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Below you’ll find featured rates available from our partners, followed by details from our ranking of the best CDs available nationwide.

4.60% for 9 Months or 4.50% Until March 2027

Today’s best CD rate in the country comes from Newtek Bank, which is paying 4.60% on a 9-month term, extending your rate lock into 2026. It’s one of four CDs that have joined top APY slots in the past nine days. The other three are yesterday’s new addition of a 6-month offer from Rising Bank guaranteeing 4.51%, a 4.45% 12-month CD unveiled earlier this week by T Bank, and the PenAir certificate mentioned below that leads in the 2-year term.

Beyond the 4.60% national leader, a slew of institutions are offering 4.50%: from PonceBankDirect for 3 months, to Abound Credit Union and Vibrant Credit Union for 1 year, and even a 21-month offer from PenAir Credit Union. PenAir’s CD would guarantee your rate all the way until March 2027.

Oracle (ORCL) shares soared to a record high Thursday after the enterprise software giant’s quarterly results and sales outlook sailed past Wall Street expectations.

The company said it expects “dramatically higher” revenue growth this fiscal year, driven by strength in its cloud infrastructure segment, which is sees growing more than 70%. The bullish outlook prompted several analysts to lift their price targets, with KeyBanc analysts saying in a note to clients that Oracle’s growth projections were “stunning.”

Oracle shares jumped 13% to close Thursday at just under $200, pacing S&P 500 gainers. The stock has risen nearly 70% from its early-April low and is up 20% so far in 2025, easily outpacing the S&P 500 over those periods.

Below, we take a closer look at Oracle’s chart and use technical analysis to identify importan price levels worth watching out for.

Breakaway Gap to All-Time High

Oracle shares forged an inverse head and shoulders on the chart between March and May before breaking out above the pattern’s neckline earlier this month. That momentum accelerated on Thursday, with the stock staging a breakaway gap on heavy trading volume.

While the relative strength index confirms bullish price momentum, it also warns of extreme overbought conditions with a reading above 85, potentially leading to short-term profit-taking.

Let’s use the bars pattern tool to provide insight as to where the stock’s price may be headed next and also identify important support levels worth watching during retracements.

Bars Pattern Analysis

To forecast how price action on Oracle’s chart may play out, we can apply the bars pattern tool to project future trends.

When applying the analysis, we extract the price bars comprising the stock’s longer-term move higher from June to December last year and overlay them from the low of Thursday’s breakout move. This projects a potential upside price target of around $275 and indicates the trend may last until mid-December if price action rhymes with the prior move.

We selected this earlier trend as it also commenced following a 13% earnings-driven breakaway gap after last year’s corresponding quarterly report.

Important Support Levels to Watch

The first support level to watch sits at $180. A retracement to this level would likely attract buying interest near a brief period of consolidation preceding Thursday’s breakout, which also closely aligns with the prominent October and February peaks.

Finally, a more significant pullback could see Oracle shares revisit lower support around $154. Investors may seek entry points in this region near a horizontal line that connects a range of corresponding trading activity on the chart extending back to last September.

The comments, opinions, and analyses expressed on Investopedia are for informational purposes only. Read our warranty and liability disclaimer for more info.

As of the date this article was written, the author does not own any of the above securities.

Major U.S. equities indexes edged higher after new data revealed a smaller-than-anticipated uptick in wholesale prices last month. The second tame inflation report this week was welcome news for investors hoping the Federal Reserve will resume cutting interest rates sooner rather than later.

The S&P 500 advanced 0.4% on Thursday. Both the Dow and the Nasdaq ended the session about 0.2% higher.

Oracle (ORCL) shares skyrocketed 13.3%, gaining the most of any S&P 500 stock, after the enterprise software giant posted better-than-expected quarterly sales and profits. Cloud infrastructure revenue surged 52% year-over-year to $3 billion, and Oracle said it expects growth in its cloud infrastructure segment to exceed 70% in fiscal 2026. Following the upbeat sales outlook, analysts at Deutsche Bank and KeyBanc lifted their price targets on Oracle stock.

Gold prices rose, boosted by a tense geopolitical backdrop and optimism that interest-rate cuts could be forthcoming from the Federal Reserve. Shares of Newmont (NEM), the world’s largest gold producer by volume, jumped 4.9% on Thursday.

Medical products distributor Cardinal Health (CAH) lifted its full-year profit forecast and increased its long-term growth expectations for its Pharmaceutical and Specialty Solutions segment. During its investor day event, Cardinal also announced several strategic initiatives, including the launch of a new multi-specialty Management Services Organization platform, investments in biopharma solutions, and plans for a new distribution center. Cardinal Health shares added 4.6%.

Boeing (BA) shares lost 4.8%, logging the S&P 500’s weakest performance on Thursday, after one of the manufacturer’s 787-8 aircraft carrying more than 200 passengers crashed in India. Shares of GE Aerospace (GE), which supplied the plane’s engine, and Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems (SPR) also lost ground.

Shares of Coinbase Global (COIN), operator of the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, slipped 3.8% as the price of Bitcoin (BTCUSD) slid. Last month, Coinbase became the first crypto-native company to join the S&P 500, replacing Discover Financial Services after the credit card issuer’s merger with Capital One (COF).

Shares of marketing and corporate communications firm Omnicom (OMC) fell 2.9%. Omnicom’s proposed merger with Interpublic Group (IPG), which would form the world’s largest advertising company, remains under the regulatory microscope. The New York Times on Thursday reported that the Federal Trade Commission might condition its merger approval on the combined entity promising it won’t boycott platforms for their political leanings.

Oracle (ORCL) shares soared to a record high Thursday, a day after the cloud computing giant said it expects “dramatically higher” revenue growth in its current fiscal year, prompting several analysts to lift their price targets.

The stock surged over 13% to close at an all-time high of $199.86 Thursday, leading gains on the S&P 500. With Thursday’s jump, the stock has added about 20% in 2025 so far.

KeyBanc said Oracle’s growth projections were “stunning” in a note to clients following the company’s quarterly results and raised its price target to $225 from $200. The bank pointed to comments from CEO Safra Catz that Oracle expects cloud infrastructure growth to increase from 50% in fiscal 2025 to more than 70% in fiscal 2026. Catz also called for a doubling in remaining performance obligations, a measure of revenue from contracts that has yet to be realized.

Deutsche Bank went even further, moving to $240 from $200 and calling Oracle’s results a “watershed cloud moment.” UBS meanwhile raised its target to $225 and Jefferies moved to $220, both from $200.

“Oracle is clearly winning on several fronts, most of which we believe is still largely under appreciated,” Deutsche Bank said. 

This article has been updated since it was first published to reflect more recent share price values.

Oklo (OKLO) shares lost ground Thursday after jumping nearly 30% the previous session following news the nuclear power company had won an Air Force contract. 

Today’s slump came after Oklo late Wednesday announced a public offering of $400 million in common stock. The news partially offset the investor optimism sparked when the company said earlier Wednesday it had tentatively landed a “mission-critical” contract to provide nuclear energy to the Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska.

Oklo shares fell 5% to around $64.50 on Thursday. The stock has tripled in value since the start of 2025, fueled recently by President Donald Trump signing new executive orders aimed at boosting the nuclear energy industry. Stocks in the nuclear energy sector have risen over the last year due to the anticipation of growing energy needs to run data centers and train artificial intelligence models.

Below, we take a closer look at the technicals on Oklo’s chart and point out key price levels that investors will likely be watching.

Flag Pattern Breakout

Since bottoming out around the 200-day moving average (MA) in early April, Oklo shares have resumed their longer-term uptrend.

More recently, the stock consolidated in a bullish flag before breaking out above the pattern during Wednesday’s trading session. Importantly, the buying occurred on above-average volume, indicating that larger investors participated in the move higher.

It’s worth noting that, while the relative strength index confirms strong price momentum, the indicator has moved into territory that has coincided with brief consolidation periods in the stock over the past eight months.

Let’s apply technical analysis to forecast how a new move higher may play out and also identify key support levels worth watching during potential pullbacks.

Bars Pattern Analysis

Investors can forecast where Oklo shares may be heading next by using bars pattern analysis, a technique that analyzes prior trends to project future directional price movements.

When applying the analysis to Oklo’s chart, we take the stock’s impulsive move higher last October and overlay it from the flag pattern’s breakout point. This projects a bullish target of around $135 and indicates the trend may last throughout most of June.

We selected this prior trend as it followed an earlier flag pattern on the chart, providing an indication of how a new move from a similar pattern may take shape.

Key Support Levels Worth Watching

The first support level to watch sits around $55. A drop to this level could attract buying interest near the flag pattern’s breakout point and the stock’s prominent February swing high.

Finally, a more significant drop could see Oklo shares revisit lower support at the $32 level. Investors who seek a deeper correction could look for entry points in this region near minor peaks in January and March, which also closely align with the 50-day MA.

The comments, opinions, and analyses expressed on Investopedia are for informational purposes only. Read our warranty and liability disclaimer for more info.

As of the date this article was written, the author does not own any of the above securities.

Oracle (ORCL) stock hit an all-time high as it led S&P 500 gainers Thursday, a day after the tech giant’s fiscal fourth-quarter results topped analysts’ estimates.

The shares surged over 13% to close at a record high of $199.86 Thursday, bringing their year-to-date gains to about 20%.

CEO Safra Catz said the company’s fiscal 2025 was a “very good year,” but said she believes fiscal 2026 “will be even better as our revenue growth rates will be dramatically higher.”

The report made several analysts more bullish on Oracle, as the average price target compiled by Visible Alpha climbed to about $200, up roughly $26 from what it was on Wednesday morning, hours before the earnings report was released.

Thursday’s rally was also enough to send Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison back to the title of world’s second-richest person, according to Forbes.

This article has been updated since it was first published to reflect more recent share price values and analyst targets.

The U.S. dollar slumped to its lowest level since 2022 on Thursday, putting the greenback on track to have its worst start to a year in decades. 

The U.S. dollar index (DXY) slid as low as 98.6 Thursday morning, its lowest reading since March 2022, and more than 9% below where it started the year. The index has only shed more than 9% of its value during the first half of the year two other times since 1985, and the last was in 2002.

The dollar has slumped this year as investors have questioned both the U.S. economy’s outlook and America’s role within the global financial system. President Donald Trump’s unpredictable tariff policies and apparent desire to abdicate U.S. leadership of the post-war global economic order has sparked what Wall Street has dubbed the “Sell America” trade. 

Evidence of a global distaste for U.S. assets has shown up in the stock, bond, and foreign exchange markets. U.S. stocks severely underperformed equities in most developed markets in the first months of Trump’s second term as trade policy threatened to slow U.S. growth.

Treasurys and the dollar both tumbled in the days after Trump unveiled his “Liberation Day” tariffs, “a very unusual pattern,” former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said at the time. The dynamic, Yellen said, suggested international investors were shunning dollar-based assets and questioning Treasury debt’s role as the bedrock of global finance. Others speculated that China was dumping its Treasurys in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs. 

BofA Says World Actually ‘Dollarizing Rapidly’

The dollar’s bad start to the year has prompted some to wonder if the world is “de-dollarizing,” a concern that Bank of America analysts in a note on Wednesday said “miss[ed] the dollar forest for the dollar trees.” On the contrary, they say, “the world is dollarizing rapidly,” as evidenced by the growth of nonbank financial intermediaries (NBFIs), including investment banks, mortgage lenders, insurance companies, and private equity firms. 

NBFI-controlled assets more than doubled between 2009 ($28 trillion) and 2022 ($63 trillion), according to BofA. “We see this rapid growth as reflecting strong demand for dollars,” the analysts wrote. “Part of this demand likely derives from the increased value of other dollar assets like equities and housing.” The U.S. equity market has ballooned to $60 trillion today from $11 trillion in 2008, the BofA report said, while the housing stock has nearly doubled in the last decade to $50 trillion. 

True de-dollarization, according to BofA, would be difficult to accomplish. It would require the federal government to tax more than it spends—the opposite of what congressional Republicans are proposing in the tax bill being considered on Capitol Hill. Alternatively, de-dollarization could follow from bank, NBFI, and corporate balance sheets shrinking. But, if that were to happen, as in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, we’d likely see the government increase its own spending, and thus the dollar supply, to stimulate the economy. 

Stablecoins Could Boost Dollar Demand

The U.S. government’s embrace of cryptocurrencies could also be a long-term “dollarizing” force. The Senate on Wednesday voted to advance the GENIUS Act, putting the bill, which establishes a legal framework for stablecoins, one step closer to becoming law. The bill’s co-sponsor, Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tennessee), said on Wednesday the act would “cement the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency.”

BofA analysts agree that the mainstream adoption of Treasury-backed stablecoins, which they expect will eventually offer interest in some form, is likely to boost the demand for U.S. government debt and, thus, augment dollar demand. Wider stablecoin adoption, in turn, could allow the U.S. Treasury to lower its interest expenses by issuing more short-term Treasurys, which have lower coupon rates than long-term debt. 

The S&P 500 has authorized record stock buybacks so far this year in what could be a lifeline for the stock market in turbulent times.

As of June 5, directors of S&P 500 companies had given management permission to spend a cumulative $750 billion on share repurchases, a big jump from the $600 billion authorized by the same time in 2023 and 2024, according to recent research from LPL Financial. Approximately 80% of this year’s total buyback authorization is concentrated in three sectors: communication services ($210 billion), financials ($200 billion), and information technology ($196 billion). 

Record authorizations gave executives plenty of dry powder to use when the S&P 500 slid into correction territory in March. S&P 500 companies spent $283 billion on buybacks in the first quarter, a 24% increase from the fourth quarter and 27% above the same period last year. Tech giants were the most active buyers; Apple (AAPL), Meta (META), Alphabet (GOOGL) and Nvidia (NVDA) spent a cumulative $73 billion last quarter. 

Buybacks, by supplementing demand from individual and institutional investors, have the potential to support stock prices during drawdowns like those seen earlier this year. There’s also evidence to suggest they lower trading costs for everyday investors. A 2021 U.S. Chamber of Commerce study found that the liquidity and price discovery benefits provided by corporate buybacks had saved retail investors between $2.1 billion and $4.2 billion since 2004.

But a buyback authorization doesn’t guarantee shares will be repurchased. Market conditions, valuations, and management teams’ priorities together determine whether buybacks happen. Stock prices have rebounded from their mid-April lows, putting the S&P 500’s P/E ratio about where it was at this time last year when threats to inflation and growth paled in comparison to today’s. That, plus lingering uncertainty about the economic impacts of tariffs, could temper corporate America’s appetite for buybacks. 

Plus, the companies that have spent the most on buybacks in recent years are also the ones dramatically increasing their business investments. Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet, and Meta plan to spend more than $300 billion on AI infrastructure and other capital expenditures this year, a 35% increase from 2024. 

Amazon is an illustrative example of the way business expenses and investments can preclude repurchases. The company’s board approved a $10 billion buyback program in early 2022. Amazon spent about $4 billion of that shortly thereafter but hasn’t purchased any shares since. Over the same period, capex spending has soared from about $63 billion to an estimated $104 billion. 

AMD (AMD) unveiled its next-generation MI400 chips at its “Advancing AI” event Thursday. The chip isn’t expected to launch until 2026, but it already has some high-profile customers, including OpenAI. 

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman joined AMD CEO Lisa Su onstage Thursday to highlight the ChatGPT developer’s partnership with AMD on AI infrastructure and announce that it will make use of the MI400 series.

“When you first started telling me about the specs, I was like, there’s no way, that just sounds totally crazy,” Altman said. “It’s gonna be an amazing thing.”

AMD said it counts Meta (META), xAI, Oracle (ORCL), Microsoft (MSFT), Astera Labs (ALAB), and Marvell Technology (MRVL) among its partners as well.

AMD showcased its AI server rack architecture at the event, which will combine MI400 chips into one larger system known as Helios. The company compared it to rival Nvidia’s (NVDA) Vera Rubin, also expected in 2026.

The event also brought the launch of AMD’s Instinct MI350 Series GPUs, which it claims offers four times more computing power than its previous generation. 

Shares of AMD slid about 2% Thursday, leaving the stock down just under 2% for 2025 so far.

The White House may adjust immigration policies in response to employer concerns in some industries, according to President Donald Trump.

“Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,” Trump wrote early Thursday on Truth Social.

“This is not good,” Trump’s post concluded. “We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!” 

The White House didn’t respond to Investopedia’s questions about employers’ concerns and potential policy changes in time for publication. Trump told reporters at the White House Thursday that he would soon issue an order to address employers’ concerns, Bloomberg reported.

“We look forward to working with the President on solutions that ensure continuity in the food supply in the short term, and we call on Congress to follow the President’s lead to develop a permanent solution that fixes outdated and broken farmworker programs,” American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall said in a statement.

]“As an industry, we are committed to strict compliance with labor laws and immigration regulations, including those focused on recruitment, background checks and employment verification,” said Ralph Posner, spokesperson for the American Hotel & Lodging Association. “Along with our members, we continue to communicate with Congress and the administration about the importance of building a strong hospitality and tourism workforce.”

Leisure and hospitality businesses, including ventures run by the Trump family, employ nearly 17 million people, according to April data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Immigrants make up roughly one-third of the hospitality industry workforce, according to the American Hotel & Lodging Association. The farm and agriculture industry also relies on foreign-born workers, often from Mexico and Central America “with many lacking authorization to work legally in the United States,” the Department of Agriculture said.

Besides impacting businesses’ labor supply, the administration’s high-profile deportation campaign is cutting into customers’ spending and corporate revenues. 

Companies have seen a pullback, in particular, from Hispanic customers, who are generally in better shape financially than other consumers, but are shopping in-stores less due, in part, to concerns about immigration enforcement.

“Families are being wise,” Eric Rodriquez, from the civil rights group UnidosUS, told Investopedia in May. “If they are going to lose a breadwinner tomorrow, they need the resources to do something about that.

This article has been updated since it was first published to incorporate more context and data, as well as the statements from the AHLA spokesperson and the Farm Bureau.