Plus, PayPal surges 17% on a buyout offer and chip stocks drop
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What Happened in Markets Today
BlackRock led a major rally in financial stocks. Its assets under management crossed a record $15 trillion for the first time, boosting its shares by 7%. Dealmaking added fuel to Wall Street, with PayPal surging 17% on a reported $53 billion takeover offer from Stripe and Advent. Morgan Stanley rose less than 1% after its quarterly profit beat expectations.
Chip-machine supplier ASML delivered an encouraging report card on the AI boom. The Dutch company, which makes the world's most advanced chip-making equipment, reported record orders in its latest quarter and lifted its sales guidance for the second time.
Megacap tech names pushed the broader indexes higher. The Nasdaq advanced 0.6% and the S&P 500 gained 0.4% as Apple jumped 4%, closing in on a historic $5 trillion market cap. Semiconductor stocks slumped however, with Micron down 8%, as investors continued to digest IBM's massive Tuesday plunge, which stoked fears that urgent corporate spending on AI hardware is forcing companies to cannibalize their traditional IT budgets.
Treasury yields slid on bets inflation is cooling. Based on data out this week, economists forecast that the Fed's preferred core PCE gauge rose less than 0.2% in June, which could bolster the central bank's case for holding rates steady in July. Testifying before the Senate, Fed Chair Kevin Warsh stated that while the AI investment boom will likely push measured prices higher in the near term, it shouldn't necessarily be classified as inflationary.
Markets at a Glance
One Big Story
Tuesday wasn't a good day for International Business Machines. But the company's warning on second-quarter earnings, which cost it about a quarter of its market value, may also ring a bigger alarm about the state of the AI market.
What's Coming Up
-- UnitedHealth, Netflix, State Street, Intuitive Surgical, and Taiwan
Semiconductor Manufacturing will report earnings Thursday.
-- Investors will parse economic data including weekly jobless claims,
retail sales, the Philadelphia Fed business-outlook survey, pending home
sales, and business inventories.
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About Us
Markets P.M. catches you up on the day's most important markets moves, delivered after the closing bell. This email was written by David Wainer for Heard on the Street, The Wall Street Journal's home for financial analysis and commentary. To send us your feedback, reply to this email. Got a tip for us? Here's how to submit.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 15, 2026 16:29 ET (20:29 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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