It Was a Dark Day for Solar Companies

Their shares tumbled after House passed 'big, beautiful bill'
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted May 22, 2025 3:43 PM CDT
Solar, Health Care Stocks Drop
Newly installed city solar panels are seen in Fountain, Colorado.   (Parker Seibold/The Gazette via AP, File)

Stocks drifted to a mixed close on Wall Street on Thursday in what has been a rocky week because of worries coming out of the bond market about the US government's mounting debt.

  • The S&P 500 slipped 2.60 points, or less than 0.1%, to close at 5,842.01.
  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.35 points, or less than 0.1%, to 41,859.09.
  • The Nasdaq composite rose 53.09 points, or 0.3% to 18,925.73.
Treasury yields also held a bit steadier in the bond market, but only after oscillating earlier in the morning after the House of Representatives approved a bill that would cut taxes and could add trillions of dollars to the US debt, the AP reports.

The legislation also includes a speedier rollback of production tax credits for clean electricity projects, which sent shares of solar companies tumbling. Sunrun dropped 37.1%, Enphase Energy fell 19.6%, and First Solar slid 4.3%. Health care stocks also fell after the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said it was immediately expanding its auditing of Medicare Advantage plans. UnitedHealth Group fell 2.2% and Humana was down 7.6%. The majority of stocks within the S&P 500 lost ground, but gains for technology companies with outsized values offset those losses. Google's parent Alphabet jumped 1.4% and Nvidia rose 0.8%

Wall Street had several economic updates on Thursday. The number of Americans filing unemployment claims last week fell slightly. The broader employment market has remained strong, though businesses remain worried about the economic uncertainty amid a trade war. A report on manufacturing and services in the US came in better than expected. The survey from S&P Global showed growth for both areas in May following a sluggish April. "Business confidence has improved in May from the worrying slump seen in April, with gloom about prospects for the year ahead lifting somewhat thanks largely to the pause on higher rate tariffs," said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

(More stock market stories.)

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