Friday, July 31, 2026

Wall Street closed out July on a high note, driven by a massive post-earnings surge from Amazon that helped mega-caps power higher despite surging Treasury yields. The Nasdaq led the major averages with a 1.00% gain to 25,373.854, while the S&P 500 added 0.70% to 7,489.72 and the Dow Jones climbed 0.53% to 52,485.03. Market volatility cooled as the VIX dropped 6.44% to 15.99, though small-caps bucked the broader trend, sending the Russell 2000 lower by 0.50% to 2,931.339.

Sectors in focus:

• Energy & Oil Services: Drilling Oil & Gas Wells (+4.07%) and Oil & Gas Field Services (+3.41%) dominated the tape. WTI Crude climbed 1.23% to 84.62 a barrel amid ongoing U.S.-Iran conflict and Strait of Hormuz disruptions, padding massive quarterly profits from ExxonMobil ($14.5B) and Chevron ($12.1B).
• Tech & Hardware: Amazon's 13-15% surge on $200.6B in Q2 revenue and AI-driven 37% AWS growth masked weakness from Apple, which shed 7-9% following a lackluster forecast and soft China sales.
• Laggards: Chemicals & Allied Products plunged 5.42%. Gold and Silver Ores dropped 2.94% as physical Gold fell 1.25% to 4,108.6, pressured by the 10-year Treasury yield hitting 4.73% following hot Employment Cost Index data. Healthcare subsets like Biological Products (-3.65%) and Home Health Care (-3.17%) also sank.

On the radar:

• Aug 03: ISM Manufacturing Index; earnings from Palantir (PLTR), ON Semiconductor (ON), and Tyson Foods (TSN).
• Aug 04–05: JOLTS Job Openings, Factory Orders, ADP Employment, ISM Services; earnings from AMD, Caterpillar (CAT), and Uber.
• Aug 07: July Nonfarm Payrolls (consensus: 90k jobs). Investors will scrutinize the labor data to gauge the path forward after new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh held rates steady at 3.50%-3.75% earlier in the week.