Wall Street kicked off the third quarter with mixed results after a blockbuster first half for stocks. The first two days of Q3 and the second half of the year saw the S&P 500 pretty much flat, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq moved in opposite directions. The Dow finished the holiday-shortened week with a record close Thursday as a soft jobs report reduced chances of a Federal Reserve interest rate hike:
The Nasdaq suffered back-to-back losses, with chip stocks as measured by the PHLX Semiconductor Index sinking 6.3% on Wednesday and 5.4% on Thursday. Despite the lackluster July start marked by a rotation into a new group of AI beneficiaries, all three stock measures were higher for the week:
AI lifted cybersecurity stocks solidified their status as big winners from the artificial intelligence boom this week — a big reversal from the beginning of the year, when the market feared AI disruption. The group rallied after The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend that Chinese AI models have become nearly as capable as the leading U.S. platforms at identifying vulnerabilities in code:
Meta Platforms gave investors a reason to believe that its enormous AI spending could finally turn into meaningful revenue. Shares of the Facebook and Instagram parent jumped more than 8% on Wednesday after news that the company is preparing to launch a cloud infrastructure business:
This week, we made several notable changes to the CNBC Investing Club portfolio, continuing to redeploy capital into our highest-conviction ideas:
