Wall Street opened the final week before the Federal Reserve's July policy decision with a reshuffling at the top of the market rather than a broad move in the indices. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.51%, or 262.83 points, to close at 52,210.08, the S&P 500 was essentially flat at 7,413.18, and the Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.18% to 24,932.08 as chip stocks came under renewed pressure. The session's real story played out beneath the headline numbers, in a shifting hierarchy among the world's largest companies and a fresh bout of nerves over how AI infrastructure spending is being financed.
Apple Overtakes Nvidia
Apple shares rose more than 1%, pushing the company's market capitalization to roughly 4.9 trillion dollars and lifting it past Nvidia to reclaim the title of world's most valuable publicly traded company. The move capped a rally built on steady iPhone demand and services growth, a contrast to a chip sector wrestling with fresh doubts about the durability of artificial intelligence spending. Reclaiming the top spot after ceding it to Nvidia earlier in the AI boom stands as one of the year's more symbolic milestones, and it comes just days before Apple itself is due to report quarterly results.
Chip Stocks Under Pressure
Nvidia shares fell sharply after reports that the company could provide financing in the region of 250 billion dollars tied to OpenAI's data center buildout, reviving investor concerns about circular financing arrangements within the AI supply chain. Separately, reports of a Chinese state-backed manufacturer beginning mass production of chipmaking equipment weighed on ASML and other semiconductor names, with memory makers also lower. The combination pulled the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index down and dragged on the Nasdaq for the session. The episode was a reminder of how quickly sentiment can turn on the AI trade even without any change to the underlying growth story.
Oil Slides on Iran Diplomacy Hopes
Crude prices tumbled roughly 7%, with West Texas Intermediate falling toward 83 dollars a barrel after reports of a pause in fighting between the United States and Iran raised hopes for renewed diplomatic talks. The drop offered relief to consumer-facing and industrial names and helped the Dow outperform the tech-heavy indices on the day. Energy shares were among the session's clearest laggards as the commodity move rippled through the broader market, and the retreat also fed into lower inflation expectations just as the Fed prepared to deliberate on rates.
Looking Ahead to a Loaded Week
The session set up a week of two-sided risk: the Federal Reserve's meeting concludes Wednesday, and megacap earnings from Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Amazon are due in the following days. With chip stocks already jittery over AI financing structures, traders are likely to stay cautious into results that will test whether spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure is still translating into growth investors can trust. Positioning ahead of both events remained notably light, and volatility measures ticked up modestly as the calendar filled with catalysts capable of moving indices in either direction.
Daily market analysis by BCM Markets.