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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