US Stock Market Highlights Summary July 31, 2026

Market Outlook Today

University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index

ExxonMobil and Chevron Earnings

Micron Soars 18% as Samsung's Earnings Ignite Full-Scale Memory Chip Recovery

The familiar Micron (MU-US) stock is back! Micron surged 18.4% on Thursday (30th). The stock had plummeted 25% over the previous four consecutive trading days ending Wednesday. Even including Thursday’s gain, it is still down over 20% since July. Samsung, the world’s largest memory chip manufacturer and Micron’s competitor, reported earnings on Thursday that were nearly universally better than market expectations. Read full article

AI and Memory Chip Stocks Rebound Sharply as Market Speculates Situational Awareness Completed Unwinding

AI and memory-related semiconductor stocks rose sharply on Thursday (30th). Market observers speculate this rebound was triggered by hedge fund Situational Awareness completing its position unwinding, thus relieving selling pressure across the sector. SanDisk (SNDK-US) surged over 25%; benefiting from the recovery in storage and memory stocks, Seagate Technology (STX-US), Western Digital (WDC-US), and Micron (MU-US) all rose over 10%. Other AI chip stocks also gained, with AMD (AMD-US) up over 10%, and NVIDIA (NVDA-US), Marvell Technology (MRVL-US), and Broadcom (AVGO-US) posting solid gains. Read full article

<Earnings> Cook's Final Report as CEO Mixed: Apple Q3 Revenue Beats, but Services and Greater China Disappoint, Shares Drop After Hours

Apple (AAPL-US) released its final earnings report under CEO Tim Cook. Driven by strong iPhone and Mac sales, last quarter (fiscal Q3) overall revenue exceeded expectations. However, service segment performance disappointed Wall Street, and revenue growth in Greater China was underwhelming. Apple's stock softened after hours on Thursday (30th). Apple had just reclaimed the title of the world’s most valuable public company from NVIDIA (NVDA-US), but after the earnings release, its after-hours price opened high and then fell, dropping as much as 4.95%. Read full article

<Earnings> AWS Explosive Growth Powers Amazon Q2 Profits Over 3x Higher, Shares Surge 9% After Hours

Amazon (AMZN-US) released its Q2 2026 earnings, with revenue and profits both exceeding market expectations, driven by continued high-speed growth in cloud computing, advertising, and AI businesses. Amazon Web Services (AWS) revenue achieved its fastest growth since 2021, sending after-hours shares up over 9%. Amazon’s Q2 revenue reached $200.61 billion, surpassing the $196.47 billion forecast by LSEG-analyst consensus. Earnings per share (EPS) were $5.75, far exceeding the market estimate of $1.82. Read full article

Why Isn’t the Smartphone Market Recovering? Qualcomm CEO Blames High Memory Prices

Qualcomm (QCOM-US) CEO Cristiano Amon stated that consumer demand for smartphones remains strong, but rising memory prices and supply constraints are increasing device manufacturing costs, potentially suppressing the smartphone market in the short term. Amon emphasized that the market isn’t lacking upgrade demand—what’s truly hindering sales growth is memory pricing and supply issues. Consumers still want to buy phones, but with component costs remaining high, manufacturers may face margin pressure, and some costs could be passed on to consumers. As a result, the overall market is expected to remain sluggish. Read full article