Closing on August 1: U.S. stocks closed higher, with Amazon soaring over 15%, and all three major indices recorded gains this week

On August 1st, Beijing time, U.S. stocks rose slightly on Friday, with all three major indices recording gains for the week. The market continued to focus on tech earnings, with Amazon's stock soaring after it released an optimistic earnings report. Apple suffered a sharp decline.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 276.97 points, an increase of 0.53%, closing at 52,485.03 points; the Nasdaq Composite Index rose by 251.68 points, an increase of 1.00%, closing at 25,373.85 points; the S&P 500 Index rose by 52.09 points, an increase of 0.70%, closing at 7,489.72 points.

All three major U.S. stock indices recorded gains this week: the Dow rose by 1.04%, the Nasdaq rose by 1.59%, and the S&P 500 Index rose by 1.05%.

In July, the three major U.S. stock indices had mixed performances: the Dow rose by 0.32%, the Nasdaq fell by 3.20%, and the S&P 500 Index fell by 0.13%.

Amazon's stock surged 15.3% after it reported 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 closed down 7.35% on Friday. The company's third-quarter revenue exceeded expectations, benefiting from a 22% increase in iPhone sales, but a shortfall in service revenue dragged down the stock price.

Meta rose 3.28% on Friday, recovering from a nearly 8% drop on Thursday.

On Thursday, U.S. stocks experienced a strong rebound led by Microsoft. The software giant's stock jumped 16% after it reported better-than-expected Azure cloud growth. This performance triggered a broad rally in AI-related chip stocks, with the iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) rising over 8%.

Before this rebound, the market experienced a severe decline on Wednesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeting over 1,100 points, marking the largest single-day drop since April 2025. After the Federal Reserve maintained interest rates, selling accelerated at the close, raising concerns that policymakers were falling behind in the fight against inflation.

These concerns spread to the bond market. The yield on 30-year Treasury bonds rose by 6 basis points to over 5.2% on Wednesday, hovering near the highest levels since 2007.

Richard Bernstein, head of global macro and customized investments 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 hype."

In the Asian markets, South Korea's Composite Stock Price Index soared 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 surged over 3% The S&P/ASX 200 Index in Australia rose by 0.27%. The Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong fell by 0.11%, while the CSI 300 Index rose by 1.24%