Indexes

Wall Street is dark for Independence Day. The New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq, the cash Treasury market and listed options are all closed for the observed holiday (July 4 falls on Saturday this year), and regular trading resumes Monday, July 6. Equity-index futures run only a shortened holiday session and do not settle, so price discovery is thin and easily pushed around. The table below carries Thursday's cash closes, the reference every position rides into the long weekend, after a session that split hard beneath a calm surface: the Dow set a record on the rotation out of Thursday's soft jobs number, while the Nasdaq slipped again on chip weakness.

With Wall Street shut, the action ran overseas, and it was decidedly risk-on. The soft US jobs report and receding rate-hike fears lifted nearly every major market: China's CSI 300 rose 1.15% and France's CAC 40 added 0.48% alongside the moves below.

In the News

Rates, FX, Commodities

With the cash Treasury market shut for the holiday, the yields below are frozen at Thursday's settle and stale by definition; currencies and commodities trade their normal global hours and are live this morning.

The dollar did the live work on the currency side, easing below 101 to its softest in weeks as traders pushed the Fed's next move further out. Gold extended its rebound off last week's eight-month low, climbing toward $4,200 as the softer rate path and weaker dollar drew buyers back. Crude held near a four-month low in thin holiday trade, still down close to 20% over two weeks as Hormuz traffic returns to normal; Goldman and other desks have trimmed their second-half Brent forecasts to reflect the returning barrels, per Reuters.

Technicals

Frozen at Thursday's close, the benchmarks tell two stories. At 7,483 the S&P 500 sits a hair under Wednesday and holds well above its 50-day average near 7,400, roughly 1.6% below the June record. The Dow's 52,900 record leaves it in open air with no overhead resistance to map. The Nasdaq Composite at 25,832 is the laggard, pressed by a second day of chip-equipment selling that has defined the US market all week. On rates, the 10-year at 4.46% eased off the ceiling of the range it has held since spring, where the 4.55% high still caps it, and Thursday's jobs miss argues for the lower end into next week. KLA (KLAC) fell about 12% to $236 on Thursday, slicing through the $260 shelf it had defended for weeks. It was the deepest cut in a chip-equipment group that led the US market lower, and its hourly chart is below.

KLA, hourly: Thursday's slide through the $260 shelf marked the sharpest break in the chip-equipment group, the corner of the US market under the most pressure into Monday.

Breakouts & Breakdowns

Breakouts

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) — Rose 3.6% to $263 as health care led Thursday's defensive rotation, pushing toward the top of its range. A close above the $270 area would put its record high back in view.

NextEra Energy (NEE) — Added 1.6% to $88 and reclaimed its 50-day average as utilities caught the lower-yield tailwind. The next test sits near $92, where the spring rally stalled.

Breakdowns

Applied Materials (AMAT) — Dropped 8.3% to $603, the hardest fall among the chip-equipment makers as investors marked down every name tied to future factory spending. The prior support near $640 is now resistance, with the spring low toward $560 the next marker down.

Intel (INTC) — Lost 5.4% to $120, closing back under the $125 area it reclaimed in June. A quick failure to win that level back points toward the spring low near $112.

Top Movers

No US pre-market trading exists today with cash equities shut, so the groups below frame what gets repriced when a live session returns Monday, as Thursday's rotation and the week's chip selloff meet a weekend of global gains.

Gainers (Monday setup)

Health care and defensives (AbbVie, Walmart, Johnson & Johnson). The groups that gain when yields fall drew Thursday's biggest flows: AbbVie (ABBV) rose 4% to $261 and Johnson & Johnson climbed 3.6%, while Walmart (WMT) added 3.1% to $112 as a familiar stand-in for shoppers trading down.

Semiconductor wildcard (Samsung, SK Hynix sympathy). Asia's Friday chip rebound, with Kospi memory heavyweights leading a 5.8% surge, sets up a possible sympathy bid in US names such as Nvidia (NVDA) and Micron (MU) at Monday's reopen, against a week that punished the group hard.

Losers (Monday setup)

Chip-equipment (Applied Materials, KLA, Teradyne). The equipment makers led the US market lower all week, unsettled by reports that Apple is qualifying Chinese memory and by fear the biggest spenders turn more disciplined about adding capacity. Applied Materials fell 8.3% and Teradyne (TER) tumbled roughly 14% on Thursday. Whether Asia's bounce carries into the US names is the first question Monday.

Tesla (TSLA). Sank 7% to $393.45 on Thursday even after record quarterly deliveries of 480,126 vehicles, as a stock priced on robotaxis and software found a strong hardware number was not enough; the full results land July 22.

Macro Calendar

The domestic calendar is bare on the holiday, and the week ahead is back-loaded into inflation data and the start of earnings season.

With hiring clearly slowing, June's CPI the week of July 13 becomes the pivot. The market has already moved to price a Fed on hold, so a hot inflation reading would be the unwelcome shock, dragging the rate-hike question the jobs data just buried back into view.

Earnings Today

The reporting slate is empty on the holiday, and no US companies report. Second-quarter season opens in earnest the week of July 13, when JPMorgan and the other big banks post the first hard look at credit, lending margins and trading revenue since spring.

Drivers

1. The long weekend leaves every position set on Thursday riding a break until Monday, and the calendar underneath it is not quiet. The soft jobs report reset the rate path mid-session, and a weekend of global gains, from Korea's chip surge to Europe's record close, now sits between Thursday's US close and Monday's reopen. The sharpest split is in semiconductors: US chip-equipment names fell all week while Asian memory stocks bounced hard on Friday, and which side wins out will steer the open.

2. The jobs miss handed the Fed room, and the data now decides whether it uses it. June was weak enough to quiet the hike talk but not weak enough to force a cut, with layoffs still scarce and wages running at 3.5%. Futures now price roughly a 51% chance of a September increase, down from 63% before the report, so June's CPI the week of July 13 carries the most weight of any release on the horizon. A firm reading would revive the tightening debate that soft payrolls just pushed away.

3. The rush into value still needs earnings to back it. After a quarter driven more by rotation than by fundamentals, the big lenders open second-quarter reporting season with the first real read on credit and margins since spring. Their results will show whether the move into value can stand on numbers rather than on the flight from technology. That season begins the week of July 13.

S&P 500 ETF, daily: the index finished Thursday within a point of Wednesday as defensives rose and technology fell; its 50-day average near 7,400 held.

Nasdaq-100 ETF, daily: a second down day as chip-equipment names dragged the tech complex lower.

Dow ETF, daily: a record close Thursday, powered by the rotation into value and defensives.

Semiconductor ETF, daily: US chip stocks fell hard through the week even as Asian memory names rebounded sharply on Friday.

Gold ETF, daily: bullion extended its bounce off last week's eight-month low as rate-hike bets receded.