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Catch Up. Stocks powered ahead Monday as President Donald Trump announced a preliminary bilateral trade deal with Mexico that could pave the way for a revamp of the North American Free Trade Agreement, but whether Canada joins the deal remains an open question. The Dow Jones Industrial Average moved past 26,000, the Nasdaq crossed 8000, and the S&P 500 will try for 2900 on Tuesday. In today's After the Bell, we...

•...observe strength in stocks like General Motors (GM) and Ford Motor;

•...highlight Advanced Micro Devices' (AMD) seven-day rally;

•...and explain why Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) was the worst performing stock in the S&P 500.

Autos Drive S&P 500 to New Record

You may have noticed that the S&P 500 soared to a record today. As did the Nasdaq Composite. And the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained more than 250 points as it outperformed other major indexes, even if it didn't reach record territory. It was auto stocks driving them higher.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 259.29 points, or 1%, to 26049.64. The S&P 500 advanced 22.05 points, or 0.8%, to 2896.74, a new record high. The Nasdaq Composite rose 71.92 points, or 0.9%, to 8017.90, also a record.The Dow is



The White House trumpeted an early agreement with Mexico to rewrite some sections of Nafta early in the trading session. That helped propel gains in commodities, and fuel new records for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite. The current focus of the deal—which is preliminary and still needs Canada’s cooperation—centers on consolidating and streamlining the automobile supply chain within North America.



That sparked a rally in manufacturers of automobiles, auto parts and tires, which rallied 4.1%, 3.9% and 3.4%, respectively, the strongest performance of all sub-industries in the S&P 500 for the day. General Motors (GM) rose 4.8% to $37.69, while Ford Motor (F) gained 3.2% to $9.99.



“The automotive manufacturing chain, when taken in tandem with agriculture, dominates so much of the North American trade story that progress in Mexico is in fact progress on NAFTA,” wrote analysts from CreditSights.

For GM and Ford—both down this year—every little bit helps.

The Hot Stock

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) soared to the top of the S&P 500 today after announcing the launch of a new chip.

Shares of Advanced Micro Devices gained 5.4% to$25.26, its highest close since 2006.

In Sunday, AMD announced the new Pro V340 graphics card, which helps with datacenter visualization. But AMD was already on the move before today. In fact this was its seventh straight up day, for a gain of 31% during that period. Today's gain came on a huge upsurge in volume, writes Bay Crest Partners' Jonathan Krinsky. "On an absolute volume basis, the most recent high was on May 2nd 2017, when the stock gapped down ~13% and closed down ~24%," he explains. "It traded 268m shares that day, and is on pace for 282m today. So needless to say, this is extremely high volume for an up day."

So can AMD keep it going? We're guessing no. "It's difficult to tell when one of these moves will stop, but certainly today feels a bit like a blow-off as it trades towards an 18 year downtrend line and a pretty meaningful fib retracement," Krinsky says.

Looking at today's, we're guessing it's already begun. —Ben Levisohn

The Biggest Loser

Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) sank to the bottom of the S&P 500 after getting cut by an analyst today.

Shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill fell 4.8% to $495.60.

Wedbush analyst Nick Setyan cut Chipotle to Underperform from Neutral. "We see increased risk to near-term SSS growth and margin expectations, and continue to see risk to margin expectations through 2020," he writes.

Chipotle has gained 71% this year. —B.L.

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