Stock Market Today, July 24, 2026: Major Indexes Close Lower for the Week

The S&P 500 finished Friday, July 24, almost exactly flat, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained and the Nasdaq Composite fell as a sharp drop in chip stocks weighed on the tech-heavy index. All three indexes closed lower for the week, their second weekly loss in a row. Three forces shaped the session. Megacap tech stocks recovered from a heavy Thursday selloff, oil prices pulled back from above $100 a barrel, and bond traders sharply raised their odds of a Federal Reserve rate hike. Memory chipmakers led the semiconductor decline. Intel closed 8% lower after a premarket gain on blowout results. Data center landlord Digital Realty Trust powered the real estate sector to the top of the S&P 500. A new round of U.S. tariffs took effect overnight, covering goods from 60 trading partners.

Indexes Split as Chips Fall and Other Sectors Rise

Chipmakers fell hard on Friday while most other parts of the market rose. At one point during the session, 10 of the 11 S&P 500 sectors were in positive territory, led by real estate. Gains outside technology roughly offset the semiconductor losses inside the S&P 500, leaving the benchmark close to unchanged at the close.

The Dow got support from non-tech names such as Verizon Communications, which rose 6% after its quarterly results. American Express was the blue-chip index’s biggest decliner, down more than 4%. The Nasdaq took the full weight of the chip slump.

The rotation away from semiconductors and toward sectors such as real estate followed a Thursday session that accounted for most of the week’s losses.

A Second Straight Losing Week

For the five sessions, the Nasdaq fell 2.1%, the S&P 500 lost 0.6% and the Dow slipped 0.4%. It was the second consecutive week in which all three indexes closed lower. Before the prior week, the three had not posted a losing week together since the week ending June 5.

All three indexes remained up between 7% and 8.5% for 2026 after the two down weeks. The Nasdaq’s larger weekly decline came as the semiconductor and megacap trades sold off. The prior week’s losses are covered in the July 17 session recap, and the AI spending worries that hit tech earlier that week are in the July 16 coverage.

Thursday’s Megacap Selloff Set the Tone

On Thursday, July 23, the major indexes closed sharply lower and the Dow shed 500 points. Tesla and Alphabet led the decline after their second-quarter reports, and Brent crude topped $100 a barrel for the first time in two months.

Tesla sank nearly 15% on Thursday after a profit miss, the biggest decline in both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq. The drop left the stock at its lowest level in nearly a year.

Alphabet fell 7% even though its results beat expectations. The company’s guidance for higher capital spending on AI infrastructure revived a recurring concern on Wall Street that the largest tech companies are spending heavily on data centers and chips before the returns on that spending are clear. Other hyperscalers fell alongside Alphabet.

Together, the Magnificent Seven stocks lost almost $900 billion in market value on Thursday. It was the group’s worst day since the tariff turmoil of April of last year.

On Friday the group stabilized. In early trading, Microsoft and Tesla each rose about 1%, while Alphabet and Amazon each gained around 0.5%. By the close the rebound was uneven. Tesla gave back ground and finished down 2%. Alphabet ended up less than 1%, recovering only a small part of Thursday’s decline.

Chip Stocks Resume Their Slide

Semiconductors were Friday’s weakest group, and memory chipmakers fell the hardest. The Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM) plunged 8.5%. Two of its holdings drove the drop: Sandisk (SNDK) fell about 11% and Micron Technology (MU) lost about 7%. Both were among the biggest decliners in the S&P 500 on a day when the index as a whole was little changed. The broader iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) fell about 4.5%.

Elsewhere in the group, Broadcom (AVGO) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM) were each down about 2% during the session, and the PHLX Semiconductor index (SOX) was off around 3% intraday.

The decline reversed gains from earlier in the week. Chip stocks had rallied when Alphabet and Tesla, both major buyers of semiconductors, said they planned to invest heavily in AI. After Thursday’s selloff turned attention to whether that spending will pay off, the same suppliers came under pressure.

The slide extended a difficult stretch for the sector as the broader AI trade pulled back. The PHLX Semiconductor index was left nearly 20% below its June highs. Memory chip names had been among the strongest performers on AI demand before Friday’s drop. The next session’s chip moves are in the July 27 markets coverage.

Intel Closes 8% Lower After Beating Estimates

Intel (INTC) reversed sharply during the day. The company reported second-quarter results after Thursday’s close that far exceeded expectations, and the stock rose about 4% in premarket trading. It was down more than 4% during the session and finished down 8%.

Intel posted adjusted earnings of 42 cents per share on revenue of $16.1 billion, up 15% from a year earlier. Analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha had expected adjusted EPS of 22 cents on revenue of $14.43 billion, putting profit at nearly twice the consensus.

The company guided third-quarter revenue to a range of $15.8 billion to $16.8 billion, with EPS of 38 cents. Both figures were well above analysts’ forecasts.

CEO Lip-Bu Tan, who took over the chipmaker in March 2025, said the quarter delivered Intel’s strongest revenue growth in more than 15 years, driven by demand for its AI hardware. He pointed to the company’s CPU business, custom chips (ASICs), advanced packaging and its wafer foundry network as sources of further growth.

Intel’s premarket gains disappeared as semiconductor stocks fell broadly after the open. The stock had come into the report after a run of strong quarters.

A Volatile Earnings Season

Wall Street strategists had warned that second-quarter earnings season would produce bigger stock swings than usual. Analysts at JPMorgan told clients earlier in the week that options markets were pricing above-average earnings volatility for the quarter.

The bank tied that pricing to several factors: uncertainty about earnings, crowded positioning and high leverage among investors, and the possibility of a returning geopolitical risk premium as conflict in the Middle East flared. In an earlier note, JPMorgan said high expectations for earnings growth raised the risk of harsh reactions if companies fell short. Its base case was that the bar would be cleared, though it flagged a higher risk of disappointment than usual.

The week’s biggest reports produced large moves. Alphabet beat estimates and fell 7% on its spending plans. Tesla missed and dropped nearly 15%. Intel beat by a wide margin and closed sharply lower. Moves of that size in the largest U.S. companies were large enough to shift the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq.

JPMorgan Flags Fading Momentum in Earnings Revisions

A separate JPMorgan note, published Thursday by analysts led by Khuram Chaudry, said the strong run of 2026 earnings growth may be close to stalling. The analysts wrote that upward revisions to earnings forecasts remain common, while the trend in those revisions suggests the momentum is fading.

They pointed first to a divergence between forecasts and prices. Earnings expectations and stock prices tend to rise and fall together. In recent weeks, earnings forecasts kept climbing while the S&P 500 slipped. The analysts’ reading was that the market may be anticipating a slowdown in the profit growth companies delivered in the first half of the year.

They then cited two economic indicators.

The PPI-CPI Spread

The first is the gap between the Producer Price Index (PPI) and the Consumer Price Index (CPI). JPMorgan said this spread has historically moved in the same direction as revisions to both sales and earnings forecasts. The spread has narrowed in recent months. If it keeps narrowing, the analysts wrote, further increases in EPS and sales forecasts could be limited. Historical consumer price data is available in U.S. inflation rates by year.

The ISM Order-to-Inventories Ratio

The second is the ISM order-to-inventories ratio, which compares new manufacturing orders with existing inventories. JPMorgan treats the ratio as a leading indicator of profit expectations. It has fallen for three straight months. The analysts said that decline points the same way as the PPI-CPI spread, toward a slowdown in the rise of sales and earnings revisions.

Oil Falls on Peace-Talks Report but Posts Weekly Gain

A day after Brent crude futures crossed $100 a barrel for the first time since May, the global benchmark settled down 3.9% at $96.78 on Friday. The drop followed a news report that Pakistan, with encouragement from China, was pushing for new peace talks between the United States and Iran.

West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, fell 3.1% to $89.31.

Friday’s decline did not erase the week’s rally. Brent gained about 9.9% for the week and WTI about 8.3%.

The surge came from renewed fighting in the Middle East. Attacks between the U.S. and Iran had resumed, and the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen had struck Saudi Arabian oil tankers. Higher crude prices passed through quickly to consumers, with gasoline moving back above $4 a gallon.

Treasury Yields Ease From a Multiyear High

The 10-year Treasury yield climbed to nearly 4.72% on Thursday, its highest level since January 2025, as the oil spike raised inflation concerns. The yield slipped slightly on Friday as oil fell.

Higher rates showed up in housing. Freddie Mac reported that the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate reached 6.58% this week, the highest since last August.

John Canavan, lead analyst at Oxford Economics, wrote that unless both the U.S. and Iran pulled back from hostilities soon, oil could stay elevated for longer, keeping inflation fears alive and bond yields under pressure.

Rate-Hike Odds Climb Ahead of the Fed Meeting

The inflation scare shifted expectations for the Federal Reserve. According to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool, which converts fed funds futures prices into implied probabilities for rate decisions, traders were pricing in a 36% chance of a rate hike at the Fed’s meeting next week. A week earlier, that probability was about 13%.

Expectations for September moved further. Traders priced an 80% chance of at least a quarter-percentage-point hike by the September meeting, up from 58% a week earlier.

The repricing came in the same week that technology and semiconductor stocks led the market’s declines.

New Tariffs Took Effect Overnight

A new round of U.S. tariffs took effect at 12:01 a.m. ET on Friday. The duties of 10% to 12.5% apply to goods from 60 trading partners and together cover more than 99% of U.S. imports.

The administration framed the tariffs as a response to countries that do not block imports made with forced labor. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said it found that 54 of the 60 economies have no import ban on such goods, and the other six have bans they do not enforce.

Two Tiers of Rates

A 12.5% tariff applies to 38 economies, including China, Brazil, Russia and Vietnam. The remaining economies, including Canada, Mexico, India and the United Kingdom, face 10%. The lower rate went to economies the administration said had banned forced-labor imports, had committed to doing so in a trade agreement, or, in the U.K.’s case, had built a partial system that blocks some of those goods.

Replacing the Global 10% Tariff

The new duties replaced a global 10% tariff. That tariff had been put in place after the Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs on Feb. 20. The Budget Lab at Yale estimated on Tuesday that if the new tariffs took effect, the average statutory U.S. tariff rate would rise from 12.1% to 12.8% by the end of the year.

Brazil and Canada Face Additional Duties

Two countries face more than the headline rates. Brazil was hit last week with a separate 25% tariff over unrelated trade practices. For Canada, a 50% tariff on a wide range of goods is scheduled to take effect in August, on top of its new 10% rate. How the new duties combine with these earlier ones had not been resolved.

Real Estate Leads as Digital Realty Surges

The S&P 500 real estate sector was the best performer among the index’s 11 sectors on Friday, and one stock accounted for most of that gain. During the session, the sector was up 2.4%, roughly three times the gain of any other sector.

Digital Realty Trust (DLR), a data center real estate investment trust based in Austin, Texas, was up 13% during the session and was the best performer in the entire S&P 500. The company reported record core funds from operations (FFO) and raised its full-year outlook for core FFO per share, including on a constant-currency basis.

Digital Realty’s tenants include the cloud and AI companies whose capital spending plans weighed on their shares Thursday. That spending is revenue for companies that lease out data center space, and Digital Realty’s stock rose on its results a day after Alphabet fell on its spending guidance.

Other Earnings Movers: American Express, Verizon and Tenet

Several companies reported before Friday’s open, and Tenet Healthcare reported after Thursday’s close.

American Express (AXP) fell more than 4% and was the biggest decliner in the Dow. The card issuer reported second-quarter earnings of $4.53 per share, above Wall Street’s estimate. Revenue rose 10% to $19.64 billion, slightly below what analysts expected. Cardholder spending grew 9% during the quarter, with the company’s core higher-income customers spending through renewed inflation and economic uncertainty. Amex raised its full-year revenue growth guidance to 10%, from a previous range of 9% to 10%. Shares were already down 8% for the year going into the report.

Verizon Communications (VZ) rose 6% after its results. The telecom carrier is a Dow component, and its gain helped the blue-chip index finish higher despite the drop in Amex.

Tenet Healthcare (THC) soared 17% after reporting results that beat analysts’ estimates. The hospital operator reported after Thursday’s close, and unlike Intel, its gains held through Friday’s session.

Oracle Wins a Defense Contract Worth Up to $7 Billion

Oracle (ORCL) won a large government contract after Thursday’s close but was caught in the tech selloff on Friday. The stock rose in premarket trading, then turned lower after the open and was down about 1% in late-morning trading.

The Department of War said it had offered Oracle a contract worth up to nearly $7 billion over 10 years. The award is meant to streamline and consolidate software purchasing across the department, and it will be available for ordering by the intelligence community and the Coast Guard.

The base value is more than $3.3 billion over a five-year ordering period. An option, if exercised, would raise the total to $6.99 billion. Actual payments depend on what agencies order.

Oracle shares were down nearly 40% since the start of the year, among the steeper declines for a major software company in 2026.

Alphabet Discloses a $94 Billion SpaceX Stake

Alphabet’s second-quarter report also showed how large its investment in SpaceX (SPCX) has become. The company disclosed a SpaceX stake worth about $94.1 billion as of the end of June. Based on SpaceX’s market capitalization of $2.2 trillion at the end of the quarter, that holding represents about 4% of the company.

The stake is split into two blocks with different selling restrictions. About $80 billion is subject to short-term limits on Alphabet’s ability to sell. The remaining roughly $14.1 billion is restricted from trading through the end of September 2027, according to filings.

Tesla disclosed a much smaller SpaceX stake, worth $3 billion, in its own quarterly report. Nvidia (NVDA) and Cisco (CSCO) are also likely shareholders, given their early investments in xAI, which merged with SpaceX in February.

SpaceX Delays Starship Test Again

SpaceX shares slipped 1% in premarket trading Friday after the company delayed the 13th test flight of its Starship rocket for the second time in a week. The flight was originally scheduled for Thursday, July 17. An engine problem pushed it back a week, and unfavorable weather then delayed the rescheduled launch by another day.

The stock rose in the days following its record-breaking IPO last month, then reversed course over the past month. It was set to open Friday nearly 50% below the record high it reached a few days after listing. Alphabet’s $94.1 billion figure was measured at the end of June, before most of that decline.

Futures, the Dollar, Gold and Bitcoin

Before the open, stock futures pointed higher as oil prices and Treasury yields fell. Futures tied to the Dow rose 0.5%. The Dow and the S&P 500 held up through the session, while the Nasdaq turned lower once chip stocks began falling.

The U.S. dollar index, which measures the dollar against a basket of major foreign currencies, was little changed at 101.47. Gold futures rose 0.2% to $4,055 an ounce. Bitcoin traded around $64,200, down slightly over 24 hours.

What Comes Next

The Federal Reserve meets next week, with fed funds futures pricing a 36% chance of a rate hike at that meeting and an 80% chance of at least a quarter-point hike by September. The decision and the Fed’s statement on inflation follow the oil spike and the return of gasoline above $4 a gallon.

Second-quarter earnings season continues after a week in which Alphabet, Tesla and Intel posted large moves on their reports and guidance.

On trade, the 50% tariff on a wide range of Canadian goods is scheduled to take effect in August. How the new forced-labor tariffs stack on earlier duties for Brazil and Canada has not been settled.

Index levels and performance over time are on the S&P 500 index page, and the following Monday’s session is covered in the July 27 recap.