The Dow Jones Industrial Average pulled back Wednesday, retreating modestly from its most recent record close as investors locked in profits on semiconductor and AI-related names that had powered one of the strongest first-half performances for U.S. equities in years.

The blue-chip index fell 215.82 points, or 0.41%, to 52,103.38, backing away from the all-time closing high of 52,319.20 it set Tuesday, the final session of the second quarter. The major averages closed out a strong first half. In the first six months of the year, the Dow climbed 8.9%, marking its best first-half performance since 2021. The broad market S&P 500 rose 9.6%, and the Nasdaq climbed 12.8%. The small-cap Russell 2000 surged nearly 22% to clinch its best first-half performance since 1991.

Wednesday’s session opened on a softer note as investors digested a weaker-than-expected private payrolls report and rotated out of the semiconductor stocks that drove much of Tuesday’s strong close. Private payrolls grew by 98,000 in June, below the Dow Jones consensus of 110,000 and down from 122,000 in May, according to ADP.

Nela Richardson, ADP’s chief economist, said: “The pace of hiring is telling a story of both supply and demand. We know it’s taking people longer to find work, but there also are signs of labor supply constraints in certain industries. For now, the overall effect is a slowdown in job creation.”

The softer hiring figure added urgency to Thursday’s main event: the June nonfarm payrolls report from the Labor Department, moved to Thursday from its typical Friday release because U.S. markets will be closed Friday in observance of Independence Day, which falls on Saturday this year. Analysts are watching the data closely for signals about the Federal Reserve’s next policy move, with the ADP miss suggesting the labor market may be cooling more quickly than previously expected, a development that could give Fed Chair Kevin Warsh room to discuss rate cuts sooner than markets had anticipated.

Micron plunged 7%, although it was still up around 300% in the year to date. Sandisk shed nearly 9%, losing some steam after gaining more than 850% in the first half of 2026. Nvidia and Broadcom also fell roughly 2.5% and 2%, respectively. Their declines came as investors took profit on semiconductor stocks following a record-smashing first half of the year for the group. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF gained 82% in the first six months of the year, marking its best first-half since its inception in May 2000.

The profit-taking in semiconductors reflected a broader pattern analysts have observed throughout the year: individual sessions of sharp gains followed by cooling periods as investors reassessed valuations following periods of rapid appreciation. TheStreet contributor James “Rev Shark” DePorre noted that the same names that drove Monday’s rebound were among the hardest hit. “A sustained market move higher needs broadening participation,” he said. “A bounce driven by short-covering and quarter-end positioning in the most beaten-down names is not an indication of fundamental health. The follow-through in the next few sessions will show the level of buyer confidence.”

Tuesday’s second-quarter close had given investors reason for optimism on multiple fronts. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 136 points for its second consecutive record close, finishing out the quarter at 52,319.20. Gains were led by Caterpillar up 2.95%, Apple up 2.70% and Nvidia up 2.66%. Biggest losers on Tuesday were Honeywell International down 3.02%, Walt Disney down 2.33% and Johnson & Johnson down 1.74%.

The overall market’s outperformance in the first six months of 2026 was driven by a surge in chip and AI-related names. The S&P 500 logged its best quarter since the pandemic recovery in 2020, rising more than 14% in the second quarter alone. The Nasdaq soared approximately 20% and the Dow added over 12% during the quarter.

That strong quarterly finish was achieved despite a turbulent backdrop that at various points threatened to upend the rally entirely. A sharply escalating U.S.-Iran conflict in late February and early March sent oil prices spiking and roiled global markets, with the Nasdaq falling nearly 5% in a single week at one point during the conflict’s most acute phase. The gradual de-escalation of hostilities, culminating in a ceasefire that allowed commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz to resume, helped reverse those losses and set the stage for the final-week tech rally that pushed all three major averages to strong quarter-end closes.

Easing inflation also supported the strong quarter-end push. Euro zone annual inflation came in at 2.8% in June, below consensus estimates of 3.0% and down from 3.2% year-on-year in May, as energy price pressures caused by the Iran conflict appeared to ease. Euro zone bond yields fell in response, with traders trimming bets on European Central Bank rate hike expectations. Markets are now pricing just 23 basis points of monetary tightening by the end of 2026.

Beyond the index-level moves, Wednesday brought notable corporate news. Stock media company Shutterstock plunged after its $3.7 billion merger with Getty Images collapsed due to an obstacle posed by a U.K. regulator. Getty said it does not accept the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority’s merger condition, which would require Shutterstock to sell its editorial business. Getty’s board unanimously decided not to proceed with the sale and to terminate the merger agreement by July 6. Shutterstock fell 28%, and Getty declined nearly 6%.

SpaceX shares slipped modestly in early trading, falling 1.74% to $161.34 in premarket trading, after surging 7.2% on Monday when Nasdaq officially announced that SpaceX will be added to the Nasdaq-100 index before the market opens on July 7. Analysts have estimated that the forced mechanical buying from index funds tracking the Nasdaq-100 could generate billions of dollars in purchasing demand for the newly listed stock as the inclusion date approaches.

Raymond James initiated coverage of footwear brand Birkenstock on the first day of July with a $52 target price implying upside of 20.1%, writing: “We view BIRK as a more durable growth story than the market appreciates.”

Looking ahead, Thursday’s nonfarm payrolls report, Warsh’s comments at the European Central Bank’s Sintra forum and the market’s overall positioning ahead of the long holiday weekend are likely to shape whether Wednesday’s modest pullback extends or reverses as the final trading day before the Fourth of July break unfolds.

More members of limited liability partnerships could soon be taxed as employees rather than as genuine partners, pushing up their income tax bills and, crucially, exposing their firms to employer National Insurance, after HM Revenue and Customs secured a decisive win at the Supreme Court.

The long-awaited judgment in the BlueCrest Capital Management case has landed and, as widely expected across the tax profession, it has gone HMRC’s way. The decision opens the door for the taxman to treat a far wider pool of LLP members as employees, and it lands at a moment when payroll taxes are already a running sore for British business.

Sean Drury, head of tax at audit, tax and business advisory firm Blick Rothenberg, said the ruling was significant well beyond the hedge fund at the centre of it. “This opens the way for more limited liability partnership members to be treated as employees instead of true partners of the business, leading to an increased income tax and National Insurance burden,” he said.

The salaried members rules, introduced by the Finance Act 2014, set three tests, Conditions A, B and C, that determine whether an LLP member is taxed as a self-employed partner or as an employee. The Supreme Court trained its attention on the first two, and in doing so tightened the definitions considerably.

Condition A is the “disguised salary” test. As Drury explained, “If 80 per cent or more of a member’s pay is a fixed monthly salary or a bonus, or linked to personal and divisional performance rather than the overall profit of the LLP, HMRC deems this a disguised salary and therefore that this person should be taxed as an employee.”

Condition B turns on “significant influence”. A partner in a traditional partnership is integral to the business and has a genuine say in how it is run. Someone who merely works within it does not. “Therefore this person should be treated as an employee for tax purposes,” Drury said. Currently, partners are usually taxed as self-employed individuals, so the reclassification is far from academic.

The headline for most firms will not be income tax but National Insurance. Employers now face a 15 per cent employer NIC charge, and applying that to reclassified members’ remuneration is, in Drury’s words, “a significant win for HMRC”.

It may also prove to be the thin end of the wedge. “It may lay a path towards the general application of National Insurance to LLPs, as was widely speculated before the last Budget,” Drury said. That speculation has only intensified as the Treasury leans ever harder on payroll taxes, with employers already shouldering a record National Insurance bill following the rate rise and threshold cut.

LLP structures are commonplace across the professional and financial services sector, from law firms and accountancy practices to asset managers. That is precisely why the reach of this judgment matters.

“The implications of this judgment, not least in HMRC compliance activity, will be significant, and structures which relied on Condition A or Condition B alone will need to review and probably restructure to comply,” Drury warned. Firms that built their partner arrangements around passing just one of the two tests may now find that cushion has gone.

Condition C, which concerns a partner’s contribution to partnership capital, was not addressed by the Supreme Court because it was not relevant to the appeal. Drury expects it to move squarely into HMRC’s sights next. “Capital contributions will need to be genuine contributions of capital at the economic risk of the partner and meet the minimum 25 per cent of expected disguised salary rule,” he said, adding that arrangements underpinned by loans should expect particular scrutiny.

For firms weighing up whether to operate as a partnership, LLP or limited company, the calculus has shifted. Larger LLPs in particular are likely to find that Conditions A and B are now harder to satisfy for their current members, and Drury believes further litigation is a real prospect. “We may see a ‘BlueCrest 2’ appear at the First-tier Tribunal shortly,” he said.

The practical message is to act before HMRC does. With the taxman already sharpening its focus on aggressive planning, partnerships that have leaned on a single condition would be wise to review their member arrangements, capital contributions and profit-sharing mechanics now, rather than wait for a compliance letter to force the issue.

Amy Ingham

Amy is a newly qualified journalist specialising in business journalism at Business Matters with responsibility for news content for what is now the UK’s largest print and online source of current business news.

The company said the promoter group’s 4.97% stake addition during the quarter marks the latest step in a multi-year increase in promoter ownership. Promoter holding has risen from around 26% in FY19 to about 37% in FY25, 41.75% in FY26 and now 46.72% in Q1FY27.

According to the company, the increase in promoter shareholding reflects continued confidence in its long-term strategy, business model, governance, execution capabilities and its focus on delivering technology-enabled credit to MSMEs, micro-enterprises and underserved borrowers across Bharat.

Paisalo said its three-year roadmap targets doubling its assets under management (AUM), total income and profit after tax (PAT), while maintaining disciplined risk management and asset quality. It added that the company is transitioning from a “High Touch-High Tech” model to a “Fin AI”-led lending franchise by integrating artificial intelligence across customer acquisition, underwriting, risk assessment, portfolio monitoring and collections.

The company said its long-term growth strategy rests on four pillars. It plans to deepen the use of AI and machine learning across underwriting, fraud detection, early warning systems and collections, while maintaining asset quality through disciplined credit selection, robust collections infrastructure and real-time monitoring.

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Paisalo also aims to expand its distribution network beyond its existing 5,299 touchpoints across 22 states and Union Territories, while scaling its MSME and micro-enterprise lending business, broadening its product portfolio, improving operating leverage and diversifying its liabilities to optimize the cost of capital.
Commenting on the development, Deputy Managing Director Santanu Agarwal said the increase in promoter shareholding to 46.72%, including the 4.97% addition during the quarter, reflects the promoters’ long-term confidence in Paisalo’s growth journey. Also read: Why KPIT Tech shares crashed today? The BMW & Volkswagen connection explained

He added that the company remains focused on building an AI-led and risk-disciplined lending franchise with responsible growth, technology-led underwriting, deep distribution, strong governance and asset quality, while pursuing its roadmap to double AUM, income and PAT.

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

LeBron James is officially a free agent, and according to his representatives, he is prepared to hear from every team in the NBA before making his decision on where he will play next season, a posture that opens what could become the most wide-ranging free agency process of the 41-year-old’s career.

LeBron James has instructed Rich Paul to talk to everyone around the league who is interested in him playing for them and come back to him with what the options are so he can make his decision, a source familiar with James’ thinking told ESPN’s Dave McMenamin. DraftKings Sportsbook

That directive effectively transforms the NBA’s opening week of free agency into a league-wide audition, with front offices from Atlanta to Washington now free to make their case for one of the greatest players in the sport’s history. The question is no longer simply which team LeBron will choose, but which of the 30 available pitches actually resonates.

The Golden State Warriors remain among the most discussed potential destinations. The team’s front office has been openly pursuing both LeBron and Washington Wizards center Anthony Davis, with Draymond Green’s decision Monday to decline his player option creating additional financial flexibility for the pursuit. The pitch from Golden State centers on a concept LeBron and Curry already tested together, winning gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics under current Warriors head coach Steve Kerr.

Cleveland has a compelling case that writes itself. LeBron grew up within an hour of the city, began his professional career there and delivered the franchise its only NBA championship with a comeback from 3-1 down against the Warriors in 2016. The current Cavaliers roster features Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, Jarrett Allen and a returning James Harden, giving James a championship-caliber supporting cast and a clear positional fit at forward with a team that reached the Eastern Conference Finals last season.

The New York Knicks, the league’s reigning champions after ending a 50-plus-year title drought this past season, offer a different version of the same appeal: a ready-made title contender. LeBron would fit seamlessly into the Knicks’ switch-heavy wing rotations alongside OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart, and his playmaking would reduce the burden on Jalen Brunson while giving a team that already won a championship an even more formidable roster heading into next year.

San Antonio offers what may be the most forward-thinking narrative available to any team. Victor Wembanyama has emerged as the clear heir apparent to LeBron’s status as the face of the league, and the Spurs have surrounded the French center with a talented, young core in Dylan Harper, Stephon Castle and De’Aaron Fox. A single season pairing LeBron with Wembanyama, with LeBron serving simultaneously as a championship-caliber veteran presence and as a living bridge between the sport’s present and its near future, carries the kind of generational significance that has always appealed to James at key junctures of his career.

The Miami Heat, where LeBron won two of his four NBA championships, offer a reunion wrapped in unfinished business. The Heat now feature Giannis Antetokounmpo alongside Bam Adebayo following the blockbuster trade that sent Giannis from Milwaukee to South Beach earlier this offseason, giving Miami the kind of star-powered core that LeBron has always sought when evaluating potential moves. The spacing concerns of a James-Giannis-Adebayo lineup are real, but three elite passers sharing the floor creates enough offensive flexibility to work around them.

The Detroit Pistons, perhaps the most unexpected name near the top of any legitimate LeBron discussion, offer a pitch rooted purely in winning. Cade Cunningham is one of the league’s better point guards and would absorb the primary ball-handling duties that have become increasingly physically taxing for a 41-year-old LeBron. The Pistons’ roster is filled with aggressive, physical defenders who could cover for any defensive decline from James, and the team is close enough to contention that LeBron might not need to carry the scoring load the way he has at nearly every prior stop.

Oklahoma City, built around Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s already established status as arguably the game’s best player, offers LeBron a scenario where the defensive attention flows toward someone else. SGA and Jalen Williams command enough defensive focus that LeBron could exist as a secondary offensive option while still controlling the game’s pace and facilitating for teammates, a role increasingly suited to his current physical stage.

The Toronto Raptors have acquired Kawhi Leonard from the Clippers and are building toward a deep Eastern Conference run. LeBron filling the role of primary playmaker alongside Leonard, Scottie Barnes and Collin Murray-Boyles would give Toronto legitimate Finals aspirations, though the irony of LeBron joining the same Raptors he repeatedly eliminated in the playoffs during his Cleveland and Miami years is not lost on anyone in the league.

The Washington Wizards have made their pitch by acquiring both Trae Young on a four-year, $212 million extension and first overall pick AJ Dybantsa. The team also still has Anthony Davis on the roster, the same Davis who helped LeBron win his most recent championship with the Lakers in 2020, making Washington’s pitch a reunion-and-rebuild hybrid that could appeal to James on both competitive and legacy grounds if the Warriors fail to land both players.

For his part, LeBron is said to be genuinely open-minded, unwilling to commit to any destination until he has canvassed the full landscape, and focused on identifying the situation that gives him the clearest path to a fifth championship ring rather than settling for loyalty, geography or narrative alone. The process of working through 30 pitches, with Rich Paul serving as the intermediary between James and every interested front office, is expected to unfold rapidly over the first week of free agency, with most observers expecting a decision before the end of next week regardless of how wide the initial net is cast.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump a significant constitutional defeat Tuesday, voting 6-3 to strike down his executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing for the majority that the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship at birth reflects a promise rooted in the nation’s founding that the court was obligated to uphold.

Trump responded quickly and defiantly, brushing aside the ruling as a setback rather than a final verdict, and immediately pivoting toward a legislative strategy to accomplish through Congress what the court had refused to let him achieve by executive order.

“The Supreme Court upheld Birthright Citizenship, which is too bad for our Country, but we can easily make it up in Congress through Legislation, with the support of the President, that has now been determined during this process,” Trump wrote on his social media platform shortly after the ruling was issued.

He followed that post with a more specific call to action, urging Congress to begin work immediately on a legislative alternative and explicitly dismissing the constitutional amendment route as unnecessary.

“No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary,” Trump wrote. “Congress should start TODAY to work on ending expensive and unfair to our Country, Birthright Citizenship.”

Roberts, writing on behalf of the court’s majority, grounded his opinion in the text and history of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was ratified in 1868 following the Civil War and extended citizenship to all persons born on American soil. The chief justice characterized citizenship not merely as a legal status but as a foundational right rooted in the nation’s political identity.

“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights — to freely participate in our political community,” Roberts wrote. “The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to every free-born person in this land. We keep that promise today.”

The ruling struck down the executive order Trump signed on his first day back in the presidency, which had directed federal agencies to stop recognizing as citizens the American-born children of parents who are in the country illegally or on temporary visas. That order had been challenged almost immediately in federal court, with multiple district courts and federal appeals courts blocking its enforcement before the case reached the Supreme Court. Tuesday’s ruling represented the court’s definitive resolution of the constitutional question, concluding that the president lacked the authority to redefine birthright citizenship through executive action.

Birthright citizenship is embedded in both the Constitution and in the Nationality Act of 1940, which codifies into statute the principle that a person born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction is a citizen from birth. Legal scholars watching the case had widely predicted that even if Congress were to pass legislation narrowing or eliminating birthright citizenship, such a law would almost certainly face immediate constitutional challenges that would return the issue to the Supreme Court, since any statute that conflicts with the Fourteenth Amendment would itself be subject to judicial review.

Trump acknowledged the legal reality Monday, saying he would accept the Supreme Court’s decision and recognized the court’s authority to issue a final ruling. Tuesday’s defiant posts, however, suggested the president had no intention of treating the ruling as a permanent resolution of his policy objectives on the issue.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, speaking to reporters at a House Republican news conference before Trump’s posts appeared, reflected a broadly shared sense of frustration within the Republican caucus about the court’s decision, while acknowledging the significant practical barriers to any congressional action.

“I think it subjects the country to serious challenges going forward and we’ll have to deal with it as a Congress,” Johnson said, calling the current interpretation of birthright citizenship a policy that has been “grossly abused.”

Johnson said Congress would examine all potential avenues in response to the ruling, including the constitutional amendment route, even while acknowledging the extraordinary difficulty of that path.

“I’m sure we will continue to look at that,” Johnson said. “I’m sure the conclusion from this opinion is going to be you’ve got to amend the Constitution to fix that.”

He acknowledged, however, that such an effort would be a “very complicated” and “many-years-long process,” a candid admission of the steep procedural challenge facing any effort to alter the constitutional text on this issue. Amending the United States Constitution requires a two-thirds supermajority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, followed by ratification by three-quarters of the states, currently 38 of the 50 states. Republicans hold majorities in both chambers of Congress, but fall well short of the two-thirds threshold in either body, meaning any amendment effort would require substantial bipartisan support, which appears highly unlikely given current political alignments.

The legislative route Trump proposed in his posts faces a different but equally challenging set of obstacles. While a simple majority in Congress could theoretically pass a law redefining who is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, and therefore whose American-born children would qualify for citizenship, legal experts across the political spectrum have cautioned that such a law would almost certainly be challenged as unconstitutional on Fourteenth Amendment grounds from the moment it was signed. Any challenge would likely proceed quickly through the courts and return to the Supreme Court, where Tuesday’s 6-3 majority would presumably be presented with an opportunity to determine whether Congress has the authority to modify the scope of birthright citizenship by statute rather than constitutional amendment, a question the court did not directly resolve in today’s ruling, which focused specifically on the executive order rather than the outer limits of congressional power.

The White House did not provide additional detail about the administration’s legislative strategy beyond pointing reporters back to the president’s social media posts.

Democrats and civil rights organizations responded to the ruling as a vindication of constitutional principles, while warning that Trump’s stated intention to pursue the issue legislatively demonstrated that the fight over birthright citizenship is far from over. The decision came the same day the court also issued a ruling in a related high-profile case involving state laws banning transgender girls from participating in girls’ sports, which the court upheld in a separate opinion, producing a mixed morning of results for the administration at the nation’s highest court.