Stocks Get Tech Lift in Final Stretch of Wild July: Markets Wrap
(Bloomberg) — A rally in the world’s largest tech companies lifted stocks in the final stretch of a dizzying July as strong earnings overshadowed inflation worries that have rattled the bond market.
Back-to-back gains in a gauge of semiconductor giants pared a monthly plunge that’s set to be the worst since 2008. Amazon.com Inc. jumped 15% on solid cloud growth. Those rallies also outweighed a slide in Apple Inc. Higher oil prices boosted Treasury yields, with the market also struggling to process the message from Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh this week.
Despite the insatiable demand for all things related to artificial intelligence, tech companies have been under intense volatility after a massive run, with lofty expectations leaving little room for disappointment. It was also a brutal month for quantitative strategies tuned to specific characteristics, among them momentum, or the propensity of rising stocks to keep rising.
“Is the momentum unwind done?” said Max Kettner at HSBC Holdings Plc. “A ‘momo’ reversal could lead us to new all-time highs in equities.”
Meantime, with a flare-up of hostilities in the Middle East, a fractured central bank at home and persistent inflationary pressures, investors have also shifted their focus back to macro risks. Three Fed officials who dissented against Wednesday’s decision to hold rates steady warned that waiting too long to act against inflation could risk the need for even more aggressive policy moves later.
“The tailwind to the dollar from resilient US economic activity is outweighed by Fed Chair Kevin Warsh failure to turn tough inflation rhetoric into a credible policy, increasing the risk the Fed falls behind the curve in containing inflation,” said Elias Haddad at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.
Corporate Highlights:
Moonshot has a computing power agreement with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. for the use of around 20,000 Nvidia Corp. chips, underscoring China’s continued reliance on Western semiconductors to fuel its AI development, according to people with knowledge of the companies’ operations. Anthropic PBC said its AI models breached three organizations during cybersecurity tests that went awry, a little more than a week after its chief rival, OpenAI, disclosed a similar incident. ExxonMobil Holdings Corp. and Chevron Corp. plowed blowout profits into debt reduction rather than huge buyback increases, a sign of caution about how long war-driven price rallies will last. A Novo Nordisk A/S experimental drug failed to reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes in a large study, a blow to the drugmaker’s growth prospects beyond obesity and diabetes. Reddit Inc. failed to announce any new data licensing agreements in its latest earnings report, disappointing investors who are hoping to see a shift in revenue streams. Roblox Corp. reported second-quarter daily active users that missed analysts’ expectations, reflecting the ongoing impact of new child-safety measures. Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
The S&P 500 rose 0.5% as of 1:03 p.m. New York time The Nasdaq 100 rose 0.6% The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.5% The MSCI World Index rose 0.4% Currencies
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.1% The euro was little changed at $1.1519 The British pound was little changed at $1.3467 The Japanese yen was little changed at 159.40 per dollar Cryptocurrencies
Bitcoin fell 3% to $62,783.61 Ether fell 3% to $1,863.24 Bonds
The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced six basis points to 4.73% Germany’s 10-year yield advanced five basis points to 3.21% Britain’s 10-year yield advanced seven basis points to 5.05% Commodities
West Texas Intermediate crude rose 1.5% to $84.84 a barrel Spot gold fell 1.4% to $4,044.08 an ounce ©2026 Bloomberg L.P.
