This week’s stock shocks as of 26th June, 2026

Watching the US markets week to week without context is just noise. This week, the AI boom stopped being a data centre story and became a price tag on your desk: Apple raised MacBook and iPad prices, Microsoft hiked Xbox costs, and the bill for the memory shortage finally landed on consumers and shareholders. 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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For three years, the cost of the AI buildout was someone else’s problem: hyperscalers spending hundreds of billions, memory makers minting record profits, power grids straining. This week, the invoice arrived at the consumer’s door. Apple raised MacBook and iPad prices by roughly 15% to 25%, citing a surge in memory and storage costs that industry trackers have dubbed “RAMageddon,” and the stock fell about 6%, per Reuters. Microsoft hiked Xbox prices for the same reason. The same demand that sent memory names soaring is now eating the margins of the companies that buy those chips, and the market spent the week sorting the winners from the payers.

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📊 Market recap

The week’s price action told a story in five acts: a tech wobble, a chip rout, an oil-led bounce, a divided Thursday, and a cautious fade into Friday.

Monday opened on the back foot. The S&P 500 slipped into the mid-7,400s, and the Nasdaq dropped more than 1.3% as megacap tech led the losses, per CNBC. Alphabet fell about 5% on worries over AI talent departures, Amazon shed roughly 4.8%, Meta lost around 2.3%, and Microsoft eased about 3%. SpaceX, fresh off its blockbuster June IPO, sank around 16% to its lowest level since its first day of trading as the rocket maker lined up a large bond sale to fund its AI ambitions, per Bloomberg. The Dow, with far less tech weight, actually finished higher, lifted almost single-handedly by a nearly 4% jump in Caterpillar. Oil retreated after the US Treasury authorised Iranian crude sales under a 60-day licence and mediators flagged a roadmap toward a final deal within 60 days, with Brent settling near $78 per barrel, according to CNBC.

Tuesday was the ugly one. A rate-hike note from Bank of America and a tumble across Asian markets sent semiconductors sinking, with the iShares Semiconductor ETF (SMH) ending the session roughly 7% lower, per TheStreet. The selloff was concentrated in the most crowded corner of the market rather than a broad deterioration in fundamentals, but it stung.

Wednesday brought a bounce, helped by a sharp drop in oil and yields. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq steadied in the high-7,300s and mid-25,000s, respectively, while the Dow added ground to close near the high-51,000s, per CNBC. The headline mover was crude: Brent fell more than 4% to settle around $73.74, and WTI dropped to about $70.34, the lowest levels since before the US and Israel first struck Iran back in late February, per CNBC. The 10-year Treasury yield slid below 4.5% as energy prices cooled.

Thursday was the week’s defining session, and it split the market clean down the middle. Non-tech names powered the Dow to a fresh intraday record above 52,600 before it settled near 51,900, while the Nasdaq slipped about 0.5% to log its first four-day losing streak since February, per CNBC. The cause was the week's overall angle: Apple fell roughly 6% after raising MacBook and iPad prices due to soaring memory costs, and Microsoft dropped after hiking Xbox prices for the same reason. Caterpillar (up about 6%), UnitedHealth, and Johnson & Johnson did the heavy lifting for the blue-chip index. Layered on top was the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge: May PCE came in at 4.1% year-over-year, a three-year high, per the Commerce Department via CNBC.

Friday faded. Futures pointed lower as renewed weakness in megacap tech offset the memory-chip optimism, with the broad market drifting back toward the low-7,300s, per Trading Economics. Net for the week, the divide was stark: the Dow held near record territory while the Nasdaq nursed a multi-day losing streak. Old economy up, crowded AI down.

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😶‍🌫️ Sentiment watch

The CNN Fear & Greed Index sat firmly in Fear territory all week, reading 28 on June 24 and drifting to the mid-20s by Friday, per FinHacker and feargreedmeter tracking. That is a notable contrast to the Greed readings that defined May, and it tells you the mood has shifted from chasing records to bracing for the next shoe.

The VIX hovered around 19, climbing modestly through the week, per Trading Economics. That is elevated enough to confirm that hedging demand is real, but well short of the panic levels you might expect given a 7% one-day chip rout and a three-year high inflation print in the same five sessions. The read: this is not capitulation, it is a controlled rotation. Investors are selling crowded mega-cap tech and rotating into the broader market rather than fleeing equities altogether.

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🏆 Best performers

The winners clustered around two themes: anyone selling memory or memory equipment into the AI shortage, and the old-economy Dow names that money rotated into.