U.S. stocks close: Three major indexes diverge, storage & optical communications plummet, San Disk falls more than 10%

U.S. stocks close: Three major indexes diverge, storage & optical communications plummet, San Disk falls more than 10%.

Financial News Agency, July 25. On Friday (July 24), the three major U.S. stock indexes had mixed gains and losses. As of the close, the Dow Jones Index rose 0.46% to 51947.25 points; the S&P 500 Index rose 0.05% to 7411.98 points; the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.64% to 24975.82 points.

Apple (+3.53%), IBM (+3.65%) and Salesforce (+4.29%) led gains among the 30 Dow components, helping it outperform the other two benchmark indexes. The chip sector was under pressure, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index closing down 4.25%, which particularly dragged down the performance of the Nasdaq.

Earlier in the day, Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs held a press conference, calling on the United States and Iran to stop military conflicts and resume technical-level negotiations as soon as possible.

Pakistan's foreign ministry also condemned the "continued threat" posed by Yemen's Houthi rebels to Saudi Arabia and merchant ships passing through the Red Sea. Affected by this news, U.S. stocks rose significantly in early trading, and international oil prices also fell sharply.

The settlement price of the September contract of WTI crude oil futures closed down 3.12%, and the settlement price of the September contract of Brent crude oil futures closed down 3.88%, but it still rose 9.85% this week due to the conflict in the Middle East.

On a weekly basis, the Dow fell 0.38% this week, falling for the third consecutive week; the S&P and the Nasdaq fell 0.61% and 2.13% respectively, both falling for two weeks in a row. Analysts believe that traders appear reluctant to increase their holdings of stocks because Iran may suffer more violent attacks over the weekend. During the session, U.S.

President Trump said at the White House that the United States can continue to act in the current way, or it can intensify its strikes more quickly. Bill Northey, investment director at U.S.

Bank Asset Management Group, commented, "What's happening in the Middle East has the potential to have real economic consequences for oil and gas flows and the ability of the global economy to absorb this situation." Scott Ladner, chief investment officer at Horizon Investments, said, "The stock market has been shaken by conflict in the Middle East - this

is nothing new, but the real change is that the surge in oil prices has triggered concerns among traders about the direction of inflation and interest rates." Ladner added that the stock market may improve next week - provided that the earnings of listed companies can support their high valuations.

Next week, more than a third of the S&P 500 stocks will report results, making it the busiest week of the earnings season.

John Cunnison, chief investment officer of Baker Boyer Bank, said that capital expenditures in the field of artificial intelligence are growing rapidly, Google has experienced negative free cash flow, and more companies may raise funds through debt issuance, causing balance sheet concerns.

Cunnison noted, “Investors are eager to see AI translate into profits sooner, otherwise they will continue to question valuations.” Technology giants had mixed gains and losses.

(Arranged by market value) Nvidia fell 0.92%, Apple rose 3.53%, Google C rose 0.24%, Microsoft rose 0.03%, Amazon fell 0.66%, Broadcom fell 2.69%, SpaceX fell 2.68%, Meta fell 1.8%, and Tesla fell 2.08%. All 30 constituent stocks of the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index closed down.

Three optical communication stocks, ALAB (-10.82%), CRDO (-9.87%) and Coherent (-9.84%), were the top losers. ARM fell 8.14%, Intel fell 7.89%, and Marvell Technology fell 7.21%. Other optical communication concept stocks also fell, with AAOI falling 10.6%, Lumentum falling 8.47%, and Corning falling 6.03%.

Storage concept stocks fell across the board, with Roundhill Storage ETF (DRAM) closing down 8.75%. SanDisk fell 10.79%, SK Hynix fell 8.81%, Micron Technology fell 6.99%, Western Digital fell 6.9%, and Seagate Technology fell 6.75%.

Affected by the plunge in storage stocks, the Direxion 3x Long Korea ETF (KORU) closed down 18.9%, and the iShares MSCI Korea Index ETF (EWY) fell 6.27%. In terms of cloud computing service providers, NEBIUS fell by 15.02%, CoreWeave fell by 11.37%, CBRS fell by 9.49%, IREN fell by 8.65%, Hut 8 fell by 6.53%, and Oracle fell by 4.21%.

As crude oil prices fell, aviation services stocks strengthened, with American Airlines rising 6.79%, JetBlue Airways rising 5.61%, and Delta Air Lines rising 3.77%. Telecom stocks rose, with Verizon rising 5.84%, T-Mobile US rising 5.67%, and AT&T rising 5.1%.

In terms of Chinese concept stocks, Livermore's leading index of Chinese concept stocks closed down 1.91%; the Nasdaq China Golden Dragon Index fell 0.66%, and fell 2.8% this week. Most popular Chinese concept stocks fell, with Xpeng Group falling 3.37%, Weilai falling 3.23%, Li Auto falling 2.02%, Baidu falling 1.91%, and Alibaba falling 1.68%.

Tencent Music rose 1.14%. [Technology giants such as Microsoft and Nvidia jointly voiced: Open weighting will help expand AI applications and maintain competitiveness] Microsoft President Brad Smith and other U.S. technology industry figures published an article titled "Open Weight and U.S.

AI Leadership," calling for the promotion of the development of open weight artificial intelligence models, believing that an open ecosystem will help expand AI applications and promote competition. The institutions and companies signed by the article include Microsoft, Nvidia, Meta, IBM and many other AI-related institutions.

[Verizon and Google reach a $1 billion-plus dark fiber agreement to provide connectivity services for AI data centers] Dan Schulman, CEO of US telecom operator Verizon, said that the company has reached a dark fiber connection agreement with Google worth more than $1 billion to provide network connection services to Google data centers.

Schulman said on a conference call after Verizon announced its second-quarter results that the company expects to announce other cooperation agreements before the end of the year, and related transactions combined will bring billions of dollars in revenue in the next few years.

[Meta AI applications and new features of Meta.ai will be launched in some markets starting from July 24th] Meta Platforms said that Meta AI applications and new features of Meta.ai will be launched in some markets starting from July 24. In the coming weeks, Meta AI’s new features will be expanded to more countries and platforms (including WhatsApp).

Thanks to Muse Spark 1.1 technology, MetaAI can now make plans, connect email and calendar applications, create presentations, and handle various tasks on behalf of users. [Qualcomm product prices will increase by double-digit percentages] Qualcomm told customers it would have to raise product prices by double-digit percentages due to rising costs.

Qualcomm said the price increase will apply to products shipped after September 1. The company said its ability to absorb rising supplier costs has been exhausted and it has tried to obtain alternative parts from new sources.

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