STOCKS RALLY INTO THE CLOSE: Here's what you need to know

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REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin

Stocks staged a comeback after heading for what would've been a second straight selloff this week. The Dow fell more than 200 points and the S&P 500 went red for the year, but stocks firmed in the final 90 minutes of trading and closed near their highs of the day.

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First, the scoreboard:

  • Dow: 17,772.77, +89.19, (0.50%)
  • S&P 500: 2,081.49, +12.73, (0.62%)
  • Nasdaq: 4,997.09, +5.15, (0.10%)

And now, the top stories on Tuesday:

  1. Oil turned green following a 4% drop. After plunging to a three-month low of around $50.75 per barrel, West Texas Intermediate crude rallied, touching $52.90. On Monday, crude fell more than 7%.
  2. Other commodities got smoked. Gold fell more than $15 an ounce to the weakest in nearly three months, at around $1146.80. Until today, gold had shrugged the global market selloff following the Greek referendum vote on Sunday, and a strengthening US dollar. Silver dropped more than 4% to a seven-month low of $14.62. Platinum sank even lower after falling to a seven-year trough on Monday, and it touched $1,039.60 today.
  3. The trade deficit widened 2.9% to $41.9 billion, less than expected in May. Exports had the biggest fall in three months. Economists had forecast a deficit of $42.7 billion from $40.9 in April. In a note to clients after the data, Pantheon Macroeconomics' Ian Shepherdson wrote, "in one line: Trade will add to Q2 GDP growth, but core exports remain very weak."
  4. Shake Shack shares fell 10% after Morgan Stanley analysts said the stock is too expensive. They cut their rating on the burger chain to "Underweight" from "Equal Weight. "While a powerful emerging brand executing on all its early commitments to its investors, [the] stock is overpriced, in our view, potentially reflecting both technical market dynamics as well as 'brand'-related optimism that is not supported by fundamentals," they wrote.
  5. Deutsche Bank downgraded Tesla shares to "Hold" from "Buy" while raising their price target 14% to $280 from $245. They believe the company has tremendous growth ahead, but much of it is already factored into the share price. Tesla shares fell more than 4%.
  6. Chinese stocks fell on Tuesday despite several measures authorities took over the weekend to rescue the market. On Monday, nearly 25% of all stocks stopped trading to "self preserve," state media reported. The Shanghai Composite index closed down 1.3%. On Saturday, the government announced a "market-stabilization fund" supported by about 21 Chinese brokerages, who pledged to buy shares worth around 120 billion yuan ($19.3 billion.)

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