Finance

While traditional blue-chip stocks rallied, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite faced pressure, dropping 0.8% due to a sharp sell-off in semiconductor shares. Investor sentiment in the AI space was shaken by reports of major tech firms developing in-house chips, leading to significant declines for industry leaders like Micron and AMD.

Meta Platforms emerged as a major market outperformer, with its stock rising nearly 9% following reports that the company plans to monetize its excess computing power. The firm is reportedly looking to build a cloud business to sell AI processing capacity, positioning it to compete more directly with established hyperscalers like Amazon and Google.

Energy shares remained under pressure in early July, following a second quarter where the sector was the worst performer in the S&P 500 with a loss of over 13%. West Texas Intermediate crude prices fell toward $68 a barrel as geopolitical tensions eased and supply flows began to stabilize in key international maritime corridors.