U.S. stocks were mixed in early trading on Friday, with Amazon soaring 14.9%
U.S. stocks were mixed in early trading on Friday, with Amazon soaring 14.9% due to better-than-expected earnings, while Apple fell over 9%. Previously, the market experienced significant volatility due to the Federal Reserve's decision to maintain interest rates and concerns about inflation, leading to a rise in Treasury yields. Investors are readjusting their expectations for interest rate cuts, shifting market style from momentum-driven to fundamentally improving stocks
On the evening of July 31, Beijing time, U.S. stocks showed mixed performance in early trading on Friday. The Nasdaq's gains narrowed, while the Dow Jones and S&P 500 turned negative. Amazon's stock surged after the release of an optimistic earnings report.
The Dow Jones fell 53.46 points, a decrease of 0.10%, closing at 52,154.60 points; the Nasdaq rose 36.53 points, an increase of 0.15%, closing at 25,158.70 points; the S&P 500 index fell 5.13 points, a decrease of 0.07%, closing at 7,432.50 points.
Amazon's stock soared 14.9% after reporting second-quarter revenue that exceeded expectations. The strong performance of its cloud computing business supported the results and boosted investor confidence in artificial intelligence spending.
In contrast, Apple saw a decline of over 9% on Friday. The company's third-quarter revenue exceeded expectations, driven by a 22% increase in iPhone sales, but a shortfall in service revenue weighed on the stock price.
Meta, which plummeted nearly 8% on Thursday, rose less than 1% in early trading on Friday.
The previous rally was fueled by a strong rebound led by Microsoft on Thursday—after the software giant reported better-than-expected growth in Azure cloud services, its stock jumped 16%. This performance triggered a broad rise in AI-related chip stocks, with the iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) gaining over 8%.
Before this rebound, the market experienced a severe decline on Wednesday, with the Dow Jones dropping more than 1,100 points, marking the largest single-day drop since April 2025. After the Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged, selling accelerated at the close, raising concerns about policymakers lagging behind in combating inflation.
These concerns spread to the bond market. The yield on 30-year Treasury bonds rose 6 basis points to over 5.2% on Wednesday, hovering near the highest level since 2007.
Richard Bernstein, Global Macro and Customized Investment Director at Janus Henderson Investors, stated: "Investors are recalibrating their expectations for Federal Reserve rate cuts, reducing the excess liquidity that previously fueled speculative and momentum-driven markets. Market leadership is expanding beyond the 'seven giants,' as investors increasingly prefer to reward stocks with improving fundamentals rather than momentum stocks driven by speculation."
Despite the volatility this week, major stock indices are still expected to close higher. As of Friday's pre-market, the Dow Jones was up about 0.5% for the week, the S&P 500 was up about 0.4%, and the Nasdaq Composite was up about 0.6%.
In the Asian markets, South Korea's composite stock price index surged over 15% on Friday (but is down 22.19% for the month), with chip giants SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics seeing significant gains. Japan's Nikkei 225 index soared over 3%. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index rose 0.27%. The Hong Kong Hang Seng Index fell 0.11%, while the CSI 300 Index rose 1.24% European markets also generally rose on Friday, with the pan-European Stoxx 600 index up 0.8% in early trading, and both the French CAC 40 index and the German DAX index rising by about 0.9%. The UK FTSE 100 index and the Italian FTSE MIB index also increased
