacity and production at its assembly plant in Austin, Texas.

It marks the fifth consecutive quarter that Tesla reported more vehicles produced versus deliveries.

— Samantha Subin

Stock futures opened slightly higher in overnight trading Sunday.

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 15 points, while S&P 500 futures added 0.07%. Nasdaq-100 futures gained 0.15%.

— Samantha Subin