Wall Street closed out July on a broadly positive note Friday, with the S&P 500 finishing at 7,477.77, up 0.72% on the session, and the Nasdaq adding 0.65% to settle at 24,974.04. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.54% to close at 52,101.68, capping a month that saw large-cap technology continue to drive the bulk of market gains.
The headline story of the day — and perhaps the week — was Amazon's stunning 15.32% surge to $271.58. The e-commerce and cloud giant delivered quarterly results that left analysts scrambling to raise price targets, with AWS growth and advertising revenue both coming in well ahead of consensus. It was one of the largest single-day moves for a mega-cap name this year.
On the other side of the ledger, Apple weighed on sentiment after its own earnings report disappointed investors. Shares fell 7.35% to $308.91, as forward guidance rattled confidence in the consumer hardware giant's near-term trajectory. The divergence between Amazon and Apple underscored a growing bifurcation in big tech: cloud and AI-adjacent businesses thriving, while hardware-dependent models face headwinds.
Notably, small caps lagged the broader rally, with the Russell 2000 slipping 0.48% to 2,900.35 — a reminder that the optimism gripping large-cap markets has yet to fully trickle down. Gold remained elevated at $4,057.22, reflecting persistent demand for hard assets even as equities pushed higher.