Stock Market Live December 3: S&P 500 (VOO) Falls As Job Losses Spook Street

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JPMorgan analyst Matthew Boss removed his sell rating from American Eagle (NYSE: AEO) stock this morning, upgrading to neutral with a $20 price target after the retailer’s earnings beat last night.

AE beat earnings with a $0.53 per share quarterly profit and grew revenue twice as fast as Wall Street anticipated, 6%. Management also raised guidance for Q4 sales and predicted strong same store sales growth. Still, gross margins were down year over year and same store sales in Q3 grew only 1%, less than anticipated.

AE’s a show-me stock right now. JPMorgan isn’t ready to call it a “buy” just yet, but if AE deliveres on its promises, investors can expect more upgrades in the future. No wonder the stock is up 16.5% today.

The Voo, by the way, is now also in the green and up 0.3%.

One earnings report from last night also bears mention, as it may be affecting the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF’s movement today. After close of trading, S&P 500 component company CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: CRWD) beat by two cents with a Q3 profit of $0.96 per share. Revenue edged out the consensus estimate at $1.23 billion, and guidance was decent as well.

CrowdStrike says it will earn between $3.70 and $3.72 in fiscal 2026, a couple cents above consensus, and revenue will be at least $4.8 billion, also above consensus. Regardless, CrowdStrike stock is down nearly 4% today.

One more big earnings report for the morning: RV-maker Thor Industries (NYSE: THO).

Thor delivered a powerful earnings beat, reporting $0.41 per share in fiscal Q1 2026 profit where Wall Street had expected a loss of $0.07. Revenue was much stronger than expected to, coming in close to $2.4 billion.

Guidance is another story, with Thor estimating full year earnings will range from only $3.75 to $4.25 per share (so $4 at the midpoint). That’s worse than the consensus number of $4.07.

Thor Industries stock initially opened higher this morning, but is currently down almost 2%. The Voo is cutting its losses though, now down 0.1%.

S&P 500 component company Dollar Tree (Nasdaq: DLTR) beat earnings by 12 cents this morning, reporting fiscal Q3 2026 earnings per share of $1.21. Revenue matched consensus analyst estimates at $4.7 billion.

Dollar Tree likewise gave optimistic guidance, estimating it will earn between $5.60 and $5.80 per share in fiscal 2026, ahead of the consensus of $5.51. Revenue should also beat expectations, coming in between $19.35 billion and $19.45 billion.

Dollar Tree stock, however, is flat premarket.

This article will be updated throughout the day, so check back often for more daily updates.

Initially up premarket, the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO) is turning tail and now looks likely to open at a loss of about 0.2%, after a private market jobs report from ADP was just released. According to ADP data, private employers cut jobs by about 32,000 positions in November, with job losses concentrated among small businesses.

Businesses with more than 50 workers, said ADP, added about 90,000 jobs in the month. But businesses with fewer workers cut 120,000 jobs, resulting in a net loss of jobs for the month.

Is this good or bad news? It depends on who you ask — and what you want to happen because of it.

For the workers who lost jobs, it’s obviously bad; for those who got new jobs — good. For the stock market, it’s bad news because it suggests the economy is struggling to deal with the double whammy of higher input costs from tariffs, plus the lingering effects of the government shutdown in October/November.

But… it’s also good news for the market, if you think that weak jobs numbers might encourage the Federal Open Markets Committee to cut interest rates when they meet next week.

The FOMC will give us its decision on December 10. Six days later — when it’s too late to influence the Fed’s decision — the Bureau of Labor Statistics will deliver its own, official jobs report on nonfarm payrolls, giving a bigger-picture view of the employment market than what ADP just delivered.

Earnings

Department store chain Macy’s (NYSE: M) beat earnings by 22 cents this morning, reporting Q3 2025 profit of $0.09 per share on sales of $4.7 billion, also ahead of estimates. Macy’s also guided ahead of expectations, saying full year earnings should range from $2 to $2.20 per share, and sales will be $21.5 or $21.6 billion.

Despite the good news, Macy’s stock is down 3.5% this morning.