Nasdaq Leads Rebound as Intel-Apple Chip Deal Offsets Oil-Sector Drag

The Thursday session did what Wednesday’s post-Fed selloff failed to do: it separated rate fear from growth appetite. The Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.91% to 26,517.93, the S&P 500 climbed 1.09% to 7,500.67, and the Russell 2000 rallied 2.12% as investors leaned back into semiconductor, memory, and AI infrastructure names. The Dow added a more modest 164 points, held back by weakness in IBM, Chevron, JPMorgan, and several defensive laggards.

The rebound was not a simple “all clear” after Kevin Warsh’s first Fed meeting. Treasury yields stayed elevated, the dollar held near 100.23, and Friday’s Juneteenth holiday means the next regular U.S. cash session is Monday. But two catalysts gave buyers enough cover to press risk: an Intel-Apple manufacturing headline that reignited the domestic chip narrative, and fresh optimism around the U.S.-Iran deal that kept crude under pressure and lowered the inflation impulse from energy.

Under the surface, the market was sharply bifurcated. Chips, memory, software infrastructure, and selected cyclicals did the lifting. Energy, staples, health care, IT services, and steel carried the drag. That is the key read for Monday: investors are still willing to buy growth, but they are no longer giving every earnings story the benefit of the doubt.

Closing Scoreboard

What Happened

Markets came in carrying Wednesday’s Warsh problem: the Fed had held rates at 3.50% to 3.75%, but the new chair’s first meeting made clear that the committee is more willing to discuss hikes than investors had priced. That should have kept a lid on duration-heavy equities. Instead, the rate move was partly neutralized by a renewed drop in oil and a company-specific chip catalyst strong enough to pull money back into the Nasdaq.

The U.S.-Iran peace framework mattered because it changed the inflation channel. Benzinga’s market summary said crude extended its slide after a signed 14-point memorandum of understanding to extend the ceasefire and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. That headline does not erase geopolitical risk, but it reduced the immediate tail risk of another oil shock. For equities, the difference between $95 oil and mid-$70s oil is the difference between a Fed forced to fight energy inflation and a Fed that can wait for more data.

The second catalyst was more direct: Intel surged after reports and presidential comments that Apple would work with Intel on U.S. chip design and manufacturing. The move came on top of already intense speculation around domestic foundry demand, memory shortages, and AI infrastructure spending. Micron, Sandisk, Marvell, KLA, Super Micro, and several peers followed the bid. That is why the Nasdaq outperformed even though the Dow barely cleared a third of a percent.

The weakness was just as instructive. Accenture’s guidance cut hit the IT-services complex, dragging Cognizant, Globant, EPAM, and Genpact. Kroger faded after a slight EPS miss. Steel Dynamics dropped even after a strong-demand headline because its Q2 EPS outlook sat well below consensus. Investors bought the macro bounce, but they punished earnings revisions immediately.

Mega-Cap and Key Movers

Top 3 Winners and Top 3 Losers

Winner: Sandisk (SNDK) +11.1%

Sandisk finished near $2,177 after a fresh wave of buying across memory and storage names. The catalyst was not a single earnings print; it was a demand narrative that keeps getting stronger. MarketWatch’s quote feed highlighted pieces on Apple’s memory-cost pressure, Sandisk’s valuation question after its spinoff, and AI-driven storage demand. That combination pulled momentum buyers back into one of 2026’s most extended large-cap technology trades.

Winner: Intel (INTC) +10.7%

Intel was the most important single-stock story of the day. Shares jumped to $134.03 after reports and presidential comments said Apple would work with Intel on U.S. chip manufacturing. MarketWatch also flagged analyst caution that the deal could start small, but the market cared more about the strategic validation: Intel’s domestic foundry story now has a marquee potential customer at exactly the moment Washington wants more U.S.-based semiconductor capacity.

Winner: Micron (MU) +9.6%

Micron closed at $1,143.42 as memory scarcity became the cleanest AI-infrastructure trade on the board. The company benefited from headlines that even Apple may not be immune to ballooning memory-chip costs, and MarketWatch’s feed showed multiple target increases, including Rosenblatt and Stifel raising targets sharply before earnings. The move also helped explain why the Nasdaq could rally hard while several non-tech sectors were flat to lower.

Loser: Accenture (ACN) −18.0%

Accenture was the day’s cleanest negative earnings read-through. The stock was the worst S&P 500 performer after the consulting giant cut fiscal-year revenue-growth guidance, with Benzinga citing cautious enterprise spending and a slowdown in U.S. federal work. The company beat the reported quarterly EPS line on the earnings calendar, but guidance mattered more than the backward-looking number. In this tape, investors are rewarding AI infrastructure spending and punishing services models that cannot translate AI enthusiasm into near-term revenue acceleration.

Loser: Cognizant (CTSH) −10.5%

Cognizant fell in sympathy with Accenture and the broader IT-services group. The stock did not need its own new earnings miss to sell off; the market treated Accenture’s federal and enterprise-spending comments as a sector signal. A recent Berenberg downgrade to Hold from Buy added to the pressure. That is exactly the type of second-order reaction that shows up late in a maturing AI cycle: software and service providers are no longer moving together.

Loser: Steel Dynamics (STLD) −7.5%

Steel Dynamics dropped after issuing Q2 EPS guidance of $3.51 to $3.55, below the $4.16 consensus cited in the market feeds. The irony is that several headlines still described strong steel demand. The problem was expectations. After a large year-to-date run and a premium multiple for a steel name, guidance below consensus was enough to trigger profit-taking across materials-linked cyclicals.

Sector Breakdown

Technology leadership was decisive. The sector ETF snapshot showed XLK up 2.20%, and Benzinga’s market summary said the VanEck Semiconductor ETF surged more than 5% intraday as the Intel-Apple story pulled the whole chip complex higher. Energy was the clean laggard: XLE fell while oil-services ETFs sold off harder, reflecting a market that is moving from war-premium pricing toward supply-normalization pricing.

Global Markets

Global equities were mixed, which is important because the U.S. rebound did not arrive on a synchronized global risk-on day. In Asia, the Nikkei 225 jumped 1.65% to 71,053.49, helped by chip and exporter strength. The Hang Seng fell 1.59% to 23,924.81, while the Shanghai Composite slipped 0.43% to 4,090.48. India’s Sensex gained 0.33%, and Singapore’s Straits Times rose 0.70%.

Europe had a split finish. Germany’s DAX gained 0.37% to 25,026.80 and France’s CAC 40 added 0.44% to 8,467.98, but the STOXX Europe 600 fell 0.34% and the FTSE 100 dropped 1.04%. That pattern fits the day’s theme: exporters and growth-sensitive pockets got relief from lower oil and stronger U.S. tech, but defensives and commodity-linked names remained under pressure.

Fixed Income and Commodities

The bond market calmed down but did not surrender Wednesday’s message. The 10-year Treasury yield slipped to 4.449%, and the 2-year eased to 4.179%, leaving the 2s/10s spread near +27 basis points. That is a softer setup than the immediate post-Fed spike, but not a dovish one. Warsh still moved the reaction function away from easy cuts and toward data-dependent restraint.

Commodities did most of the macro relief work. WTI traded around $74.29 and Brent around $77.87, both lower on the day, as traders priced faster normalization around Hormuz and lower near-term supply disruption risk. Gold fell 1.70% to $4,307.10 as haven demand faded and the dollar stayed firm. The result was a classic “good disinflation” day for equities: energy down, volatility down, tech up.

Corporate News

Intel and Apple dominated the corporate tape. Intel’s 10.7% move, paired with Micron’s 9.6% gain and Sandisk’s 11.1% advance, turned the domestic semiconductor chain into the day’s primary equity narrative. The headline also carried political weight: U.S. chip manufacturing is now both an industrial-policy story and a market-cap story.

Accenture provided the counterweight. Its guidance cut hit the consulting cohort hard, and Cognizant’s double-digit intraday slide showed investors were willing to extrapolate the message across outsourced IT, transformation, and AI-services vendors. The read-through is uncomfortable: enterprises may still be spending on chips and infrastructure, but they are scrutinizing consulting budgets and federal-exposure risk.

Kroger and Steel Dynamics added two more reminders that expectations matter. Kroger’s earnings calendar line showed EPS of $1.58 versus a $1.59 estimate, a small miss that still pressured the shares in a weak staples tape. Steel Dynamics gave a demand-positive headline but guided Q2 EPS below consensus, proving that even cyclicals tied to infrastructure and tariffs are not immune to valuation discipline.

Economic Data

The economic calendar was lighter than the market narrative, but the one posted manufacturing print was useful. The Philadelphia Fed manufacturing survey came in at 9.8 for June, below the 11.0 consensus but far above May’s −0.4 reading. That is not a boom signal, but it is enough to keep the soft-landing argument alive while the Fed waits for cleaner inflation evidence.

Friday is the Juneteenth federal holiday, with no major U.S. economic releases scheduled. The next meaningful domestic calendar cluster comes next week, when flash PMIs, new home sales, personal income and spending, PCE inflation, durable goods, and the Q1 GDP revision give the market a better read on whether Warsh’s caution is justified.

After-Hours Movers

After-hours action was orderly rather than explosive. Five9 led the MarketWatch after-hours leaders list, while American Electric Power and Albemarle also saw modest bids. The most active list was dominated by mega-cap and semiconductor names, including Marvell, Nvidia, Intel, Apple, and Amazon, which tells us the day’s chip theme was still the liquidity center after the closing bell.

The AlphaEdge Take

Today’s rebound was healthier than a simple oversold bounce because it had identifiable leadership, lower volatility, and a genuine easing in the oil-inflation channel. The Nasdaq did not rally because investors forgot Warsh. It rallied because the market found a better near-term story: U.S. chip capacity, AI memory scarcity, and lower crude prices.

That said, the rally also exposed a narrower market than the headline index gains imply. Technology worked. Energy did not. IT services were punished. Staples lagged. Several defensives failed to attract capital even as yields remained high. This is not the broad, sleepy tape of a Fed that is ready to rescue risk assets. It is a stock-picker’s tape where the market is paying for visible growth and cutting anything with guidance risk.

For Monday, the pivot levels are straightforward. If the S&P 500 holds above 7,470 and the Nasdaq can defend the upper half of today’s range, the post-Fed recovery can extend into a second week of gains. If the 10-year moves back toward 4.50% and oil rebounds above $78 Brent, the same buyers who chased chips today may turn more selective quickly.

The AlphaEdge bottom line: today improved the tape, but it did not erase the Warsh regime shift. Stay constructive on semiconductor leadership while oil stays soft and yields cool, but treat IT-services weakness and earnings-guidance misses as a warning that the market is becoming more discriminating into Monday’s reopen.