This week’s stock shocks as of 24th July, 2026
Watching US markets week to week without context is just noise. This week, the US carried out its eleventh straight night of strikes on Iran, Washington slapped fresh 50% tariffs on Canada, and oil climbed back to its highest levels in over a month, and none of it stopped the strongest earnings season Wall Street has seen in years. That’s the story worth understanding: a market with excellent fundamentals and a genuinely nervous mood, running side by side. That’s why we built Winvesta Crisps, to cut through the noise and tell you what actually moved markets and why. 60,000+ investors from all over India are already in. What about you?
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Wall Street spent this week holding two contradictory truths at once. On one hand, second quarter earnings are running at more than 20% year-on-year growth, among the strongest prints in years, and chip stocks staged a violent comeback after last week’s worst weekly drop since April 2025. On the other, an eleven-night bombing campaign against Iran pushed oil to five-week highs, Washington opened a new tariff front against Canada, and Alphabet and Tesla both got punished this week, not for weak results, but for how much they’re now promising to spend. The CNN Fear and Greed Index stayed in Fear territory throughout, a reminder that this market’s nerves are about geopolitics and capex discipline, not about the underlying business.
📊 Market recap
Monday opened under pressure as the fragile Iran ceasefire kept fraying over the weekend, with fresh tit-for-tat strikes pushing oil toward $90 a barrel. The S&P 500 slipped 0.19% to close at 7,443.28, the Nasdaq eased 0.05% to 25,508.07, and the Dow fell 307 points, or 0.59%, to 51,839.26, dragged lower in part by a more than 2% decline in Apple, per CNBC. Chip stocks tried to claw back some of the prior week’s steep losses, but the broader tape stayed cautious as reports emerged of Iranian mobilisation and a Houthi threat to blockade Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea exports.
Tuesday reversed the mood entirely. Investors chose to look through the Iran headlines and focus on corporate earnings, and semiconductors led a broad rally: the Dow gained 385 points (0.74%) to 52,224.64, the S&P 500 rose 0.89% to 7,509.20, and the Nasdaq jumped 1.29% to 25,837.21, per CNBC. Western Digital surged roughly 12.5% and Intel gained around 8.6% as the chip complex staged its sharpest comeback in weeks, while Micron also rallied hard on the same rebound. General Motors beat second quarter expectations, and Nvidia disclosed a stake in Nebius. Trump’s fresh 50% tariffs on a range of Canadian goods barely registered, with investors choosing to shrug it off as unlikely to move the needle near-term.
Wednesday brought the week’s real test: a parade of megacap earnings against a backdrop of climbing oil. The S&P 500 dipped 0.14% to 7,498.96, the Nasdaq slipped 0.57% to 25,690.90, and the Dow was essentially flat, down just 6 points to 52,218.58, per CNBC. Brent crude jumped about 3.4% to settle at $94.07 a barrel, its highest level in more than a month, after the US carried out its eleventh consecutive night of strikes on Iran; Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Iran is “not serious about talks.” After the close, Alphabet and Tesla delivered the two most consequential reports of the week. Alphabet beat on revenue, with cloud sales up sharply, but raised its 2026 capital expenditure forecast to a $195-205 billion range (from roughly $190 billion) and posted negative free cash flow; shares fell in after-hours trade. Tesla’s revenue rose but adjusted EPS came in well below Wall Street’s estimate and free cash flow turned negative, with CEO Elon Musk framing 2026 as a “massive capex year” for Optimus, robotaxis, and data centres. ServiceNow, which had slumped in sympathy with IBM’s spending warning earlier in the week, beat its own numbers and raised guidance, and shares jumped roughly 7% after hours.
Thursday’s session opened under renewed pressure as the market digested Wednesday night’s earnings. Alphabet fell as much as 4.5% and Tesla around 5.9% to 6% in premarket and early trade, dragging Nasdaq futures lower, per CNBC and Bloomberg. Oil extended its climb, with Brent touching $98 and WTI above $90, its highest since early June, as Trump signalled the strikes on Iran would continue. Texas Instruments, despite beating estimates, fell around 3.2%, while Lockheed Martin jumped roughly 6% premarket on a strong beat and raised guidance, one of the few pockets of green in an otherwise defensive tape. Intel was due to report its own second quarter results after Thursday’s close, with options markets pricing in a swing of 12-15% either way, making it the week’s final and arguably most important data point heading into the weekend.
😶🌫️ Sentiment watch
The CNN Fear and Greed Index spent the entire week in Fear territory, dipping to roughly 37.6 on Monday as oil and Iran headlines weighed on the tape, before edging up to around 43 by midweek as earnings beats offered some reassurance, per Benzinga and MacroMicro data. The VIX stayed contained through it all, around 18.6 on Monday and settling closer to the high teens by Wednesday, per Yahoo Finance. That combination, genuine Fear-zone sentiment with a volatility gauge that never really panicked, tells you this is a market that’s nervous but not capitulating. Investors know exactly what’s worrying them: oil, capex, and the Fed. They just haven’t decided it’s bad enough to sell in size yet.
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🏆 Best performers
The week’s winners had almost nothing to do with the macro story. Super Micro’s record backlog, Lockheed’s guidance raise, and the semiconductor sector’s Tuesday rebound were all company or sector-specific stories that briefly overpowered the Iran and tariff headlines. ServiceNow’s after-hours pop was the most symbolic: a company that had been left for dead after IBM’s spending warning earlier in the week came back with a beat-and-raise that reminded investors the AI budget fears may be more IBM-specific than industry-wide.
💔 Worst performers
The losers list tells the more important story of the week. Alphabet and Tesla weren’t punished for missing, Alphabet actually beat, they were punished for spending more than investors wanted to see, right as free cash flow at both companies turned negative or came close to it. That’s a different kind of correction than an earnings miss, and it’s the one worth watching heading into Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon’s reports next week.
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