S&P 500 Adds 0.81% as Meta's In-House AI Chip Lifts Equipment Makers and Nvidia Lags

S&P 500 close: 7,543.64 (+0.81%) Nasdaq Composite: 26,206.89 (+1.30%) VIX: 15.84 (-6.27%) Sentiment: bullish

The S&P 500 closed at 7,543.64 on 9 July 2026, up 0.81%, after Reuters reported that Meta will put its own artificial intelligence accelerator into production in September and buyers rotated into the chip equipment makers and merchant silicon designers that will build it. META.US gained 4.70%, the largest single contributor to the index, while NVDA.US fell 0.66% and finished as the only large-cap chipmaker lower. Initial jobless claims printed at 215,000 against a 218,000 consensus, and the US 10-year yield eased 3 basis points to 4.539%.

What moved the index

• Chip equipment and merchant silicon: worth about +24 basis points of the 81 basis point index move. LRCX.US +6.01%, AMD.US +5.67%, MU.US +4.52%, KLAC.US +3.77%, AVGO.US +3.20% and AMAT.US +3.18% all closed higher, and SOXX.US finished +3.50%. Reuters reported that Meta's MTIA accelerator, code-named Iris, enters production in September, designed with Broadcom and manufactured by TSMC.
• The largest platforms, net: about +25 basis points. META.US +4.70% was worth roughly 14 basis points on its own. TSLA.US +3.20% and AMZN.US +1.40% added about 12 between them, AAPL.US +0.90% and MSFT.US +0.27% about 7. NVDA.US -0.66% subtracted about 5 and GOOGL.US -0.84% about 3.
• Financials: about +14 basis points. XLF.US +1.04%. GS.US +2.56%, BAC.US +1.63%, WFC.US +1.58% and JPM.US +1.47% all closed higher as the 10-year yield fell to 4.539%.
• Consumer staples and energy: about -11 basis points combined. COST.US -4.21% after June comparable sales slowed to 8.8% from 12.5% in May. PEP.US -3.25%, its second quarter earnings of $2.20 a share missing the $2.23 consensus on revenue of $24.18 billion. XLE.US -1.40% as Brent fell 2.54% to US$76.04.

Those four account for roughly 52 of the 81 basis points. The residual 29 basis points spread across the rest of the index: the Russell 2000 rose 1.22%, IWM.US +1.28%, and health care finished flat at XLV.US -0.08%.

Session highlights

• NVDA.US closed at $202.78, down 0.66%, on a day when SOXX.US gained 3.50%. Reuters reported that Meta wants independence from Nvidia and AMD as chip suppliers. AVGO.US, Meta's design partner on the accelerator, rose 3.20%.
• 215,000 initial jobless claims undercut the 218,000 consensus and fell from a revised 217,000 the week prior. Continuing claims rose 8,000 to 1.814 million.
• 4.09 million annualized existing home sales in June ran 2.4% below May and under the 4.20 million consensus. The median price hit a record $440,600.
• IONS.US -23.90% and AZN.US -5.70% shared one catalyst: the Phase 3 CARDIO-TTRansform study of eplontersen missed its primary endpoint in transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy. BBIO.US +15.12% took the other side of the same indication.
• GVA.US dropped 12.50% and ROAD.US 6.28%, neither company announcing anything, leaving civil construction the weakest industrial pocket of the session.
• IBM.US -2.23%, CRM.US -2.45% and PLTR.US -2.41% carried the morning's enterprise software weakness into the close, while memory held its pre-market bid: WDC.US +5.04%, MRVL.US +4.99% and STX.US +3.50%.

Sector scorecard

• Best: Technology, XLK.US +2.18%
• Worst: Consumer Staples, XLP.US -1.41%
• Dispersion (best minus worst): 3.59 points
• Technology held the widest internal spread. LRCX.US +6.01% and AMD.US +5.67% closed against NVDA.US -0.66%, a 6.67 point gap between the best and worst large-cap chip names inside a single sector.

Top movers

After-hours earnings

LEVI.US reported adjusted earnings of $0.28 a share after the close, against $0.24 expected, on revenue of $1.56 billion versus a $1.52 billion consensus and up about 8% from $1.45 billion a year earlier. The company lifted full-year adjusted earnings guidance to a range of $1.46 to $1.52 from $1.42 to $1.48, raised full-year sales growth guidance to 7% to 7.5% from 5.5% to 6.5%, and increased the quarterly dividend 14% to $0.16 a share. Shares traded lower after the bell. The new guidance midpoint of $1.49 sits under the $1.51 consensus. LEVI.US had closed the regular session at $23.84, down 2.17%.

Notable announcements

• MU.US +4.52%: up to $3 billion of investment in the US semiconductor supply chain, including $500 million of strategic financing for GlobalWafers America's 300mm wafer plant in Sherman, Texas, and a 10-year raw silicon wafer supply agreement.
• LASR.US +27.32%: selected for a Joint Laser Weapon System agreement supporting US cruise missile defense architecture.
• BBIO.US +15.12%: up to $1 billion of convertible preferred equity from Sixth Street, HealthCare Royalty and KKR.
• MDA.US -8.48%: $712 million share offering priced at a discount to fund a majority stake in Collecte Localisation Satellites.

Next session catalysts (ET)

• Fri 09:30: US cash open. S&P 500 futures settled at 7,586.25 (+0.76%) and Nasdaq 100 futures at 29,931.25 (+1.57%).
• Fri: DAL.US second quarter results, with consensus at $1.48 a share against $2.10 a year earlier, on revenue growth near 12.8%.
• Fri 09:30: LEVI.US trades its first regular session since Thursday's guidance raise and its after-hours decline.
• September: META.US begins production of the Iris accelerator, per the memo Reuters reported.

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