The Prime Daily: 03 July 2026

U.S. stocks closed mixed Thursday, with the Dow hitting a fresh record high on a weak jobs report while chip and AI stocks extended a steep sell-off.

The Dow Jones rose 1.1% to a record close of 52,899, lifted by a cooler-than-expected June jobs report that dimmed the odds of a late-July rate hike.

The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.8% to 25,832.67 as semiconductor and AI infrastructure names sold off sharply. For the week, the S&P gained 1.7%, the Nasdaq 2.1%, and the Dow 2%, capping a holiday-shortened week of gains ahead of the July 4 weekend — and following the market’s best quarterly advance in six years.

Jobs report cools rate-hike bets. The Bureau of Labour Statistics reported nonfarm payrolls rose by just 57,000 in June, well short of the roughly 113,000–114,000 consensus estimate and down from May’s downwardly revised 129,000. The unemployment rate edged down to 4.2%. Gains came in professional and business services, social assistance, and health care, while leisure and hospitality lost jobs. The soft reading reinforces the case for the Fed to hold rates steady.

Chip and AI stocks lead losses. Semiconductor and AI infrastructure shares extended their slide, with KLA Corp down more than 11%, SanDisk off over 10%, Nebius Group down more than 17%, and CoreWeave falling over 13%. Micron, Applied Materials, and Nvidia also posted steep declines.

Sentiment was pressured by Meta’s plans to sell its own cloud computing capacity and reports that Apple is in talks to source chips from Chinese manufacturers — both of which fuelled concerns about excess capacity and intensified competition.

The Indian rupee weakened for the fourth consecutive session yesterday, depreciating by 14 paise to close at 95.39, making it one of the worst-performing Asian currencies. Early gains driven by intervention failed to sustain, with the currency ending near the day’s low amid persistent dollar demand from corporates.

Nifty advanced for the second consecutive session, gaining 169 points to close at 24,175. The index decisively surpassed the key near-term resistance and closed on a strong note. It is now targeting the 200-day DEMA, placed near 24,422, as the next upside level, while immediate support has shifted higher to the 24,000–24,050 zone. The small-cap index continued to outperform, scaling a fresh 52-week high.