News Bulletin
Tuesday, June 30, 2026
Evening Edition

Economic Numbers:

Time	Event	Actual	Forecast	Previous
Tuesday, June 30, 2026
9:00	S&P/CS HPI Composite - 20 n.s.a. (YoY) (Apr)	1.10%	0.90%	0.90%
9:00	S&P/CS HPI Composite - 20 n.s.a. (MoM) (Apr)	1.00%		1.10%
9:45	Chicago PMI (Jun)	56.70	55.70	62.70
10:00	JOLTS Job Openings (May)	7.594M	7.280M	7.585M
10:00	CB Consumer Confidence (Jun)	91.20	94.40	90.60

Indices

	CLOSE	50 DMA	200 DMA
DJIA	52,319.20	50,423.16	48,375.25
NASDAQ	26,213.72	25,848.06	23,665.69
S&P 500	7,499.36	7,386.72	6,938.50

Earnings Calendar:

(EPS: Earning Per Share / Rev: Revenue / Mkt Cap: market Capital/ BMO: Before Market Opening /AMC: After Market Close)

COMPANY	EPS Act	EPS Fore	Rev Act	Rev Fore	Mkt Cap	Time
NikeNKE:US		-0.22		-11.3B	$62.24B	PM
Constellation BrandsSTZ:US		-3.34		-2.38B	$25.53B	PM
Progress SoftwarePRGS:US		-1.4		-241.26M	$1.47B	PM

Market News:

U.S. stocks on Tuesday ended the final trading session of the second quarter and the first half of the year on a positive note, helped by strong labor market data and a continued rebound in the technology sector.

Market participants repositioned their portfolios at the end of a period marked by geopolitical strife and questions around the trajectory of massive spending on artificial intelligence.

The S&P 500 index advanced 0.8% to close at 7,496.51 points, the tech-heavy NASDAQ Composite added 1.5% to settle at 26,213.72 points, and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.3% to conclude at a record 52,317.81 points.

Labor market data eyed for interest rate cues

The focus on Tuesday was on the U.S. economic calendar, which will be dominated by labor market indicators this week. The data will be closely perused for further cues on the Federal Reserve’s future monetary policy actions, at a time when the central bank has turned its focus solely to reducing inflation.

The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge last Thursday ticked up to its highest annual level in May since October 2023, while its headline measure posted its highest annual increase since April 2023. The increase was largely driven by a sharp spike in oil prices due to the Iran war, prompting traders to raise their expectations for Fed rate hikes. But a slide in oil back to pre-conflict levels has eased inflationary concerns, though analysts and policymakers have flagged that price pressures from the oil shock could still be working their way through the economy.

Against this backdrop, if labor market data comes in strong this week, it will give the Fed even less room for any potential policy easing. On Tuesday, the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary (JOLTS) for May showed job openings rising to 7.594 million, higher than the expected figure of 7.296 million and above April’s revised 7.585 million reading. May openings were the highest since May 2024.

"Encouraging news: Job openings are at the highest level in 2 years," Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal, said.

"The U.S. hiring rate is still low at 3.3%. But it’s off the *extreme* lows of 3.1% in February and 3.2% we saw in many months last year. The ’hiring recession’ is over. It’s now a winners and losers story in the labor market where some industries are improving, while others (esp. tech, finance) are bleak," she added.

The JOLTS report also showed that the quits rate remained unchanged at 1.9% in May.

"The ratio of job openings (from this morning’s JOLTS report) to the number of those unemployed ticked a bit higher in May. Fed officials tend to pay attention to this metric to gauge the balance between labor supply and demand," Collin Martin, head of fixed income research and strategy at Schwab Research, said.

The labor market indicators will continue on Wednesday in ADP’s private employment report and Challenger, Gray & Christmas’ job cuts report, followed by the all-important May nonfarm payrolls report on Thursday.

Wall Street surges in Q2 and H1

Turning away from economic data, Wall Street notched some "best performance since" milestones on the final trading day of Q2 and H1 2026. The benchmark S&P and the tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 14.8% and 21.4%, respectively, their best quarterly gains since Q2 2020. They rose 9.5% and 12.8%, respectively, for H1. Meanwhile, the Dow rose 12.9% for the quarter and 8.9% for the first half, driving home its best H1 advance since 2021.

Volatility was a hallmark of the last three months, with global stocks swaying in part to shifting sentiment around artificial intelligence and the rapid construction of the infrastructure which underpins the nascent technology, along with worries over muted return of investment (ROI) from the billions being poured into AI development by mega-cap tech companies.

"So far there are no signs of profit margins rising outside the tech sector. This is ultimately what we are waiting for, because the value of AI companies today rests entirely on the promise that margins in the S&P 493 will eventually climb," Torsten Slok, partner and chief economist at Apollo, said.

"The key issue is the length of the ROI runway outside the tech sector. In a handful of sectors, software and tech above all, implementation is nearly immediate, since these firms can fold AI into their own products and processes overnight," he said.

"But that is the exception. Across most of the economy, and especially in capital-intensive, heavily regulated sectors, deep process re-engineering and data governance requirements could delay structural productivity gains well beyond what the market currently projects," Slok added.

Wolfe Research’s Stephanie Roth on Tuesday also noted that a surge in memory chip costs due to soaring demand for memory needed for AI processes was contributing to U.S. inflation.

"AI was supposed to make everything cheaper. Instead, one of the first places it’s showing up is in higher prices. Apple’s latest price increases have brought attention to the issue, but the inflation story extends well beyond the MacBook Air. We estimate higher memory prices have already added roughly 30bp to core PCE inflation, with additional upside likely," Roth said.

At the same time, markets over the last three months were impacted by a constant drumbeat of developments in the joint U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran. A framework memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran was signed earlier this month, relieving some tensions in the Middle East but leaving major sticking points unresolved for now.

Currently, traders are wading through conflicting signals on the critical status of the Strait of Hormuz. The White House has suggested that the strait, a vital waterway for a fifth of the world’s oil which has been effectively closed to tanker traffic by Iran, is now open. However, Tehran has demanded it retain some control over the conduit.

The U.S. and Iran exchanged tit-for-tat strikes in the strait in recent days over the issue. Technical discussions between the U.S. and Iran are set to resume in Qatar on Tuesday, Pakistan has said, even as uncertainty swirls around when high-level negotiations will restart. Trump has said that American officials will meet with Iranian counterparts today in the Qatari capital of Doha. Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff is en route to the Gulf country, according to CNN.

Strategy slides, chip stocks head for best quarter on record

Turning to Tuesday’s active movers, Strategy closed 6.2% lower and was the top percentage loser on the Nasdaq Composite, after Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin-purchasing business scrapped its policy of never selling the world’s largest cryptocurrency.

Conversely, Air Products stock climbed 8% and closed among the top percentage gainers on the S&P 500. The company said it would not move forward with its Louisiana Clean Energy Complex project and that it would record a pre-tax charge of up to $2.9 billion in its fiscal Q3 related to the decision.

Elsewhere, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index -- a key barometer of chip stocks -- was on track for its best quarterly advance on record, having soared a whopping 87.8% for Q2. The surge underscores the ferocious AI rally that Wall Street has witnessed this year.

On the earnings front, Nike, the world’s largest athletic shoes and apparel company, is slated to reports quarterly results after the closing bell.

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