Stock Market Today, July 9, 2026: Stocks End Higher on Chip Rally

All three major U.S. stock indexes closed higher on Thursday, July 9, 2026, as chip and memory stocks rallied and the technology sector led the S&P 500. The Nasdaq Composite rose 1.3%, the S&P 500 gained 0.8% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.3%. Oil prices fell even after the U.S. carried out new attacks on Iran, which eased one of the pressures that had weighed on stocks a day earlier.

The session started quietly. Before the opening bell, futures tied to the Dow were down about 0.1% and oil prices were little changed despite the fresh fighting between the U.S. and Iran. Buying in semiconductors built through the day, and crude turned lower.

On Wednesday, the major indexes closed mostly lower and oil prices jumped after President Donald Trump said he believed the U.S. ceasefire with Iran was “over” and threatened further strikes. The U.S. did carry out attacks on Iran. Crude still fell on Thursday, and with energy prices lower, buying returned to the AI and chip stocks that had been hit hard earlier in the week.

The gains were concentrated. Technology climbed, while communication services, consumer staples and energy finished as the weakest groups in the S&P 500. Earnings season also began to move individual stocks. PepsiCo and Levi Strauss reported quarterly results, and both stocks fell. Costco dropped after its monthly sales report showed slower growth. AstraZeneca declined after a failed late-stage trial of a heart drug.

Chip and Memory Stocks Lead the Rebound

Semiconductor funds rose sharply. The iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) gained 3.5%, and the Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM) rose 3.7%. The S&P 500 Information Technology Sector gained 1.7%, the best result among the index’s 11 sectors.

Individual chip stocks posted larger moves than the funds. Micron Technology (MU), Marvell Technology (MRVL), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Sandisk (SNDK) and Arm Holdings (ARM) each closed up between roughly 5% and 9%.

The Magnificent Seven mega-cap tech stocks finished mostly higher. The largest move in the group, in either direction, was a 4.7% gain in Meta Platforms (META).

The Semiconductor Index After a Sharp Reversal

Thursday’s rally followed a steep pullback in chip stocks. The PHLX Semiconductor Index, known as the SOX, nearly doubled in the first half of 2026 and then stumbled when July began. The index climbed more than 4% during Thursday’s session, recovering much of the double-digit loss it had taken over the previous five trading days.

The July pullback hit the year’s biggest winners hardest. According to Bespoke Investment Group, 22 stocks in the S&P 500 had gained 100% or more in the first six months of 2026, most of them in technology. Those stocks were down an average of 16% in July as of the firm’s recent count. The list includes memory and storage names such as Sandisk, Micron and Western Digital (WDC), along with Intel (INTC).

The AI trade has sent mixed signals this week. Demand for SK Hynix’s coming U.S. listing points to continued appetite for chipmakers, while the sector’s sudden reversal earlier in the week showed how quickly the year’s leaders can give back gains. Some investment professionals describe the current period as a new phase for AI stocks. In their view, the rally in which nearly every chip stock rose together may be ending, while AI remains a central market theme.

The early-July sell-off began around the July 2 session, when the Dow hit a record as tech sold off.

SK Hynix’s U.S. Offering Draws Heavy Demand

South Korean memory chipmaker SK Hynix is offering about 178 million American depositary receipts in the U.S., with pricing expected Thursday and trading set to begin Friday. A press report Wednesday night said the offering was at least seven times oversubscribed as institutional investors sought exposure ahead of the debut.

Each ADR will represent one-tenth of an ordinary SK Hynix share. The ordinary shares rose 5% on the Korea Exchange on Thursday to close at about 2.19 million Korean won, roughly $1,445.

Booming AI demand for memory chips pushed SK Hynix and rivals such as Micron to record highs earlier this year. Memory stocks have since pulled back, and Thursday’s gains in Micron, Sandisk and the Roundhill Memory ETF came after that retreat.

Cerebras Gains on European Expansion

Cerebras Systems (CBRS) rose about 7% in morning trading after the AI chipmaker outlined plans for European infrastructure. The Sunnyvale, California, company said its first European data center capacity will come online by the end of this year, followed by what it called a rapid build-out across France and the Nordic countries.

Cerebras said it intends to grow its total capacity to 200 megawatts by the end of next year. The company said a portion of that capacity is expected to support OpenAI workloads under the two companies’ existing partnership.

Even after Thursday’s intraday jump, Cerebras shares were down 38% from their price at the company’s initial public offering in May.

MARA Holdings Jumps on Texas Land Deal

Bitcoin miner MARA Holdings (MARA) climbed 12% in early afternoon trading after announcing it would acquire more than 1,200 acres of land from HIF USA in Matagorda County, Texas, about 90 miles southwest of Houston. MARA said the site would more than double its potential power capacity, to about 4.8 gigawatts.

“This transaction advances our strategy of securing strategically located infrastructure assets capable of supporting high-performance compute and bitcoin workloads,” Chief Executive Fred Thiel said. He added that as demand for digital infrastructure keeps growing, the company believes sites with access to reliable, scalable power will become increasingly valuable.

MARA shares are up 50% since the start of the year.

Communication Services, Staples and Energy Lag

The S&P 500 traded comfortably higher during the session while three sectors fell. Communication services and consumer staples were each down 1.4%, and energy was down 1.1%, making them the worst performers among the index’s 11 sectors.

Energy followed crude lower. Consumer staples were weighed down by Costco and PepsiCo. In communication services, Paramount Skydance (PSKY) was the worst-performing stock in the entire S&P 500, down 6%. Meta, a communication services stock, rose 4.7% even as its sector declined.

Costco Falls on Slower June Sales

Costco (COST) closed down more than 4% after the warehouse club reported slower sales growth, a result that showed how little room for error the stock had after a strong run. The company said Wednesday evening that June net sales rose 10.6%, the slowest growth since February.

June was also Costco’s first month-to-month slowdown in 2026. Sales growth had accelerated in every other month this year, from about 9% in January to more than 14% in May.

Comparable sales rose 8.8% in June after a 12.5% gain in May. That pace is fast for a national retailer with about $250 billion in annual sales, and it still marked a step down from the prior month.

Thursday’s drop extended a two-month slide that leaves Costco about 17% below the record high it set in mid-May. The stock is still up about 6% for the year, helped by its strong start.

A Stock That Had Held Up During the War

Costco had held up unusually well earlier in the year. During the first weeks of the war in Iran, the S&P Consumer Staples Sector Index fell nearly 10% as soaring oil and gasoline prices raised concerns about consumer spending. Costco was trading near an all-time high when the war began and lost less than 5%. Its membership model, its low prices and higher sales at its gas stations, where revenue rose with fuel prices, helped cushion the stock during that period.

PepsiCo and Levi Strauss Fall After Earnings

Second-quarter earnings season started this week with several household names reporting.

PepsiCo (PEP) reported adjusted earnings of $2.20 per share on revenue of $24.18 billion, up 6% from a year earlier. Both figures narrowly beat the analyst consensus compiled by Visible Alpha.

The details were mixed. International operations again drove growth, with each of PepsiCo’s non-U.S. segments posting double-digit sales gains. In North America, beverage revenue rose 7%, while snack food revenue fell 2%, a weak result in one of the company’s core businesses.

PepsiCo shares were down 2% in premarket trading and closed down more than 3%. The stock had been flat for 2026 heading into the report.

Levi Strauss (LEVI) also reported quarterly results, and its stock slipped 2% after the release.

AstraZeneca Drops After Heart Drug Trial Miss

AstraZeneca (AZN) closed down almost 6% after the company said Wainua, a drug being developed for a type of heart disease, did not meet its goals in a Phase 3 clinical trial.

The company said Thursday morning that adding Wainua to the current standard treatment “did not provide a statistically significant benefit on the composite outcome of [cardiovascular] mortality and recurrent CV events.”

The shares were down 8% at the open and recovered some of that loss during the session. The decline pushed the stock back into negative territory for the year. AstraZeneca said it will release full trial results in August.

Oil Retreats Despite U.S. Strikes on Iran

Crude prices fell even as the conflict with Iran escalated. At 4 p.m. ET, West Texas Intermediate futures, the U.S. benchmark, were down 2.3% at $71.85 a barrel. Brent crude futures, the global benchmark, were down 2.5% at $76.10.

The decline followed Wednesday’s jump, when the president’s comments about the ceasefire sent oil higher. Earlier in the conflict, rising fuel costs had weighed on stocks through concerns about consumer spending, the same concerns that pulled the consumer staples sector down nearly 10% in the war’s first weeks. On Thursday, the energy sector followed oil lower and finished among the three weakest groups in the S&P 500.

Gas Prices Turn Higher Again

Gasoline prices moved the other way. AAA reported a national average of $3.85 a gallon for regular gas on Thursday, up six cents over two days. Prices had surged for months after the conflict began, reaching a peak of $4.56, then drifted lower for weeks, falling to $3.79 on July 7, the lowest level since mid-March.

Even with the latest increase, the national average is down more than 70 cents from its conflict-era peak. It remains more than 80 cents above where it stood before the conflict began. The two-day rise followed a rebound in oil prices, raising the risk that some of the recent relief at the pump will fade.

The ‘Freedom Fuel’ Price That Didn’t Last

At a newly opened Freedom Fuel station on Route 73 in Marlton, New Jersey, one of 25 such stations in the greater Philadelphia area, driver Brian Brown filled up on Wednesday afternoon for $3.47 a gallon, while a nearby Wawa charged $3.99. A month earlier the station had been an unbranded blue site. It has since been redone with star-spangled signs.

The Trump-promoted Freedom Fuel stations had been selling gasoline well below the prices at nearby stations, and a steady stream of customers kept arriving. Brown said he usually buys gas at BJ’s but decided to try the new station, and was texting a friend about the $3.47 price as he pumped.

Shortly after Brown drove away, the station’s digital sign changed to $3.57. The attendant said the lower price had been a promotional offer. At $3.57, the station’s price remained 42 cents below the nearby Wawa’s.

Treasury Yields, the Fed, the Dollar and Gold

The 10-year Treasury yield, which influences rates on a range of consumer loans including mortgages, was at 4.55% on Thursday, down from Wednesday’s close below 4.58%.

The U.S. dollar index was down fractionally at 100.96. Gold futures rose 1.2% to $4,130 an ounce.

Fed Minutes Show a Data-Dependent Committee

Minutes of the Federal Reserve’s mid-June meeting, released Wednesday, gave the first detailed look at the Federal Open Market Committee under its new chair, Kevin Warsh. The June meeting was his first as chair. The minutes show a committee that largely agrees on its plan for responding to inflation and has limited insight into how the second half of the year will unfold.

Nearly all of the FOMC’s 19 participants agreed the Fed should raise interest rates if prices keep rising. They also agreed the Fed could hold rates steady, or eventually cut them again, if inflation cools. That leaves the path of rates tied to incoming inflation data, which can be compared against past readings on the U.S. inflation rate by year page.

Bitcoin and the Crypto Treasury Companies

Bitcoin traded around $63,200, up from overnight lows of about $61,700. Shares of companies built around holding crypto have performed far worse than the coins themselves over the past year.

Digital asset treasury companies, known as DATCOs, were one of the hottest trades of summer 2025. Their share prices have since fallen sharply.

Cantor SPAC Deal With BSTR Scrapped

One of the planned flagship deals in the group has fallen apart. Cantor Equity Partners I (CEPO), a special purpose acquisition company, had agreed last July to merge with BSTR Holdings in a deal meant to create one of the largest bitcoin treasury companies listed on a major U.S. exchange. According to a filing, that agreement was scrapped as of Wednesday while the two sides renegotiate terms “intended to better reflect current market conditions.”

Strategy, Bitmine and Eightco Slump

Strategy (MSTR), the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, has lost about 75% of its share price over the past year. The company now plans to sell up to $1.25 billion of the cryptocurrency, a shift for a company known for buying it.

Shares of other DATCOs, including Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) and Eightco (ORBS), have also collapsed. Bitmine, chaired by Fundstrat’s Tom Lee, has kept buying ether. About a year after pledging to accumulate the token, its holdings are approaching 5% of total supply, Lee’s stated goal. The stock traded as high as $161 at its 2025 peaks. It recently changed hands around $15.

Delta Adds ‘Basic’ Tiers to Premium Cabins

Delta Air Lines (DAL) on Wednesday introduced “basic” versions of its premium tickets, extending last year’s overhaul of its main cabin. Delta First and Delta Premium Select each get a basic tier, and the lowest fare level in Delta One will be called “Basic Business.”

The basic tiers cost less and remove some features: no seat selection before check-in, a smaller checked-bag allowance and fewer miles earned. Delta First basic fares went on sale Wednesday. Premium Select Basic and Basic Business can be booked for domestic and some international flights departing from September onward.

The change follows a wider pattern of airlines and hotels charging separately for perks they once bundled or gave away free. It also follows the industry’s push into premium seating in recent years, as Americans have kept spending heavily on travel and experiences while prices rise in other parts of the economy.

What’s Next

SK Hynix’s ADRs are scheduled to begin trading in the U.S. on Friday, after pricing expected Thursday. The listing follows a report that the offering of about 178 million ADRs was at least seven times oversubscribed.

Second-quarter earnings season is just beginning, after reports this week from PepsiCo and Levi Strauss and Costco’s June sales update. AstraZeneca plans to release full Wainua trial results in August. Delta’s Premium Select Basic and Basic Business fares apply to flights departing from September onward.

Oil prices remain tied to the U.S.-Iran conflict, and AAA’s national gas average has risen for two days. The Fed’s June minutes tied the next rate move to inflation, with nearly all participants backing a hike if prices keep rising and a hold or eventual cut if inflation cools.