Intuitive Surgical
Intuitive Surgical fell more than 11% in real time, later 12%, on a slowing growth story despite beating on earnings. Adjusted earnings came in at $2.80 per share, above expectations. Revenue topped forecasts at $2.89 billion, up 19% year over year. Investors focused instead on slowing procedure growth and a more cautious outlook for the rest of the year.
The company blamed weaker US procedure volumes on the end of the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies. With those subsidies gone, more uninsured patients are delaying surgery because they are weighing the full out-of-pocket cost. The CFO called the ACA expiration a headwind but said the impact was only modestly negative. That echoed concerns earlier in the week from hospital operator HCA Healthcare.
China also stays a challenge and a drag on growth. Global da Vinci procedures rose almost 15% in Q2, but that was a slowdown from stronger growth in Q1. The company reaffirmed full-year procedure growth guidance of 13.5% to 15.5%. Investors wanted guidance above that range, and reaffirming was not enough to lift a stock that has been stuck all year.
GLP-1 weight-loss drugs are another headwind, hitting bariatric surgery. Those procedures fell by high single digits as more patients pick weight-loss drugs over weight-loss surgery. The stock came into the day already down more than 20%; adding the day's drop, it is now off more than 30%. The report did nothing to rewrite the concerns that existed going in.
SpaceX
SpaceX dropped about 4.2% to 4.3%, trading near $125 a share after breaking below its $135 IPO price earlier in the week. The trigger was scrubbing the latest Starship test flight. Seconds before liftoff, an engine ignition problem set off an automatic launch abort. The process looked orderly. Two Raptor engines will be replaced before the next attempt, which is set for early next week.
Pulling the plug before a problem could strike in orbit or in space makes sense; safety first is the right call. Successful launches on the timeline promised to investors are a huge part of the growth story, so a failure to hit that timeline fits with a roughly 4.3% pullback. When the company pulls the plug, investors pull the plug too.
Some traders had held off, waiting for an entry at $125 or below, and now they are getting it. Shorts are piling in, but shorting an Elon Musk company carries its own risk. Price is what matters here; the market reaction tells you how the street feels regardless of whether the move seems justified. Part of the day's weakness ties to broader tech softness.
Apple
Apple stands out as the strongest of the Magnificent 7 this year, making the group's most notable move to the upside and hitting new all-time highs even as the rest of the sector sold off all week. HSBC upgraded Apple to buy from hold and raised its price target to $366, implying double-digit upside from the prior close even after this week's record high.
HSBC sees Apple at an "operational turning point," entering a new growth phase driven by AI and one of its strongest product pipelines in years, pointing to Apple Intelligence. Apple stepped back from the AI buildout and hyperscaler spending race, and that choice, once criticized, now looks like an advantage. While AI infrastructure companies carry heavy capital spending, Apple does not, yet it can still cash in on AI through the billions of devices already in users' hands. HSBC argues Apple does not need massive AI infrastructure spending, and that works in its favor. During the discussion, Apple firmed up and turned higher on the session, a lone green spot among mostly red mega-cap tech names.
