Stocks finish wild month with Amazon rising, Apple sinking and Seoul’s best day ever resulting in a 22% loss

U.S. stocks rose Friday, with the S&P 500 climbing 0.7% to 7,489.72, the Dow Jones Industrial Average adding 276.97 points to 52,485.03, and the Nasdaq composite rallying 1% to 25,373.85, as Amazon.com leaped 15.3% on stronger-than-expected profit while Apple Inc. dropped 7.4% on a weak revenue forecast. The gains gave the S&P 500 its first winning week in three, but the index still finished July with a tiny loss amid concerns about high oil prices and Big Tech's AI investments.

U.S. stocks rose Friday to finish a wild https://apnews.com/article/stock-markets-rates-korea-ai-oil-99b5702d93a2b5c6e513fb952ccdcc92 July https://apnews.com/article/stocks-markets-ai-oil-trump-rates-b8bfaf782877957bbaa7196b70a4d725 for Wall Street as Amazon https://apnews.com/article/amazon-second-quarter-earnings-cloud-b4ce02b4666a35b8975823c5c22072ee leaped, Apple https://apnews.com/article/apple-earnings-revenue-iphone-ai-94102918cb3592ebc1d2a38c4d7d819a sank and rising oil prices https://apnews.com/article/oil-companies-profits-exxon-chevron-9375fbf8f6f40426f7428e07d54000c7 worsened worries about inflation https://apnews.com/article/economy-inflation-spending-growth-consumers-growth-jobs-caf3b24d92688568f9c4f95725c87e55 staying high. The S&P 500 climbed 0.7% after veering between gains and losses through the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 276 points, or 0.5%, and the Nasdaq composite rallied 1% after briefly losing all of an early 1.3% jump. It’s a fitting finish to July for the U.S. stock market, which lurched up https://apnews.com/article/stock-markets-iran-inflation-oil-3544bd70e0f767404d2de91fd116d68e and down https://apnews.com/article/stocks-markets-iran-trump-ai-inflation-45b9165d6c518f5bea668b6ba7a89838 as oil prices shot higher because of the war with Iran https://apnews.com/article/iran-war-us-hormuz-strait-july-30-2026-8dc77ed6a65f389ea4af84635d2473bd and worries grew about whether Big Tech’s massive investments in artificial-intelligence technology https://apnews.com/hub/artificial-intelligence will translate into profits and whether chipmaker stocks https://apnews.com/article/stock-markets-ai-chips-oil-a880057323bd065c325ad19b23de0cf3 soared too high in the euphoria around AI. Friday’s gains sent the S&P 500 to its first winning week in three, but the main measure of the U.S. stock market nevertheless finished the month with a tiny loss. Amazon https://fortune.com/company/amazon-com/ led the market with a leap of 15.3% after reporting much stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Its profit more than tripled from a year earlier, thanks in part to an acceleration of growth in its cloud computing business. Analysts said that could be a signal Amazon’s huge AI investments are paying off, and Amazon increased its forecast for how much it will spend on investments this year. The reaction was similar to what Microsoft https://apnews.com/article/microsoft-earnings-results-ai-f7dff4fb9d51a2bdec56a13e5da1053d got a day before, when its stock soared to its best day in nearly 18 years on signals that its AI investments may also be yielding higher profits. Chip companies selling the processors and computer memory that such “hyperscalers” are scrambling to buy swung sharply again on Friday. Micron https://fortune.com/company/micron-technology/ Technology, for example, went from an early jump of 6.4% to a loss of 6.5% before finishing with a fall of 5.9%. More firmly on the losing end of Wall Street was Apple https://apnews.com/article/apple-earnings-revenue-iphone-ai-94102918cb3592ebc1d2a38c4d7d819a , which dropped 7.4% despite reporting stronger profit for the latest quarter than expected. Its forecast for revenue growth in the current quarter fell short of expectations, which executives pinned on a supply crunch in components getting vacuumed up in the AI boom. All told, the S&P 500 rose 52.09 points to 7,489.72. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 276.97 to 52,485.03, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 251.68 to 25,373.85. The gains came despite another rise in oil prices as uncertainty continues about when the war with Iran https://apnews.com/article/iran-us-war-saudi-iraq-yemen-egypt-85aefd04354af77b20999da367c297f2 will allow crude to flow freely again from the Middle East. The price for a barrel of Brent crude rose 1.2% to settle at $87.93 after careening between $72 and $102 earlier in July. Higher oil prices have pushed the cost for a gallon of regular gasoline to an average of nearly $4.11 across the United States, up from $3.85 a month ago, according to AAA. More expensive oil also puts upward pressure on prices for virtually every product that rides on a ship, plane or truck before getting to a customer. The worries about inflation sent yields in the bond market even higher. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.71% from 4.68% late Thursday and from just 3.97% before the war with Iran sent oil prices shooting higher. That’s a notable move for the yield, which moves higher when investors’ expectations for inflation, economic growth and other factors in upcoming years are rising. The leap for the 10-year yield has already sent the average long-term U.S. mortgage rate to its highest level https://apnews.com/article/inflation-home-buying-federal-reserve-62577be10d19115723ea9bfc20c5a6ab in a year. Longer-term yields jumped on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve’s chairman, Kevin Warsh, promised again to get inflation back down to 2% but refused to say how he plans to get it there. The Fed voted again to keep its main interest rate steady https://apnews.com/article/federal-reserve-inflation-interest-rates-iran-war-ad10c177cb8d96f9e3ed122e12352a74 on Wednesday, even though inflation remains well above 2%. Hikes to rates by the Fed could restrain inflation, but they could also slow the economy and undercut prices https://apnews.com/article/bond-market-wall-street-debt-1d7bea0e6b01b343c8405ba5f4e30553 for stocks and other investments. President Donald Trump https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump , who nominated Warsh to lead the Fed, has lobbied for lower interest rates instead of higher. Warsh has told financial markets that he does not want to give hints about what the Fed will do with interest rates, saying he wants to get direct, “unfiltered” messages from them rather than echoes back of what the Fed has suggested. But “without clarifying why action was or wasn’t taken already, it’s hard to see how statements about being committed to hitting its inflation target aren’t just a bluff,” according to Brian Jacobsen, chief economic strategist at Annex Wealth Management. “The Fed is facing a growing credibility problem,” economists at Bank of America https://fortune.com/company/bank-of-america-corp/ wrote in a report. Unless data comes in showing less pressure on inflation in the interim, “it is imperative for the Fed to pass the September test by hiking rates and delivering an internally consistent narrative.” In stock markets abroad, the swings were even wilder for chip stocks. Seoul’s Kospi index soared 17.9% for its best day in history. The index is dominated by two tech giants, Samsung https://fortune.com/company/samsung-electronics/ Electronics and SK Hynix https://apnews.com/article/sk-hynix-nasdaq-memory-chips-nvidia-73f13a85ae00e30bad0540281bbe44f3 , and both surged at least 26.8% on Friday. The Kospi, though, still lost 22% in July despite Friday’s historic move. That’s after it more than doubled in the first six months of the year. AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed to this report. The Fortune 500 Innovation Forum will convene Fortune 500 executives, U.S. policy officials, top founders, and thought leaders to help define what’s next for the American economy, Nov. 16-17 in Detroit.