Business

Dow Hits All-Time Record Close of 52,900 as Apple and Jobs Miss Send Blue Chips Soaring Before Holiday Weekend

Published

3 hours ago

3 July 2026

FTSE 100 Surges 0.8% Today as Oil Eases and Markets

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.

Business

Largest US power grid PJM orders emergency curbs as electricity use nears record peak

Published

6 minutes ago

3 July 2026

NewsAdmin

Largest US power grid PJM orders emergency curbs as electricity use nears record peak

Business

Apple Plans New iPad Pro and Redesigned MacBook Pro for Spring 2027 With Faster M7 Chip That Skips M6 Pro

Published

14 minutes ago

3 July 2026

NewsAdmin

CUPERTINO, Calif. — Apple is preparing a significant hardware refresh for the first half of 2027, with four new iPad Pro models and a redesigned entry-level MacBook Pro both targeting a spring release window, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, whose report also revealed an unusual and aggressive chip strategy that would see Apple skip high-end M6 variants entirely in favor of fast-tracking a new M7 processor generation built specifically around on-device artificial intelligence performance.

The disclosures add concrete shape to a 2027 product pipeline that was previously understood only in rough outline, confirming that Apple’s Pro tablet line and its most popular professional laptop will both receive meaningful updates within the same release window, even as ongoing memory shortages continue to complicate the company’s manufacturing costs and pricing strategy.

On the iPad side, Apple is testing four new iPad Pro models ahead of a planned spring 2027 launch, maintaining the existing 11-inch and 13-inch display sizes and offering both Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity variants within each size. No external design changes are expected, with the update focused squarely on internal improvements. Gurman reported that Apple has been experimenting with vapor chamber cooling for the iPad Pro, a thermal management technology that could help the tablet sustain higher performance levels during extended demanding workloads without throttling, similar to what Apple already incorporated into the iPhone 17 Pro. The current iPad Pro lineup uses the M5 chip introduced in October 2025, making the spring 2027 models the first update to the professional tablet in approximately 18 months.

The chip powering those new iPad Pros remains technically unconfirmed in Gurman’s report, which indicated the tablets could receive either an M6 or M7 processor depending on which silicon is ready in time. That ambiguity reflects the unusual timing of Apple’s chip roadmap as it currently stands.

Apple plans to introduce the M6 chip later this year in an updated 14-inch MacBook Pro, a transitional model internally codenamed J804 that carries the current MacBook Pro chassis with a chip upgrade but no design changes. That model represents the straightforward generational refresh Apple’s product line would normally deliver. What is unusual is what comes next.

Apple is reportedly skipping the M6 Pro and M6 Max chip variants entirely, bypassing the high-end variants of the M6 generation that would normally follow the base M6 by six to twelve months. Instead, the company is channeling engineering resources directly toward the M7, targeting a base M7 chip debut in the first half of 2027, a compressed timeline that would give the M6 an unusually short window as the company’s leading silicon before being succeeded by the next generation.

The rationale cited across reporting is AI performance. The M7 is being built on Apple’s 2-nanometer manufacturing process with specific optimizations for on-device AI workloads and is targeting memory bandwidth of approximately 240 gigabytes per second, significantly ahead of the M6’s comparable figure, giving it the throughput needed to run increasingly capable machine learning models locally without depending on cloud servers. Both the M6 and the M7 use 2-nanometer process technology, meaning the generational distinction lies not in the manufacturing node but in the AI-specific architecture choices Apple has made within the M7 design.

The redesigned entry-level MacBook Pro, codenamed K104, is the more visually significant of the two announcements. This model will adopt a new external design that mirrors the visual language Apple is preparing for its flagship touchscreen MacBook Pro models, expected to arrive in late 2026 or early 2027. The most notable section of Bloomberg’s report is that the lower-end MacBook Pro will adopt a new design language, first seen in the OLED touchscreen MacBook Pro expected before the end of 2026 or early 2027. The K104 will not include a touchscreen itself, differentiating it from the premium models while still sharing the slimmer bezels, revised port layout and punch-hole camera replacing the current notch that define the new design language. The M7 chip will power this redesigned entry model, potentially making it the first Mac to ship with next-generation silicon if the M7 timeline holds as reported.

M7 Pro and M7 Max variants are expected later in 2027, with an M7 Ultra not anticipated until 2028, meaning buyers who require the highest levels of computational performance for video production, scientific computing or advanced machine learning development will face an extended wait between the base M7’s spring 2027 debut and the arrival of its more powerful derivatives.

The spring 2027 window is shaping up as one of Apple’s most product-dense launch periods in years. Beyond the iPad Pro and MacBook Pro updates, reporting suggests the same window is expected to include the iPhone 18, iPhone 18e and a second-generation iPhone Air, creating a simultaneous release cluster across Apple’s most commercially important product categories.

A significant caveat accompanies all of this planning, however. The global memory shortage that has already forced Apple to raise prices substantially on its existing Mac lineup, with the entry MacBook Pro with one terabyte of storage jumping from $1,699 to $1,999 following a June price increase, continues to represent a genuine supply-side risk to any forward-looking product schedule. Apple’s scale gives it priority access to TSMC’s advanced manufacturing capacity and to memory suppliers in ways unavailable to smaller competitors, but no company is immune to yield problems, packaging bottlenecks or demand-driven allocation challenges when the entire semiconductor industry is simultaneously competing for the same components. Gurman’s report explicitly flagged that ongoing memory and chip shortages could still disrupt the 2027 launch timeline, a caveat that applies equally to the iPad Pro and MacBook Pro plans regardless of how confident Apple’s internal engineering teams are in their current roadmaps.

Apple did not respond to requests for comment on the reported product plans.

Business

Mexico stocks lower at close of trade; S&P/BMV IPC down 0.02%

Published

21 minutes ago

3 July 2026

NewsAdmin

Mexico stocks lower at close of trade; S&P/BMV IPC down 0.02%

Business

German Drone Maker Quantum Systems Raises Funding at $8 Billion Valuation

Published

27 minutes ago

3 July 2026

NewsAdmin

German Drone Maker Quantum Systems Raises Funding at $8 Billion Valuation

Quantum Systems said it had raised $1.2 billion at a valuation of roughly $8 billion, bringing in fresh capital to expand drone production and invest in software for autonomous systems powered by artificial intelligence.

The startup said European aircraft maker Airbus, asset manager Blackstone, private-equity firm Advent and equity investor Noteus Partners co-led the financing round, which also attracted interest from technology investment firm BOND, financial services firm Fidelity Investments, asset manager Wellington Management, investment firm A.P. Moller Holding, venture-capital firm Elephant Lake Ventures and existing shareholders like Balderton and HV Capital.

Business

Supreme Court’s Barrett fuels conservative wins while sometimes splitting with Trump

Published

34 minutes ago

3 July 2026

NewsAdmin

Supreme Court’s Barrett fuels conservative wins while sometimes splitting with Trump

Business

A Cable Scion’s Hardest Deal Yet: Comcast Co-CEO Brian Roberts’ Plan to Break Up His Family’s Company

Published

41 minutes ago

3 July 2026

NewsAdmin

A Cable Scion’s Hardest Deal Yet: Comcast Co-CEO Brian Roberts’ Plan to Break Up His Family’s Company

Comcast CMCSA 0.25%increase; up pointing triangle co-Chief Executive Brian Roberts spent his 67th birthday finalizing a plan to split the cable and entertainment company his family built in two.

“Ralph would be excited,” one of his children texted him Sunday, referring to Ralph Roberts, the patriarch who co-founded and ran Comcast for nearly 40 years.

Business

Heat Waves Are Becoming a Chronic Drag on the Economy

Published

48 minutes ago

3 July 2026

NewsAdmin

Heat Waves Are Becoming a Chronic Drag on the Economy

Heat waves are underscoring how global warming has become a here-and-now issue for economists.

Temperatures are rising ahead of the July 4 weekend, with 100-degree highs—feeling hotter due to the humidity—forecast for various parts of the central and Eastern U.S. Areas home to more than 150 million people were covered by National Weather Service heat alerts as of midweek.