This week’s stock shocks as of 3rd July, 2026

Watching US markets week to week without context is just noise. This week the market clawed back last week’s brutal AI selloff, powered the Nasdaq and Dow to fresh records, and closed out its best quarter since 2020, all while quietly bracing for the one number that could undo it: the June jobs report, landing Thursday morning before the long holiday weekend. That is 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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Just a week ago, the AI trade was in freefall. This week it staged one of the sharpest reversals of 2026: chips ripped, the Dow crossed 52,000 for the first time in history, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq printed new records to cap the strongest quarter Wall Street has seen since the 2020 rebound. The catch? The whole move rested on a two-day snapback in the most beaten-down names, and a jobs report with the power to reprice everything was still sitting in front of the holiday.

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📊 Market recap

The week was a story of redemption after a wreck. The prior week had been ugly: a five-session losing streak that knocked the Nasdaq down roughly 4.6% and the S&P 500 about 2%, per CNBC, as fears over AI spending, a possible delay to OpenAI’s IPO, and SpaceX’s rough public debut sent semiconductors tumbling. This week flipped the script almost immediately.

Monday was a blast of relief. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 52,000 for the first time ever, finishing around 52,180, up roughly 0.6%, per CNBC, while the S&P 500 gained about 1.2% and the Nasdaq surged more than 2%. Alphabet made its debut in the Dow, replacing Verizon, and jumped nearly 5% on its first day as a member. The chip complex came roaring back, with the VanEck Semiconductor ETF up more than 3% and names like Astera Labs, KLA and Applied Materials leading a violent turnaround, per CNBC.

Tuesday was quarter-end, and the tape stayed strong. All three major averages rose again, with the Dow notching a second straight record close near 52,320, the S&P 500 settling around 7,450, and the Nasdaq closing near 26,214, per CNBC and TheStreet. Chips did the heavy lifting once more: AMD jumped about 7.7%, Intel added roughly 6%, and Nvidia rose about 2.6%, per Trading Economics. The session closed the books on a remarkable quarter, the best for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq since 2020, per Schwab.

By midweek, the market handed the microphone to the labour market. The back half of this holiday-shortened week was all about jobs: a steady drumbeat of ADP private payrolls and ISM manufacturing on Wednesday, remarks from new Fed chair Kevin Warsh, and, most importantly, the June nonfarm payrolls report due Thursday morning, the last major data before US markets closed Friday for Independence Day. After a quarter defined by AI, the final word this week belonged to the jobs number.

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😶‍🌫️ Sentiment watch

Here is the week’s strangest wrinkle: the indexes hit records, but the mood did not celebrate. CNN’s Fear & Greed Index sat in Fear territory, around 27, per readings compiled from CNN Business, even as the Dow and Nasdaq printed all-time highs. The gauge is a smoothed composite, so last week’s washout was still dragging on its momentum, breadth and volatility inputs, and two green days were not enough to pull it back toward neutral.

Volatility told the calmer story. The VIX collapsed into the mid-teens, around 16 to 17, per Cboe data, well down from the low-20s spike during last week’s selloff. That combination, a fear reading on sentiment but a low VIX, captures a market that is nervous about the setup rather than the tape: dip-buyers showed up in force, but nobody is convinced the all-clear has sounded. The tell to watch is breadth. As of Monday, about 64% of S&P 500 stocks traded above their 50-day average, up from roughly 50% a month earlier, per Schwab, a quiet sign the rally is broadening even as the headline gauges flash caution.

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🏆 Best performers

The winners split into two camps: the AI and chip names roaring back from last week’s rout, and a handful of idiosyncratic corporate stories.

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💔 Worst performers

The laggards were mostly company-specific pain, plus the old-economy names left behind as money crowded back into chips.