Wall Street Today; DJIA Hits Record and S&P 500, Nasdaq Comp Rally as SNDK, AMD, INTC, AAPL, MU Rise

The Dow-30 set a record finish Tuesday to end 2026's first half, while the Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 rose as well as Sandisk, AMD, Intel, Marvel and other tech giants rallied – in some cases to new all-time peaks.

The $Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI.US)$ gained 136.46 points (0.3%) to a 52,319.20 best-ever close, exceeding Thursday's record-high ending.

Meanwhile, the $Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC.US)$ added 393.58 ticks (1.5%) to 26,213.72, while the $S&P 500 Index (.SPX.US)$ gained 58.93 points (0.8%) to 7,499.36.

Macro

Tuesday's finish marked the end of both 2026's first half and second quarter, with all three indexes seeing hefty gains for both periods.

For instance, the Nasdaq Comp added some 20% during Q2 and the S&P 500 rose about 14% during the past three months – their best quarterly showings since Q2 2020.

Meanwhile, the DJIA added about 12% during the quarter, ringing up its strongest three-month showing since Q4 2022.

The market's latest gains Tuesday stemmed from continued investor enthusiasm for artificial-intelligence-friendly stocks and other Big Techs.

For instance, $SanDisk (SNDK.US)$ rose 10.9% to $2,273.73 after Bernstein boosted the storage giant's price target to $3,000 from a previous $1,700 and reiterated the stock's "Outperform" rating.

$Lam Research (LRCX.US)$ also gained 5.5% on word that an ASX unit had bought $157.2 million of equipment from LRCX's international subsidiary.

Other Big Techs rose as part of the market's general positive sentiment for the sector. Major percentage gainers included $Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.US)$ (7.7% firmer), $Marvell Technology (MRVL.US)$ (ahead 7.3%), $Intel (INTC.US)$(up 6%),$NEBIUS (NBIS.US)$ (5.8% stronger) and $Super Micro Computer (SMCI.US)$ (4.2% better).

Other Big Techs to rise by lesser amounts included $Applied Materials (AMAT.US)$ (up 4.1%), $Palo Alto Networks (PANW.US)$ (2.7% higher), $Apple (AAPL.US)$(2.7% firmer) and $Micron Technology (MU.US)$ (which added 0.8%).

In fact, AMD, Applied Materials, Intel, Lam Research and Palo Alto Networks all set all-time intraday highs during the session.

In economic news, the Labor Department reported that U.S. job openings remained steady at 7.6 million in May – a two-year high that's roughly unchanged from April and above the roughly 7 million economists had expected.

Such labor-market strength could encourage the Federal Reserve to boost U.S. interest rates in a bid to ease America's inflation rate.

Equities investors typically dislike rate hikes because those tend to boost bond and money-market yields, drawing some money away from stocks.

Elsewhere in markets, cryptocurrencies fell Tuesday as Bitcoin continued to trade in its recently $58,000 to $61,000 range.

$Bitcoin (BTC.CC)$ fell 2.8% as of about 4:45 p.m. New York time to $58,607.06, while $Ethereum (ETH.CC)$ shed 3% to $1,572.91, $Solana (SOL.CC)$lost 3.1% to $73.50 and $Ripple (XRP.CC)$gave up 2.7% to $1.04.

Moo-vers

The "Magnificent Seven" stocks took their cue from the Nasdaq Composite and ended Tuesday's session mostly higher.

Tuesday's Mag-7 winners included $Apple (AAPL.US)$with its aforementioned 2.7% gain, followed by $NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$ (2.6% stronger), $Tesla (TSLA.US)$(up 2.1%), $Microsoft (MSFT.US)$ (1.2% firmer), $Alphabet-A (GOOGL.US)$ (1.1% better) and $Meta Platforms (META.US)$ (which tacked on 0.1%).

Only $Amazon (AMZN.US)$ bucked the market's broad trend, falling 0.8%.

In other market sectors, Tuesday's noteworthy percentage decliners included:

-- $Circle (CRCL.US)$, down 17.6%. The stablecoin firm tumbled on word that $Visa (V.US)$, $MasterCard (MA.US)$, $IBM Corp (IBM.US)$ and other tech and financial giants have teamed up to launch a new stablecoin called Open USD to compete with Circle's $USD Coin (USDC.CC)$.

-- $Strategy (MSTR.US)$, 6.2% lower. The Bitcoin-treasury firm gave back part a 12.6% gain it saw Monday on a new "Digital Credit Capital Framework" that includes more than $1 billion in buybacks of preferred and common stock.

-- Select tech stocks that didn't participate in Tuesday's rally. Decliners included $Netflix (NFLX.US)$ (off 3.2%), $Qualcomm (QCOM.US)$ (down 2.1%), $Western Digital (WDC.US)$ (2% lower) and $Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI.US)$ (which gave up 1.3%).

Meanwhile, the session's significant percentage winners included:

-- Certain fuel-cell-technology companies, which rallied for a second day. $FuelCell Energy (FCEL.US)$ added 20.8% on top of 21.2% of gains that it saw Monday after receiving a $49 million financing package from the U.S. Export-Import Bank. Similarly, $Bloom Energy (BE.US)$ rose another 10.1% Tuesday after rallying 9.1% Monday partly in sympathy with FCEL.

-- $AeroVironment (AVAV.US)$, up 18.8%. The defense-technology firm soared on well-regarded quarterly results.

-- Space stocks, which continued their recent trend of up-and-down sessions that have followed SpaceX's June 12 initial public offering. $SpaceX (SPCX.US)$ added 4.1% Tuesday, while $Rocket Lab (RKLB.US)$ gained 3.7% and $AST SpaceMobile (ASTS.US)$ rose 2.4%.

Disclaimer: This presentation is for informational and educational use only and is not a recommendation or endorsement of any particular investment or investment strategy. Indexes are unmanaged and cannot be directly invested in. Past performance is no indication of future results. Investing involves risk and the potential to lose principal. Investment information provided in this content is general in nature, strictly for illustrative purposes, and may not be appropriate for all investors. It is provided without respect to individual investors' financial sophistication, financial situation, investment objectives, investing time horizon, or risk tolerance. You should consider the appropriateness of this information regarding your relevant personal circumstances before making any investment decisions. Past investment performance does not indicate or guarantee future success. Returns will vary, and all investments carry risks, including loss of principal.

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