Overnight US stocks | Three major indices closed higher, with the Dow posting its best first-half performance in five years.

On Tuesday, the three major indices closed higher, marking the end of a strong first half and second quarter of 2026. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (Dow) rose 8.85% in the first half of the year, marking its best first-half performance since 2021 (when it rose 12.7%). The S&P 500 Index rose by 9.55% in the first half of the year, while the Nasdaq index performed even better with a gain of approximately 12.8%. In addition, the Russell 2000 Index rose by over 21%, marking its best first-half performance since the first half of 1991. The storage and chip sectors performed particularly well, with Sandisk (SNDK. US) surging 857%, leading the gains among S&P 500 component stocks; Micron Technology, Inc. (MU. US) rose by 304%, breaking the $1 trillion market cap mark; Intel Corporation (INTC. US) rose by 278%, Western Digital Corporation (WDC. US) rose by 270%. In the first half of the year, seven tech giants led by Microsoft Corporation (MSFT. US) declined by over 22%; Tesla, Inc. (TSLA. US) fell by 6%; Meta (META. US) dropped by 14%. On the upside, Alphabet Inc. Class CA (GOOGL. US, GOOG. US) gained by 14%; Apple Inc. (AAPL. US) rose by 6%; Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN. US) rose by 3%; NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA. US) rose by 7%. [US stocks] By the close, the Dow rose 136.46 points, or 0.26%, to 52,319.20 points; the Nasdaq rose 393.58 points, or 1.52%, to 26,213.72 points; the S&P 500 Index rose 58.93 points, or 0.79%, to 7,499.36 points. Apple Inc. (AAPL. US) and NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA. US) rose by about 2%, Micron Technology, Inc. (MU. US) rose by nearly 1%, SpaceX (SPCX. US) rose by 4%, and Sandisk (SNDK. US) rose by over 10%. The Nasdaq Golden Dragon Index closed up by 0.63%, and XPeng, Inc. ADR Sponsored Class A (XPEV. US) rose by 3.4%. [European stocks] The German DAX30 Index rose by 359.11 points, or 1.46%, to 24,995.27 points; the UK FTSE 100 Index rose by 19.74 points, or 0.19%, to 10,503.96 points; the French CAC40 Index rose by 36.66 points, or 0.44%, to 8,403.99 points; the Euro Stoxx 50 Index rose by 93.33 points, or 1.50%, to 6,324.96 points; the Spanish IBEX35 Index rose by 83.26 points, or 0.43%, to 19,470.66 points; the Italian FTSE MIB Index rose by 537.30 points, or 1.05%, to 51,700.50 points. [Asian stock markets] The Nikkei 225 Index rose by 0.86%, while the South Korean Composite Stock Price Index fell by 0.97%. [US Dollar Index] The US Dollar Index, which measures the US dollar against six major currencies, rose by 0.08% on the day, closing at 101.187 in the forex market. At the close of the New York forex market, 1 euro exchanged for $1.1420, lower than the previous trading day's $1.1425; 1 pound exchanged for $1.3255, lower than the previous trading day's $1.3257. 1 US dollar exchanged for 162.62 yen, higher than the previous trading day's 161.97 yen; 1 US dollar exchanged for 0.8083 Swiss francs, higher than the previous trading day's 0.8075 Swiss francs; 1 US dollar exchanged for 1.4204 Canadian dollars, higher than the previous trading day's 1.4203 Canadian dollars; 1 US dollar exchanged for 9.7005 Swedish kronor, lower than the previous trading day's 9.7084 Swedish kronor. [Cryptocurrency] Bitcoin fell by over 2.8%, trading at $58,612.93 at the time of writing; Ethereum fell by over 2.5%, trading at $1,571.73. [Oil] Brent crude oil settlement price for September fell by 1.3% to $72.95 per barrel; WTI crude oil price for August fell by 1.8%, closing at $69.50 per barrel. In the first half of the year, WTI crude oil rose by 21.6% and Brent crude oil rose by 20%. [Precious metals] Spot gold fell by 1.75% to $4,016.45, while spot silver rose slightly to $58.293. Prices of commodities such as gold, silver, and oil closed out the first half of 2026; with precious metals prices climbing high early in the year only to fall back, spot gold fell by over 7%, dropping over $1,500 from its peak earlier in the year; spot silver fell by approximately 18%, slashing more than half of its new high earlier in the year; spot platinum fell by over 24%, and spot palladium fell by nearly 25%. Base metal London copper prices hit new highs this year, with a 7% gain in the first half of the year; London aluminum rose by 3.7%. [Macroeconomic News] Business activity in the Chicago area cooled in June. A monthly survey released on Tuesday showed that business activity in the Chicago area slowed this month but remained better than expected. The Chicago Business Barometer fell from 62.7 in May to 56.7 in June, with the May reading being the highest since January 2022. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected a reading of 55. A reading above 50 indicates expanding activity. June marks the second consecutive month that the index has remained above 50. The decline in the index was attributed to decreases in new orders and production, although growth in supplier deliveries, backlogs of orders, and employment partially offset this decline. The new orders index fell by 11.7 points following a strong gain in May. The production index dropped by 10.4 points, almost completely erasing the previous month's gains, but still remained in the expansion zone for the sixth month in a row. The prices paid index rose by 1.6 points to its highest level since May 2022. Respondents cited rising oil and metal prices as the main drivers of price increases. US job vacancies increased, indicating stable labor demand. Job vacancies in the United States remained stable in May, indicating steady labor demand and a recent rise in wage growth. According to data released by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics on Tuesday, the number of job openings rose to 7.59 million last month, slightly higher than the revised figure for April. Economists had a median forecast of 7.30 million openings. Jobs in sectors such as construction, leisure, and hospitality increased. Job vacancies in professional and business services remained almost unchanged in May, accounting for the vast majority of job growth in April. New positions in financial activities continued to decline, making it the largest drag on job growth this year. Tuesday's report reaffirms the signals of other recent data, indicating positive momentum in the labor market. Despite inflation during the Iran war dampening consumer confidence and weakening wage growth, the impact on labor demand has been relatively minor, with consumer spending remaining strong. US single-family home prices fell slightly month-over-month in April. US single-family home prices fell slightly month-over-month in April, but the shortage of homes for sale continued to support prices. The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) reported on Tuesday that after a 0.2% increase in March (revised data), prices fell by 0.1% in April. The monthly decline in prices may reflect weak demand as tensions in the Middle East pushed oil prices higher, leading to increased inflation and mortgage rates. According to Freddie Mac, the average interest rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has risen by about 50 basis points since the conflict broke out at the end of February, with the average rate last week at 6.49%. Prices are unlikely to see a significant decline. Over the past 12 months ending in April, prices rose by 2.0%, compared to 1.8% in March. There is currently a housing shortage nationwide, especially for entry-level homes suitable for first-time buyers. The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) estimates a shortage of about 1.2 million homes. Anthropic launches Claude Sonnet 5, significantly improving agency capabilities. Anthropic has unveiled the Claude Sonnet 5 model, which it claims is the most powerful Sonnet model in terms of agency capabilities to date. The model can create plans, invoke browsers and terminals, and autonomously run operations that only larger and more expensive models could achieve months ago. Sonnet 5's performance is approaching Opus 4.8 but at a lower price, with significant enhancements in key agency dimensions such as reasoning, tool use, programming, and knowledge work compared to the previous Sonnet 4.6 model. Security assessments show that Sonnet 5 has a lower incidence of adverse events compared to Sonnet 4.6, making it safer in agency scenarios, with much lower network security task capabilities than the current Opus model. Effective immediately, Sonnet 5 is available on all packages: Free and Pro versions are used by default, and Max, Team, and enterprise users can also opt for it. The model is also available on the Claude Code and Claude platforms, with pricing set at $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens during the launch period, with discounts until August 31, 2026, after which prices will adjust to $3/$15. EIA: US crude oil daily production in April climbed to 13.93 million barrels, hitting a record high. Monthly data released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Tuesday showed that due to the Iran war pushing up oil prices and producers increasing their output, US crude oil production in April reached 13.93 million barrels per day, a new historical high. The data revealed a production increase of 216,000 barrels per day in April, with New Mexico reaching a record high of 2.37 million barrels per day. Texas crude oil production edged up by 36,000 barrels per day, reaching 5.83 million barrels per day, the highest level since last November. Texas and New Mexico are both located in the Permian Basin, accounting for about half of total US crude oil production. The third-largest oil-producing state, North Dakota, saw its crude oil production rise to 1.13 million barrels per day, also its highest level since last November. [Stock News] "Big Short" Michael Burry shorts AI and chip sectors. The real-life inspiration for the movie "The Big Short," Michael Burry, has made a new round of bearish bets targeting the artificial intelligence and semiconductor sectors. He has disclosed short positions established on Tesla, Inc. (TSLA. US) at around $416.22 per share, stating that this is part of his assessment of an "AI bubble." He has also established short positions on NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA. US), Caterpillar Incorporated, Applied Materials, and a semiconductor ETF. Burry stated in a post that these trades are part of a broader hedge against overvaluation in AI and semiconductors, without disclosing specific sizes, only indicating that he entered into short positions after a rebound in Tesla, Inc. Tech stocks continued to rise across the board despite the market's division on this news. SemiAnalysis raises expectations: NVIDIA Corporation's data center revenue may significantly exceed market expectations. NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA. US) rose by approximately 1.8% on the last trading day of the quarter, following a more than 11% pullback over the past month. This rebound was primarily driven by optimistic forecasts from the independent semiconductor research firm SemiAnalysis. The firm predicts that NVIDIA Corporation's data center computing revenue in the second half of the 2027 fiscal year will be about 20% higher than Wall Street consensus estimates, mainly based on the alleviation of supply bottlenecks and accelerated volume production of the Vera Rubin platform. The market believes that this assessment reflects the continued expansion of demand for AI infrastructure. The report pointed out that the previous supply constraints that hindered shipments of HBM4 memory have been largely resolved, and front-end wafer capacity has been pre-positioned to support shipment growth in the second half of the year. Supply chain information indicates that the transition of shipments from Blackwell to Rubin's product is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2026 and will drive demand acceleration from the third quarter onwards. The NVIDIA Corporation Vera Rubin platform entered mass production in June and is planned to be delivered to several cloud providers in the fall, including AWS, Microsoft Corporation Azure, Alphabet Inc. Class C Cloud, and Oracle, among others. The new generation HBM4 provides significant bandwidth enhancements, expected to strengthen the advantage in AI computing power performance. However, the report also noted that the Rubin Ultra's original design has been scaled down, with both scale and performance below the initial plan, leading to uncertainty in long-term revenue impact. Overall, the focus of the market remains on the continuation of the AI computing power cycle.