No images? Click here ![]() By Connor Smith | Thursday, July 10 Zen. A broad market rally plus AI-stock buying combined to push two of the three major indexes to record closes. The S&P 500 rose 0.3% to top Friday's record close by about a point. The Nasdaq Composite, which hit a record yesterday, rose 0.1% to build on that milestone. The Dow Jones Industrial Average actually led the pack with a gain of 0.4%, but it's still a few hundred points, or 0.8%, away from its Dec. 4 closing high of 45,014.04. AI stocks continued to roar higher, with the iShares Semiconductor ETF rising 1% and Nvidia finishing with a market cap north of $4 trillion. Yesterday it became the first U.S. company to cross that threshold, and today it was the first to finish the day there. It wasn't just the AI show, though. Big days for American Express, McDonald's, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Caterpillar helped propel the Dow. Only 10 of 30 stocks in the index were down, and its laggards included some of the smaller stocks in the stock-price-weighted index. Nine of the 11 major S&P 500 sectors rose, and eight were up more than 0.5%. Communication services and technology were the only sectors that lagged, as Wall Street sold software stocks like Autodesk and Palo Alto Networks. Mizuho's Daniel O’Regan flagged worries about software firms facing competition from AI. “Many are saying it’s one of the main reasons why Software is lagging so much,” he writes. Whatever the cause, the rest of the market is cruising along. Traders are ignoring the risks that President Donald Trump moves forward with the bulk of the tariffs he's promised for Aug. 1. Concerns about higher prices and weakness in the economy have faded from the foreground. The CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX, fell to 15.78, its lowest levels since February. It's not surprising the market's fear gauge is zen during a week in which the economic calendar has been barren. But big banks will kick off earnings season next week, and the market is priced for perfection. It feels a lot like last year, when the Nasdaq was cruising heading into second-quarter earnings in July—until a weaker-than-expected employment report in early August sent stocks briefly tanking. That time around, things were better than they looked. Wall Street is betting big that's still the case. More on betting below... ![]() DJIA: +0.43% to 44,650.64 The Hot Stock: United Airlines +14.3% Best Sector: Consumer Discretionary +1.1% ![]() ![]() ![]() The House Always Wins? Venture Capital firms have invested $2 billion in gambling businesses since the Supreme Court paved the way for states to legalize sports betting in 2018, my Barron's colleague Nick Devor writes. Now, some of those firms are betting on treatments for problem gambling. Nick reports:
Nick cites a Siena College survey showing that half of American men under 50 have an account with a digital sportsbook, while The Lancet medical journal predicts 8.9% of adult sports bettors could have a gambling disorder.
Nick has previously reported on state grants for gambling addiction treatment being mired in red tape. As a result, some advocates for problem gambling services say they can use all the help they can get.
You can read more of Nick's reporting here. ![]() The CalendarThe Treasury Department releases the U.S. budget statement for June tomorrow. Through the first eight months of fiscal 2025, which began last October, the U.S. had a budget deficit of $1.4 trillion, compared with a deficit of $1.2 trillion over the same period in fiscal 2024. ![]() What We're Reading Today
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