Dow drops 305 points as Apple falls from highs: Stock market today

With many Big Tech names lining up to report quarterly results this week and next, investors, traders and speculators would prefer to focus on AI, earnings and guidance rather than uncertainty about the Middle East, inflation and interest rates. The main equity indexes reflected this balancing act on Monday.

At the closing bell, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was down 0.05% at 25,508, the S&P 500 had slipped 0.2% to 7,443, and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 0.6% at 51,841.

The front-month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures contract added 0.9% to $82.49 per barrel, and the 2-year Treasury yield ticked up to 4.208% from 4.172% on Friday.

The iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX, +0.5%) recovered after posting a 10.2% decline last week amid renewed concerns about hyperscaler spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure, as well as another threat posed by an emergent Chinese AI model.

"Despite the recent pullback," observes LPL Financial Chief Technical Strategist Adam Turnquist, citing last week's 1.6% decline for the S&P 500, "market breadth continues to improve."

As Turnquist notes, the percentage of S&P 500 stocks trading above their 200-day moving average has increased to nearly 70% from just above 50% in May, "signaling that participation beneath the surface remains considerably healthier than it was just a few months ago."

At the same time, price action remains volatile amid a cycle of escalating and de-escalating U.S.-Iran tensions.

Apple falls from high branches

Apple (AAPL, -2.1%) was one of three Magnificent 7 stocks in the red on Monday, the share price for the iPhone maker tracking back after hitting new highs on Friday, likely due to some profit-taking.

AAPL reached a fresh intraday peak of $334.99 and a closing record of $333.74 on July 17, briefly overtaking Nvidia (NVDA, +0.2%) as the biggest company in the world based on a market cap.

Tesla (TSLA, -3.0%), meanwhile, sold off ahead of its turn on the earnings calendar after the closing bell on Wednesday. Tesla pre-reported a 25% increase in EV deliveries during the second quarter.

TSLA hasn't seen much upside based on its relationship to SpaceX (SPCX, -3.3%), though the consumer discretionary stock has drifted lower in the afterburn of the biggest IPO in stock market history.

While AAPL was dragging on the index, Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL, +1.5%) was among the top-performing Dow Jones stocks on Monday, along with Amazon (AMZN, +1.1%) and Microsoft (MSFT, +2.2%).

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Alphabet is also scheduled to report second-quarter results after Wednesday's closing bell. Amazon and Apple are scheduled to report on July 30, Microsoft on July 29.

For the record, Meta Platforms (META, -0.02%) closed marginally lower on Monday. The Facebook parent is scheduled to report earnings on July 29. Nvidia will report on Wednesday, August 26.

AMC's rise is Homeric

AMC Entertainment (AMC), among the most notorious small-cap stocks in financial market history, was up as much as 27.8% on Monday after management reported the highest revenue in the movie-theater operator's more than 100 years in business.

AMC generated earnings of 14 cents per share vs a Wall Street forecast for a loss of four cents per share. Revenue grew by 14.2% to $1.59 billion, topping a consensus estimate of $1.5 billion. Adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) was up 69.6% to a company-record $321.4 million.

According to CEO Adam Aron (PDF), it's the first time AMC has surpassed $300 million adjusted EBITDA for a three-month period, and AMC also generated $190.1 million in free cash flow.

The CEO is optimistic: "This weekend's powerful debut of Universal Pictures and Christopher Nolan's THE ODYSSEY, with an encouraging media reported $124 million domestic opening, is the latest reminder of the strength of today's theatrical marketplace."

Aron says the filmed version of Homer's epic poem follows a second quarter during which six different movies posted domestic opening weekend gross box office totals of more than $75 million.

"We believe that movie theatres will enjoy, in the full twelve-months of 2026, their strongest yet post-pandemic year, at both the domestic and the global box office," the CEO concludes.

Indeed, with a year-to-date total return of almost 25% vs less than 10% for the S&P 500, the freebies aren't the only thing you can enjoy about this stock.

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