NEW YORK — The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed to a record closing high Thursday, surging nearly 595 points and firmly establishing itself as the market’s standout performer heading into the Fourth of July holiday weekend, even as the Nasdaq Composite slid for a second consecutive session and the semiconductor sector endured another wave of sharp selling that reopened questions about how much of the AI trade’s extraordinary first-half gains can be sustained.

The blue-chip index added 594.83 points, or 1.14%, to close at a record 52,900.07, also touching a new all-time intraday high of 52,903.85 during the session. The S&P 500 rose less than one point to finish essentially flat at 7,483.24, while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.8% to settle at 25,832.67. U.S. markets will be closed Friday in observance of Independence Day, which falls on Saturday this year, ending a holiday-shortened trading week that produced one of the more divergent performances between the Dow and the technology-heavy indexes in recent memory.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average scaled to record highs on Thursday as investors reacted to a weaker-than-expected nonfarm payrolls report for June.

The June employment report, released Thursday morning, delivered a notable miss against expectations. The U.S. economy added 57,000 jobs in June, well below the Dow Jones consensus estimate of 115,000. The unemployment rate, however, edged down to 4.2% from 4.3%, a reading that reflects a falling labor force participation rate rather than a surge in employment, and one that investors interpreted through the lens of Federal Reserve policy rather than labor market health.

Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Northlight Asset Management, framed the market’s reaction to the soft jobs number in terms of what it means for the Federal Reserve’s next move.

“This morning’s report is a stark reversal from recent reports because there were a lot fewer jobs created than expected, and prior months’ numbers were revised lower,” Zaccarelli said. “While the headline may be negative, slowing job growth, there could be a silver lining for markets, as it could force some of the more hawkish Fed officials to reconsider additional rate hikes to fight inflation.”

He added that the shift in emphasis could benefit equities broadly: “The employment mandate being brought back into focus could increase the odds of rates remaining on hold, which, all things being equal, would be better for markets than further tightening.”

The Dow’s strength was broad-based but concentrated in its more traditional, defensive and consumer-facing members rather than its technology components. 24 of the 30-strong holdings in the index rose today, enough to offset poor performances from Caterpillar (-3.20%) and UnitedHealth (-0.64%), which hold more influence in the price-weighted index. Apple (+4.46%) leads the index today, joined by McDonald’s (+3.34%) and others.

Apple’s gain was by far the most significant contribution to the index’s record close. Shares of the iPhone maker climbed nearly 5%, adding the equivalent of roughly 40 Dow points on its own, after Bloomberg reported the company had instructed component suppliers to prepare for a large-scale rollout of its first foldable iPhone this fall. The expected production target for the new form factor was reported at approximately 10 million units, up from earlier estimates of 7 to 8 million, a volume increase that investors read as a signal of strong consumer demand expectations for a product category Apple has not previously addressed.

The divergence between the Dow’s record performance and the Nasdaq’s decline illustrated in concentrated form the rotation trade that has defined much of the market’s narrative since the second quarter began. “The ‘Great Rotation’ trade persists into the third quarter as the blue boring names of the Dow Jones Industrials continue to attract inflows directly from recent profit taking money from tech stocks,” Jeff Kilburg, founder and CEO of KKM Financial, told CNBC. “This is extremely healthy and underscores the broadening breadth of equities for this continued bull market in its fourth year.”

The semiconductor sector bore the heaviest losses for the second consecutive session. Semiconductors fell for a second day in a row, weighing on the latter two benchmarks. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF dropped 4.5%, led by a 13.6% decline in Teradyne and a 11.5% slide for KLA. Nvidia shares also pulled back 1.4%, while Micron shares lost 5.5%. The two-day pullback in chip stocks follows an 82% first-half gain across the sector broadly, making some degree of consolidation expected even if the speed of Thursday’s decline surprised some observers.

CNBC also noted that Tesla fell despite strong delivery numbers, and Netflix jumped 5% in afternoon trading as a notable outlier within the otherwise struggling Nasdaq-100.

Alphabet fell roughly 1% after a European court upheld the 4.1 billion euro antitrust fine stemming from a 2018 European Commission ruling that Google had given its own applications unfair advantages in Android products, removing any lingering hope the company retained of overturning the penalty after years of legal challenges.

One notable new corporate development added another element to the session’s AI narrative. Reports indicated that OpenAI had opened discussions about selling a 5% stake to the U.S. government, a development that circulated through technology trading desks during the session without producing a decisive directional move for AI-adjacent stocks but adding to the sense of an AI trade in active reassessment rather than straightforward continued accumulation.

Ed Yardeni, the president of market advisory firm Yardeni Research and former chief investment strategist, said he expects the stock market to continue its rise over the second half of this year, forecasting a further 9% gain in the S&P 500.

With markets now closed until Monday, investors have the long weekend to assess the accumulated signals of an abbreviated first week of July: a Dow at a fresh all-time record, a Nasdaq in a two-day decline, a jobs market that may be softening faster than many expected just a month ago, and an Apple foldable iPhone narrative that has given one corner of the technology sector a reason to rally even as semiconductors cool.

SL Science Holding Limited shares soared more than 34% to close at $5.99 Thursday following its recent listing on the Nasdaq Global Market through a business combination with a special purpose acquisition company, highlighting strong investor appetite for innovative cell therapy platforms in the competitive biotechnology sector.

The Taiwan-headquartered company, formerly known as SL BIO Ltd., completed its merger with Horizon Space Acquisition II Corp. and began trading under the ticker SLBT on June 15. The transaction valued the combined entity at approximately $5.6 billion, providing substantial capital to advance its pipeline of gamma delta T cell therapies targeting solid tumors.

SL Science focuses on developing off-the-shelf cellular and gene therapies, with particular emphasis on gamma delta T cells for treating challenging cancers such as pancreatic and brain tumors. The approach aims to overcome limitations of traditional autologous cell therapies, including scalability, cost and manufacturing consistency.

The company’s platform also includes research into armed T-cells and exosome-based products derived from plant and milk sources for regenerative medicine applications. These diversified efforts position SL Science at the intersection of immuno-oncology and regenerative therapies.

SPAC Merger and Nasdaq Transition

The business combination with Horizon Space Acquisition II provided SL Science with access to public markets and additional funding through a PIPE investment. The listing marks a significant milestone for the preclinical-stage biotechnology firm seeking to accelerate clinical development.

Proceeds from the transaction will support research and development activities, manufacturing scale-up and potential strategic acquisitions. Management has outlined plans to advance lead candidates toward investigational new drug applications and early-stage clinical trials.

Biotechnology companies often pursue public listings via SPACs to expedite capital raising amid volatile traditional IPO markets. SL Science’s debut reflects continued investor interest in innovative cell and gene therapy platforms despite sector-wide challenges.

Pipeline and Scientific Approach

SL Science’s gamma delta T cell technology leverages a unique subset of immune cells with potential advantages in targeting solid tumors. Unlike conventional CAR-T therapies that have shown limited efficacy against solid cancers, gamma delta approaches may offer better tumor infiltration and reduced toxicity.

The company is also exploring exosome therapies using milk-derived and plant-based sources for applications in skin care, wound healing and broader regenerative medicine. These products complement the oncology focus while generating potential near-term revenue through cosmetic and wellness channels.

Preclinical data has demonstrated promising results in various models, though clinical validation remains essential for regulatory approval and commercial success. The firm aims to establish standardized manufacturing processes to enable scalable production.

Market Context and Challenges

The cell therapy sector has experienced rapid growth but faces hurdles including high development costs, manufacturing complexities and reimbursement uncertainties. SL Science’s off-the-shelf approach seeks to address some of these challenges compared to personalized therapies.

Competition in immuno-oncology is intense, with major pharmaceutical companies and specialized biotech firms pursuing similar targets. Differentiation through proprietary technologies and combination approaches will be critical for market positioning.

Regulatory pathways for cell and gene therapies have become more defined in major markets, though requirements for safety and efficacy data remain stringent. SL Science will need to navigate clinical trial requirements and manufacturing standards carefully.

Investor enthusiasm for biotechnology stocks fluctuates with broader market sentiment and clinical data readouts. SL Science’s post-listing volatility reflects typical patterns for newly public development-stage companies.

Financial Position and Strategy

As a preclinical company, SL Science currently generates limited revenue primarily from research services and early cosmetic products. The SPAC merger and associated financing provide runway for advancing its pipeline through key milestones.

Management has emphasized disciplined capital allocation focused on high-potential programs while exploring partnerships to accelerate development. Strategic acquisitions or licensing deals could expand the technology platform.

The company’s leadership team includes executives with experience in biotechnology and public company operations. Recent appointments have strengthened capabilities in clinical development and regulatory affairs.

Long-term success will depend on clinical trial outcomes, regulatory approvals and commercialization strategies. The biotechnology sector rewards companies that deliver transformative therapies while managing development risks effectively.

SL Science’s Nasdaq listing provides visibility and access to capital markets that can support ambitious research programs. As the company progresses its pipeline, upcoming clinical data and regulatory interactions will be closely watched by investors and industry observers.

The debut performance underscores market appetite for novel cell therapy platforms amid growing interest in immuno-oncology and regenerative medicine. SL Science joins a cohort of companies aiming to address significant unmet medical needs through innovative approaches.

Most online businesses set up their payment processing the same way: pick a well-known provider, integrate it, and move on. For a while, that works. But as a business grows, that single-provider setup starts to show its limits in ways that are easy to miss until they become expensive.

Failed transactions, provider outages, weak approval rates in specific markets, no fallback when something breaks, reporting spread across systems that don’t talk to each other. These are not edge cases. They are predictable consequences of scaling a business on payment infrastructure that was not designed to handle complexity.

The businesses solving this problem early are the ones moving to payment orchestration.

What Payment Orchestration Actually Means in Practice

Payment orchestration is a layer that sits above your payment providers and manages how transactions flow between them. Instead of being locked into one gateway, you connect multiple providers through a single integration and define rules for how your payments move.

That might mean routing UK card transactions to one acquirer, European payments to another, and automatically retrying a failed transaction through a backup provider before the customer ever sees a decline. It might mean applying different fraud rules by region, or having clean consolidated reporting across every provider in one place rather than logging into five dashboards separately.

The practical result is more control over what happens to each transaction, less dependency on any single provider, and a payment setup that can grow without requiring a new integration every time something changes.

Where the Revenue Leakage Hides

One of the less obvious costs of basic payment infrastructure is authorisation rate loss. Most businesses track revenue, but not the gap between attempted transactions and successful ones. That gap is often larger than expected.

A checkout that converts well but sends every transaction to a single provider will still lose a meaningful percentage to declines that have nothing to do with the customer’s ability to pay. Wrong routing for the card type, the currency, or the region accounts for a lot of those failures. So does having no retry logic when a provider returns a soft decline.

For a business doing a few hundred transactions a month, the numbers are small. For a business processing at scale, closing even a two or three percentage point gap in authorisation rates translates into real revenue recovered without changing anything about the product or the marketing.

The Multi-Provider Argument Is Not Just About Redundancy

Businesses often add a second payment provider primarily for resilience. If one goes down, the other keeps transactions running. That is a valid reason, but it undersells what a multi-provider setup actually makes possible.

Different providers perform differently across card types, currencies, and geographies. An acquirer with strong performance for UK Visa cards may not be the best option for cross-border transactions or for certain local payment methods. When you have only one provider, you have no choice but to accept their performance across every scenario. When you have several, and the routing logic to direct transactions appropriately, you can optimise for approval rates rather than just accepting the average.

For businesses expanding into new markets, this becomes increasingly important. Payment behaviour varies by country in ways that are not always obvious until the decline data starts coming in. Having the infrastructure to respond to that data, by adjusting routing rules without a new integration project, is a real operational advantage.

Why Startups and Scale-Ups Are Paying Attention

Payment orchestration used to be something only large enterprises could access, either by building it internally or by negotiating custom arrangements with major processors. That has changed. Modern platforms have made orchestration accessible to businesses at much earlier stages of growth.

For a startup that is expanding from one market to several, or a scale-up that has outgrown its first payment setup, a payment orchestrator can replace a significant amount of bespoke engineering work. Rather than building routing logic, retry mechanisms, provider failover, and consolidated reporting from scratch, the infrastructure is already there. The business configures it for their needs and connects the providers they want to work with.

The time-to-value argument is particularly relevant for teams without large payment engineering resources. Getting a more resilient, better-performing payment setup does not have to mean a six-month build project.

What to Look for When Evaluating Options

Not all orchestration platforms are built the same way, and a few things are worth thinking through before committing to one.

Connector coverage for your actual markets. The list of supported providers matters less than whether the specific providers and payment methods you need are properly supported. That includes the full flow: authorisations, refunds, recurring payments, 3DS, chargebacks. A technically available connector that only handles basic authorisations will leave gaps.

Routing flexibility. The ability to define routing rules yourself, understand why a transaction was routed a certain way, and adjust rules without raising an engineering ticket is what makes orchestration genuinely useful. A black-box approach to routing undermines the whole point.

Reporting across providers. If the platform consolidates transaction data from all your providers into one place, your operations team saves significant time. If it does not, you have added a new tool without solving the fragmentation problem.

Integration with fraud tools. Payment fraud management works better when it is connected to the routing layer rather than bolted on separately. Orchestration platforms that include fraud tooling, or integrate cleanly with specialist providers, give you more options.

Simplicity of setup. The best orchestration platforms are designed so that getting connected and configuring your first routing rules does not require months of work. If the onboarding process is complex enough to require significant internal resource, that cost should be factored into the comparison.

The Bigger Picture for Business Owners

The way payments are set up in a business reflects assumptions made early, often when the business was much smaller. A single payment provider made sense at the start. It usually does not make the same sense once a business is operating across multiple markets, processing meaningful volume, and competing in environments where checkout conversion rates matter.

The businesses that perform best on payment metrics tend to be the ones that treat the payment layer as something worth actively managing, not just a cost of doing business to be set up once and forgotten. That means understanding where transactions are failing, which providers are performing, and having the infrastructure to act on that information.

For UK startups and growing online businesses, the tools to do that are now much more accessible than they were a few years ago. The question is not really whether payment orchestration is worth it. It is whether the cost of not addressing it, in lost revenue, operational inefficiency, and slow market expansion, is worth accepting.

For most businesses that have hit the growth stage, it is not.

Shares of Tesla crashed around 7.5% on Thursday even after the Elon Musk-led company posted record-setting second-quarter delivery numbers that smashed Wall Street’s estimates.

Tesla shares closed at $393.45 per share on Thursday to record its steepest single-day plunge since July last year. This came after a 12% rally in the stock price earlier in the holiday-shortened week.

Tesla Q2 business update

Tesla on Thursday reported record second-quarter deliveries of 480,126 vehicles for the April–June period, up about 25% from a year earlier and well above analysts’ average estimate of 402,776 vehicles, according to Visible Alpha data cited by Reuters.

Tesla meanwhile produced 451,758 vehicles during the quarter. The deliveries exceeded production by more than 28,000 vehicles, driving the company to draw down inventory that it built up during the first quarter. A key driver of its strong business update was growth in Europe, while US sales appeared to be down.

Also read: Ferrari and BMW join Tesla, China in switch from copper to cheaper aluminium

The Elon Musk led company’s China-made EV sales have risen this year, buoyed by production of the refreshed Model Y, despite strong competition from BYD and domestic automakers. The company said it will report quarterly results on July 22 after markets close.

Why did Tesla shares fall after record Q2 update

Tesla shares had rallied 12% during the week till before Thursday amid strong expectations from the EV carmaker’s business update. Analysts and investors said optimism had already been priced in, which may have led to some profit booking after the business update.

“The stock price is still riding a bit of a rollercoaster. Investors are hyped about the bounce-back, but the big money is still waiting to see if Tesla can actually deliver on Elon Musk’s promises around AI, robotaxis, and self-driving tech,” Reuters quoted David Wagner, head of equity at Tesla shareholder Aptus Capital Advisors, as saying.
Also read: Elon Musk-owned EV giant posts record second-quarter sales deliveries

Tesla launches 6-seater version of Model Y

Along with the business update, Tesla on Thursday launched the six-seater variant of its best-selling Model Y SUV in US, as it aims to boost sales of its electric vehicles after the removal of a key tax credit. According to its website, the price of the launch version of the car starts from $61,990.The EV maker said its Model Y with extended wheelbase is now also available in the United Arab Emirates, in a separate post on social media platform X.

Also read: Market Skepticism | Why Tesla’s best delivery quarter still triggered a sell-off

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

Capital markets regulator Sebi has changed the rules for how stock brokers handle client securities that have not been fully paid for, in a move aimed at aligning market practices with the direct payout system and reducing operational difficulties for brokers.

The changes come after representations from the Brokers’ Industry Standards Forum, which sought revisions to reflect current regulatory and market conditions. SEBI said the decision was taken to improve ease of doing business for brokers and ease of investing for clients.

Under the revised framework, for trades not covered under the margin trading facility, unpaid securities will be directly credited to the client’s demat account. After that, an auto-pledge will be created in favour of a separate account opened by the trading member, called the “client unpaid securities pledgee account,” or CUSPA. The pledge will carry the reason “unpaid” and will not need any specific instruction from the client.

The broker will also have to inform the client through email or SMS about the pending payment obligation and its right to sell the securities if the client does not pay. SEBI has asked trading members to frame a clear policy for handling such unpaid securities. This policy must explain the process, reasons, manner and timing for release or invocation of the pledge and liquidation of securities. The client must be given a maximum period of five trading days from the payout date to meet the payment obligation.

From WhatsApp chats to food orders: How Sebi cracked a Rs 144 crore stock manipulation scheme

Sebi has also clarified that while such unpaid securities pledged to the broker’s CUSPA may be considered for reporting client margin collection to the clearing corporation, the broker cannot give fresh exposure to the client on the basis of these securities. This means the securities may support margin reporting, but cannot be used to allow additional trading limits.
The circular also lays down how excess pledged securities should be released. Brokers must check the value of pledged securities daily against the client’s ledger balance, margin obligation or other factors that may be specified by exchanges. If the pledged value is higher than what is allowed, the broker must release the excess securities by the next trading day.
If the client does not pay within the prescribed period, the broker may invoke the pledge and sell the unpaid securities after giving reasonable notice. The sale will be done in the market using the client’s unique client code. Any surplus funds left after settling the client’s obligation must be credited to the client’s ledger.
A key investor protection measure is the auto-release provision. If the pledge is neither invoked nor released within five trading days after payout, depositories will automatically release the pledge at the end of the sixth trading day. The securities will then become free balance in the client’s demat account, without any encumbrance.

Sebi has also barred brokers from further pledging or transferring CUSPA-pledged securities to banks or non-bank lenders to raise funds. In exceptional cases, such as lower circuit stocks with only sellers, trading suspension, halt due to surveillance or other valid reasons recognised by market infrastructure institutions, brokers may seek an extension of the pledge by up to one additional calendar week.

Stock exchanges have been asked to issue operational guidelines within 30 days. Most amended provisions will take effect three months from the date of those guidelines, while provisions on extension of pledge in exceptional cases will come into force six months from the circular date.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of Economic Times)

NEW YORK — The Nasdaq Composite fell for a second consecutive session Thursday, declining 0.8% to close at 25,832.67 as semiconductor stocks endured their steepest two-day selloff since early June, even as the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged to a record high and Apple’s near-5% gain underscored just how sharply investor sentiment has divided between the technology sector’s winners and losers heading into the Independence Day holiday weekend.

The Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index fell as much as 6% Thursday, putting it on pace for a two-session decline of roughly 12%, the most since the early June rout that preceded the sector’s subsequent recovery. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF dropped 4.5%, led by a 13.6% decline in Teradyne and an 11.5% slide for KLA. Nvidia shares pulled back 1.4%, while Micron gave up 5.5%, extending a broader pullback from levels near all-time highs that the stock had been trading around just days earlier.

Semiconductor stocks are starting the third quarter with their worst two-day selloff in nearly a month, according to Bloomberg, with the Philadelphia index coming off its best quarter ever, an 88% advance in the second quarter. That context matters: when a sector has appreciated that much, that fast, even modest shifts in the underlying investment thesis can translate into significant price corrections as investors who bought at much lower levels begin locking in profits.

The catalyst for the two-day pullback is a combination of valuation concerns, profit-taking at historically elevated price levels and a genuine reassessment of how much more the artificial intelligence infrastructure spending narrative can drive semiconductor earnings per share higher from their already extraordinary recent levels. The Roundhill Memory ETF was pacing on Thursday to end the holiday-shortened week down nearly 15%. Micron was tracking to end the week down more than 12%, while Sandisk’s two-day decline totaled more than 20%.

Those declines arrived even as the companies’ underlying fundamentals have remained largely intact. No negative earnings pre-announcement from any major chip company has triggered the selling, and no concrete data point suggesting AI data center orders are slowing has surfaced during the week. What has shifted is investor psychology: after an 82% first-half gain across chip stocks broadly, the bar for continued appreciation has risen sharply, and multiple compression in richly valued growth names can be rapid when momentum turns.

Adding a new element to the AI investment debate, reports emerged Thursday that OpenAI had entered discussions about selling a 5% stake to the U.S. government, a development that circulated through technology desks during the session. The report, while not immediately negative on its face, added to a broader reconsideration of the AI trade’s near-term dynamics rather than its long-term direction.

Meta Platforms delivered another complication for the sector. Reports Wednesday that the social media giant would begin renting out its excess computing infrastructure, effectively entering the cloud business, initially boosted Meta’s shares by nearly 9%. But by Thursday, JPMorgan analyst Doug Anmuth had cautioned clients about the strategic implications, arguing the company’s AI capital should be focused elsewhere. “We’d much prefer that Meta develop core AI products, leverage them over its base of around 4 billion users, and require massive compute for its own inference rather than selling access to its infrastructure,” Anmuth wrote. Meta fell nearly 5% Thursday as investors processed that caution, reversing a portion of Wednesday’s cloud-announcement surge.

The striking divergence within Thursday’s session illustrated in concentrated form the rotation that has defined the market’s character since the third quarter began. While semiconductor names fell broadly, Apple’s 4.84% advance, driven by reports the company had instructed parts suppliers to prepare for 10 million foldable iPhones this fall, added enough Dow points to push the blue-chip average to an all-time closing record. McDonald’s, Walt Disney, Visa and Walmart also posted gains, reflecting the rotation into more defensive and consumer-facing names that has characterized the Dow’s outperformance during each of the chip sector’s recent down sessions.

“This is a rotation potentially out of a sector that’s been red hot for the last few months and into other areas, but I also do think that there’s a little bit of a revaluation of the AI trade in itself,” one analyst told CNBC, capturing the dual dynamic at play.

Netflix offered the most prominent exception to tech’s Thursday struggle, gaining 5% in afternoon trading for its best day since late February. The streaming company’s advance made it a notable outlier within the Nasdaq-100 as the broader index fell more than 2% at its worst intraday point, suggesting some investors are selectively rotating within the technology sector rather than leaving it entirely. Palantir Technologies also bucked the trend, adding 4% after D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria upgraded the stock to Buy from Neutral, citing competitive advantages in government AI software and what he described as an attractive valuation following the stock’s steep June decline.

The market’s response to the June jobs report, which showed 57,000 positions added against expectations of 115,000, provided the macro backdrop that helped cushion some of the chip sector’s losses by reducing near-term expectations of additional Federal Reserve rate increases. Treasury yields declined on the soft employment data, with the rate-sensitive dynamic benefiting defensive and dividend-paying sectors even as it did relatively little to arrest the momentum-driven selling in high-multiple semiconductor names.

With U.S. markets closed Friday for Independence Day, the pre-holiday close leaves investors with a bifurcated picture to consider over the long weekend: a Dow at all-time highs powered by traditional sector strength and Apple’s foldable iPhone narrative, alongside a Nasdaq that has now declined in each of the first two sessions of the third quarter as the great AI chip trade of 2026 encounters its most sustained period of investor doubt since the sector’s remarkable first-half run began earlier this year.

The federal government is urging state attorneys general to probe and prosecute any illegal activities contributing to high fuel costs for Americans.

“Although crude oil prices are now dropping rapidly, far too much of that price cut is being withheld from Americans when they pay for gasoline,” the letter, signed by Associated Attorney General Stanley Wodward, Jr. and Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson, claims.

The document includes a screenshot of a Truth Social post that President Donald Trump issued last week.

In that June 24 post, Trump asserted, “The big Oil Companies are not dropping their price at the pump commensurate with the sharply lower prices they are paying for Oil. Those prices are dropping like a rock! In other words, customers are being ‘gouged.’ I have instructed the DOJ to immediately start looking into this. Gasoline prices better start going down a lot faster than what I’m seeing!”

BESSENT WARNS GAS STATIONS ‘WE’RE WATCHING’ AS TRUMP DEMANDS IMMEDIATE PRICE CUTS

The letter to the state attorneys general states, “As the Department of Justice (DOJ) answers the President’s call to action, both the DOJ and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are closely monitoring petroleum markets.”

“We urge state law enforcers to join us in investigating illegal practices. Recent volatility in crude oil prices does not suspend either the antitrust laws or state consumer protection laws, and it does not authorize companies to manipulate retail prices or collude with their competitors,” the letter declares.

“We also encourage State Attorneys General to use all tools available under your state laws to investigate and prosecute any misconduct causing unjustified price increases — particularly conduct that violates state antitrust and consumer protection statutes. Although the Division and the Commission do not enforce any laws aimed specifically at price gouging rather than anticompetitive conduct, many States have also enacted laws specifically targeting price gouging during periods of market disruption or emergency, and we urge those states to review whether enforcement is warranted under those laws,” the federal officials noted.

Gas prices spiked considerably after the U.S. launched the war effort against Iran earlier this year, but have been declining more recently.

TRUMP ALLEGES GAS PRICE GOUGING, CALLS FOR DOJ INVESTIGATION

The AAA national average price for regular gas is $3.823 as of July 3, down from the month-ago average of $4.261.

“Gasoline Retailers must get their Prices down, IMMEDIATELY! They’re too high considering that Oil is now at $68 a Barrel, and heading south. The Retailers must quickly react to this statement, and do what they know is right — DROP YOUR PRICE FOR OUR GREAT AMERICAN PEOPLE! There will be no gauging, which is totally illegal. If Retailers don’t do this, big problems lie ahead!” he warned in part of a Monday Truth Social post.

In part of a post on Wednesday he declared, “Just as I promised, Oil Prices are plummeting FAST, and Gas Prices at the pump are dropping too, but not as fast as they should be.”

TRUMP DEMANDS GAS STATIONS LOWER PUMP PRICES IMMEDIATELY AND RENEWS PUSH FOR $2.50 GASOLINE

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“Affordable energy is essential to a thriving American economy. The Antitrust Division is committed to working alongside state law enforcement partners to provide resources and support to protect consumers from anticompetitive behavior that raises the price of gas,” Woodward said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital. “The Antitrust Division will use all available tools to ensure that companies are held accountable for unlawfully manipulating the market”

NEW YORK — The Russell 2000 Index, which just completed the strongest first half of any year since 1991, closed Thursday with a modest decline of 0.55%, settling at 2,996.11 and finishing just below the psychologically significant 3,000-point level as the broad chip sector selloff that rattled the Nasdaq for a second consecutive session weighed on small-cap technology and semiconductor-adjacent names even as the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a fresh all-time record.

The day’s pullback for small-cap stocks came on the final trading session before the Fourth of July holiday weekend, with U.S. markets closing Friday in observance of Independence Day. The small decline capped a week that itself followed one of the most remarkable six-month stretches for American small-cap equities in a generation.

The Russell 2000 gained 22% in the first half of 2026, its best performance since 1991 and well above the S&P 500’s 9.6% first-half advance. The rally also outpaced the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s 8.9% gain and the Nasdaq’s 12.8% climb, a reversal of the large-cap-heavy pattern that had defined much of the prior three years when megacap technology stocks captured nearly all of the headline performance.

“It’s both a valuation catch-up story and a fundamental story,” said Amy Zhang, portfolio manager at Alger. “The valuation gap was so wide that a truck can drive through it. At the same time, fundamentals are improving in small-caps and I think that’s why it’s causing the broadening trade.”

Consensus forecasts for Russell 2000 companies’ 2026 earnings growth have climbed to 38% from about 23% at the start of the year, according to LPL Financial, reflecting growing optimism that profit growth is broadening beyond the largest technology companies. Bottom-up analyst estimates suggest the Russell 2000 could deliver around 43% year-over-year earnings growth over the next 12 months, a figure that outpaces projections for the S&P 500 and has underpinned much of the institutional interest in the asset class through the first half of the year.

Semiconductor and semiconductor equipment companies were the biggest winners within the Russell 2000 during that period, underscoring how the artificial intelligence investment boom has rippled through the broader market well beyond the large-cap names that dominate most AI coverage. Chip-related companies accounted for 16 of the Russell 2000’s 50 best-performing stocks in the first half of the year, including Aehr Test Systems, Ichor Holdings and MaxLinear, which all rallied more than 400%. Rather than competing directly with industry leaders like Nvidia, many of these smaller companies have benefited from rising demand across the AI supply chain, supplying testing equipment, materials, components and specialized subsystems.

Those same names, however, have shared in this week’s semiconductor sector correction, which has wiped out meaningful short-term gains across the chip space broadly as investors who accumulated large positions during the sector’s extraordinary first-half run have taken profits ahead of the holiday. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF fell 4.5% Thursday alone, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index has posted its worst two-day decline since early June, with many of the smaller, more speculative names in the sector experiencing even steeper percentage drops than the large-cap bellwethers.

Small cap stocks are having a moment, according to Schwab’s market open report. The Russell 2000 gained 22% during the first half of the year, its best since 1991 and well above the S&P 500’s 9.6% gain. The index also topped the S&P 500 for two consecutive quarters, the first time that had happened since 2021, a milestone that has attracted fresh institutional attention to the small-cap universe and driven significant inflows into small-cap focused exchange-traded funds throughout the year.

Despite Tuesday’s chip-driven dip, broader small-cap market dynamics remain constructive for investors with a longer time horizon. The Russell 2000’s composition spans financials, industrials, healthcare, energy, biotech and technology, a diversification that gives the index exposure to domestic economic strength across multiple sectors simultaneously. Small-cap stocks generate roughly 70 to 80 percent of their revenue domestically, making the index particularly sensitive to U.S. economic conditions and comparatively insulated from global trade tensions that have periodically complicated the earnings outlooks of larger multinationals.

Bank of America analyst Jill Carey Hall said in a recent note that the bank still sees upside opportunities within small caps for less rate-sensitive stocks, especially because Russell 2000 performance has been concentrated this year and the broader universe has room to participate more fully in the rally.

The Federal Reserve interest rate outlook remains the most consequential variable for the small-cap outlook heading into the second half of 2026. Higher borrowing costs pose a particular challenge for smaller companies, which generally carry more floating-rate debt and face greater refinancing needs than large-cap peers. Bank of America has estimated that every additional 25 basis point rate hike would reduce Russell 2000 operating earnings by approximately 2%, a meaningful sensitivity given that the Fed’s next meeting is scheduled for July 28-29 and that some market participants had been pricing in the possibility of further tightening before this week’s soft employment report shifted that calculus.

“This should allow the Fed to take a patient approach to any shift in its policy over the next few months, seeing how the incoming economic data comes in rather than rushing to a decision to hike,” said Collin Martin, head of fixed income research and strategy at the Schwab Center for Financial Research.

The June nonfarm payrolls report, which showed just 57,000 jobs added against expectations of 115,000, has provided the most direct macro support for small-cap stocks this week by reducing near-term rate hike fears, even as the soft headline reading raised fresh questions about whether economic momentum is slowing more quickly than the consensus had anticipated.

For now, Thursday’s modest decline represents a pause in a larger story rather than a reversal, with the index barely off a recent all-time high reached on Wednesday of this week at 3,033.75 and well positioned, by most analysts’ assessments, to resume its outperformance once the semiconductor profit-taking cycle runs its course and attention shifts back to the improving earnings trajectory across the small-cap universe heading into the second half of 2026.