NEW YORK, June 26, 2026, 20:01 EDT
- S&P 500 ended down 0.05%, with the Nasdaq off 0.24%. The Dow dropped 0.09%. The PHLX chip index tumbled 5.3%.
- Advancers in the S&P 500 led decliners 1.8-to-1, though the index still finished lower with a split tape.
- After the bell, SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust NYSEARCA:SPY added 0.30%. Invesco QQQ Trust NASDAQ:QQQ slipped 0.06%.
- June payroll data hits Thursday, with U.S. markets closed Friday for Independence Day.
U.S. stocks finished Friday with the S&P 500 down 0.05% at 7,354.02, Nasdaq off 0.24% to 25,297.62, and the Dow lower by 0.09% at 51,876.11. The Russell 2000 added 0.1% Friday and booked a 1% gain for the week. Index losses looked modest under the surface.
Semis took the hit. The PHLX semiconductor index slid 5.3% Friday and dropped 7.9% on the week, while more S&P 500 names rose than fell, with advancers over decliners 1.8-to-1. Trading was strong—30.1 billion shares moved, well above the 20-day average of 23.1 billion. For investors, most of the selling landed in the big index names and high AI exposure stocks, not broadly across the market.
Tech didn’t show much bounce in after-hours trading. Investing.com’s after-market table listed SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust NYSEARCA:SPY up 0.30% at 7:59 p.m. ET. Invesco QQQ Trust NASDAQ:QQQ slipped 0.06%, SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (NYSEARCA:DIA) edged down 0.03%. iShares Russell 2000 ETF NYSEARCA:IWM dropped 0.28%. Apple Inc. NASDAQ:AAPL, Microsoft Corp. NASDAQ:MSFT and Amazon.com Inc. NASDAQ:AMZN traded lower among the most active. Gains for Alphabet Inc. NASDAQ:GOOGL, Micron Technology Inc. NASDAQ:MU and Nvidia Corp. NASDAQ:NVDA.
Apple (AAPL) bounced 3.1% on Friday but the stock’s gain didn’t solve the ongoing memory cost problem. The company hiked iPad and MacBook prices Thursday, blaming heavy demand for AI data-center chips and saying it can’t keep shielding buyers from higher memory and storage costs. CEO Tim Cook said Apple faces “significantly higher memory costs.” Creative Strategies CEO Ben Bajarin described the situation as “structurally tough.” Reuters
Micron went the other way. The chipmaker said customers locked in $22 billion worth of supply, sending its market value above Meta Platforms Inc. NASDAQ:META and Tesla Inc. NASDAQ:TSLA for a bit on Thursday. By Friday, the chip index slumped. That same memory crunch which benefits suppliers is catching up to device makers and inflation-linked stocks.
David Stubbs, chief investment strategist at AlphaCore Wealth Advisory, said the “capex story” is “not going away.” Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth, said the memory shock was causing “renewed inflationary pressure.” Reuters
Investors yanked $3.53 billion from U.S. equity funds for the week ended June 24, with technology sector funds hit even harder. Tech saw almost $20 billion in outflows, wiping out much of the previous week’s $21.46 billion inflow, according to LSEG Lipper data. The scale of the chip selloff is tough to write off as just a single-session move.
ON Semiconductor Corp. NASDAQ:ON dropped nearly 24% after it said it would buy Synaptics Inc. NASDAQ:SYNA in an all-stock deal valued at $7 billion. CEO Hassane El-Khoury told Reuters the move targets “physical AI”, but investors dumped Onsemi shares. Deal worries weighed on the chipmaker. Reuters
Healthcare gave some support. Moderna Inc. NASDAQ:MRNA surged nearly 13%, hitting its strongest point since 2024 after its investor day. But most of the S&P 500’s sectors still dropped—eight out of eleven fell, with industrials and materials down the most.
Macro risk is still in focus. The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that May PCE prices climbed 4.1% year over year, with core PCE up 3.4%. The University of Michigan’s final June consumer sentiment index came in at 49.5, up from 44.8 in May. But survey director Joanne Hsu said the “cost of living remains at the forefront” for consumers. Bureau of Economic Analysis
Markets get just four trading days next week and a key test from labor data. June payrolls land Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters are looking for a 110,000 job gain, down from May’s 172,000. Doug Huber, deputy chief investment officer at Wealth Enhancement, said a strong print could actually hurt stocks if it raises the risk of more rate hikes. Julia Hermann, global market strategist at New York Life Investment Management, said higher rates are the “live question” for chip-led trades. Reuters
Nike Inc. NYSE:NKE is due to report earnings next week. U.S. markets will be closed Friday for Independence Day, while the NYSE has July 3 down as the observed holiday for 2026. NYSE late trading is 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. ET. This update was filed at 20:01 EDT.
