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US stocks moved higher on Friday as Amazon and semiconductor shares supported a second day of gains on Wall Street. The Nasdaq led the advance, while Apple’s sharp decline limited the broader technology rebound.
The session followed several days of sharp market swings. Investors tracked technology earnings, Federal Reserve policy, higher oil prices, and tensions involving Iran. Markets also assessed whether cloud revenue could support heavy artificial intelligence spending.
The Nasdaq Composite gained 0.87% at the opening bell and reached 25,340.71. The S&P 500 added 0.33% to 7,462.13. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.05% to 52,235.03. Amazon’s earnings rally provided the main support for the technology-heavy Nasdaq.
Semiconductor shares also extended Thursday’s rebound. Micron and AMD ranked among the stronger chip stocks during early trading. Microsoft had already lifted the technology sector on Thursday after reporting stronger Azure cloud growth. Its results eased some concerns about large AI infrastructure budgets.
Amazon shares climbed about 13% during Friday’s early session. The company reported second-quarter revenue of $200.6 billion. Amazon Web Services sales rose 37% from one year earlier to $42.2 billion. That marked the cloud division’s fastest growth in 18 quarters.
The cloud result supported Amazon’s spending plans. Amazon raised its projected 2026 capital expenditure to $220 billion from $200 billion. The company plans to direct much of that money toward data centres, chips, robotics, and other technology. Amazon also reported demand that exceeded its available computing capacity.
Apple shares fell almost 9% despite beating quarterly profit and revenue forecasts. Fiscal third-quarter revenue increased 16% to $109.42 billion. Net income reached $29.79 billion, while earnings rose to $2.02 per share. Strong iPhone and Mac sales supported the quarter.
However, Apple forecast revenue growth of 9% to 11% for the current quarter. Analysts had expected growth of about 12%. Apple cited supply limits tied to advanced chips and memory components. Services revenue rose 12% to $30.7 billion but missed the $31.4 billion analyst estimate.
Meanwhile, the Employment Cost Index rose 0.9% during the second quarter. Wages and salaries increased 0.9%, while benefit costs rose 1%. Compensation costs increased 3.4% during the 12 months ending in June.
The quarterly increase came in slightly above the 0.8% market estimate. Treasury yields moved higher after the report as traders reviewed the outlook for interest rates. The data followed another week of debate over inflation, labor costs, oil prices, and future Federal Reserve decisions.
Investors added a net $11.83 billion to US equity funds during the week ending July 29. The inflow ended two straight weeks of withdrawals. Large-cap funds attracted $11.57 billion, their strongest weekly net purchase since June 24.
Technology funds received $4.9 billion, while financial funds added $1.96 billion. Mid-cap funds recorded $2.29 billion in outflows. Small-cap funds lost $196 million. UBS investment chief Mark Haefele said, “We remain constructive on the AI growth story.”
The Texas Stock Exchange expanded trading to all National Market System securities on Friday. The Dallas-based exchange started live trading in a small group of securities on July 10. It then added thousands of symbols through a staged rollout during July.
TXSE now competes for trading activity with established Wall Street venues, including Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange. The exchange operates premarket, regular, and post-market sessions. It plans to start exchange-traded product listings in September and corporate listings in October.
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