MARKET WRAPS
STOCKS: U.S. stocks fell as a deepening selloff in semiconductor shares and a sharp drop in Netflix extended a bruising week for technology investors.
TREASURYS: Treasury yields edged lower as the economy remained solid despite lingering geopolitical tension.
FOREX: The WSJ Dollar Index rose for a second consecutive session.
COMMODITIES: Crude futures posted double-digit weekly gains as the U.S. widened its military strikes against Iranian targets and Iran hit out at neighboring Gulf countries. WTI ended Friday's session up 4.5% at $82.49 and Brent rose 4.6% to $88.10 a barrel, with both benchmarks up 16% on the week.
HEADLINES
The U.S. and Iran Creep Toward a Wider War With Escalating Attacks
Fighting between the U.S. and Iran has expanded, with the American military striking a broader range of targets and moving jet fighters into the Middle East while Tehran launches attacks across the Persian Gulf.
The fighting is focused on control of the Strait of Hormuz but this round raises the risk of a return to a larger war. The U.S. is hitting bridges and other targets in Iran's interior to increase pressure across Iran to force an end to attacks on Gulf shipping, after a deal to open the waterway collapsed last week. Iran has responded with broader and deadlier attacks.
A return to a wider conflict would put upward pressure on oil prices-which have already risen more than 10% this week-and weigh on the global economy, risks President Trump has made clear concern him. Iran also faces a massive rebuilding challenge and a population deeply unhappy with the government.
Consumer Sentiment Climbed in July, per Michigan Survey
Americans' economic mood improved earlier this month as gasoline prices cooled, according to the preliminary results of the University of Michigan's monthly survey.
The survey's sentiment index rose to 54.4 in its initial July reading, from 49.5 in June. Analysts polled by The Wall Street Journal were anticipating the index would reach 50.5.
The initial result is based on responses that came in between June 23 and July 13. During that stretch, the average U.S. gasoline price was $3.86, down from an average price of $4.49 during May, according to AAA data.
Apple and Nvidia Vie for Wall Street's Crown
Apple momentarily edged out Nvidia to reclaim its title as the most valuable publicly traded company in the U.S.
Apple's market capitalization hit $4.91 trillion Friday, with Nvidia right behind at $4.83 trillion in early-morning trade, before the tech giants flipped back again in midday trade.
Nvidia was the darling of Wall Street for the past year as chip scarcity drove an unprecedented premium on hardware and tech giants scrambled for its products. But its stock has proved volatile amid doubts that the AI build-out can continue at last year's pace.
SpaceX in Talks to Provide Computing Power for Pentagon's AI Push
SpaceX is in talks with the Defense Department about providing the agency with access to data-center capacity worth billions of dollars for running artificial-intelligence models, deepening ties between Elon Musk's company and the Pentagon.
The two sides are discussing an arrangement in which SpaceX would provide computing capacity to the department at a cost of up to several billion dollars, people familiar with the matter said. The talks are ongoing and could fall apart, the people said.
SpaceX has signed similar deals with Anthropic and Google in recent months and is now planning to greatly expand its cloud-computing efforts, people familiar with those plans said. In recent weeks, SpaceX employees have discussed plans to compete more directly with existing providers such as CoreWeave by offering capacity to AI customers at a lower price, according to people familiar with the matter.
Taylor Farms Is Recalling Its Mexican-Grown Iceberg Lettuce From U.S.
Produce supplier Taylor Fresh Foods said it was voluntarily removing all of the company's iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico from the U.S. market, after the Food and Drug Administration traced a parasitic outbreak to shredded lettuce produced in the country.
"While the FDA traceback is indicating a specific independent farm, which represents less than 1% of the U.S.'s iceberg lettuce supply, as the potential source of the outbreak, we have removed all iceberg lettuce from the region indefinitely," a company spokesperson said.
The company said that no other Taylor Fresh Foods products were affected and that none of its Taylor Farms-branded salad kits contained iceberg lettuce.
China's Moonshot AI Releases Model to Challenge Top U.S. Systems
China's Moonshot AI has launched an artificial-intelligence model it says outperforms some cutting-edge U.S. systems, the latest sign that Chinese labs can rival American counterparts in critical technology frontiers.
Moonshot said Friday that it planned to fully open-source the model, called Kimi K3, by late this month, where people will be generally free to download and adapt. With 2.8 trillion parameters dictating its decision-making, Kimi K3 is the world's biggest open-source model, according to the Beijing-based startup.
AI system parameters work like brain cells: The more a model has, the more knowledge it can store, making the count a shorthand for a model's capabilities. Some companies make the information public, while others keep it private. Anthropic, for example, hasn't disclosed how many parameters its models have, though external researchers estimate that Claude Opus 4.8, released in May, has more than 1.5 trillion parameters.
Walmart Further Shuffles Top Executives
Walmart is shuffling the leadership atop its massive U.S. business as the retailer's new chief executive continues to build his team.
Kieran Shanahan, chief operating officer for Walmart U.S., will leave the role this week, the company said in an internal memo viewed by The Wall Street Journal. Shanahan, 45 years old, will be succeeded by Kyle Kinnard, currently COO for Walmart International.
Meta Plans to Hire Top Amazon Computing Executive as It Weighs Cloud Push
A top executive at Amazon's cloud division plans to join Meta Platforms in the coming weeks, a sign of the social-media giant's growing ambitions in developing data centers and computing resources.
Dave Brown, one of the most senior executives at Amazon Web Services, will bring his nearly two decades of experience to Meta, where he will report to the company's head of infrastructure and focus on the firm's data-center build-out, according to people familiar with the matter.
Anthropic and Meta in recent weeks have discussed a future deal in which Meta would rent extra computing capacity to the AI startup, according to people familiar with the conversations. The deal talks are early and the companies haven't agreed on terms, the people said.
SEC Expected to Change Quarterly Earnings Rule Despite Public Backlash
The Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to move forward with a version of its proposal to make quarterly financial reports optional, despite being inundated with public comments that overwhelmingly oppose the idea.
The proposed rule-change, unveiled by SEC Chairman Paul Atkins in May, would give public companies the option to disclose their financial results twice a year, rather than on a quarterly basis. President Trump has long been a proponent of the idea and briefly explored it in his first term.
The SEC asked for the public's thoughts on the idea and received over 200,000 comments, a record number, according to people familiar with the matter. Many of them argued that it would harm investors and leave them with less information on which to make decisions.
TALKING POINT How to Find the Bargains in the Software Stock Wreckage
Over the past year, no industry has come under greater scrutiny than software. The once unstoppable cloud business model is facing new threats from artificial intelligence. Former highfliers like Salesforce and Adobe are being forced to prove their relevance. Their stocks get hammered with every rumor and announcement from AI labs. Despite a spring rebound, the closely followed iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector exchange-traded fund is still down 15% over the past year.
But software isn't going away, and there are companies that will survive and thrive through the AI transformation. After a year of mostly indiscriminate selling, investors are becoming more selective, recognizing there is nuance within software when it comes to AI.
So far, despite the shock of software's selloff, the pattern that's playing out is consistent with prior technology inflections, in which hardware wins first. We see that today in AI, with chips and cloud stocks soaring; The PHLX Semiconductor Index is up 108% in the past year.
This wave of spending also forces a trade-off: Higher capital expenditures on hardware means there's less money available in IT budgets for software purchases. That reality came into sharp focus this past week when IBM released disappointing results that seemed to stun investors.
"In the last few weeks of June, we saw clients shift their quarterly capex spend toward servers, storage, and memory purchases to secure supply-constrained infrastructure ahead of expected price increases," CEO Arvind Krishna said in a letter to shareholders.
Customers bought fewer IBM mainframe computers than anticipated, and less associated software. The stock fell 25% on the announcement. The good news is that other software stocks held tight-evidence of software's next, more discriminating phase.
Eventually infrastructure-even the AI models themselves-will become commoditized and the so-called application layer, i.e., software, will take over in importance and profit. The process will take years, but some existing software players will be among the winners.
--Adam Levine, Barron's
Expected Major Events for Monday
06:00/GER: Jun PPI
08:30/UK: S&P Global UK Consumer Sentiment Index
10:00/UK: Jun Aluminium Production report
12:30/CAN: Jun CPI
14:00/US: Jun Leading Indicators
All times in GMT. Powered by Onclusive and Dow Jones.
Expected Earnings for Monday
AGNC Investment Corp $(AGNC)$ is expected to report $0.54 for 2Q.
AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc $(AMC)$ is expected to report $-0.02 for 2Q.
AmeriServ Financial Inc $(ASRV)$ is expected to report for 2Q.
BOK Financial Corp $(BOKF)$ is expected to report $2.68 for 2Q.
Bar Harbor Bankshares (BHB) is expected to report $0.90 for 2Q.
CB Financial Services Inc $(CBFV)$ is expected to report $0.70 for 2Q.
CNB Financial Corp (Pennsylvania) $(CCNE)$ is expected to report $0.85 for 2Q.
Calix Inc $(CALX)$ is expected to report $0.16 for 2Q.
Commercial National Financial Corp (Pennsylvania) (CNAF) is expected to report for 2Q.
Crown Holdings Inc $(CCK)$ is expected to report $1.98 for 2Q.
Domino's Pizza Inc $(DPZ)$ is expected to report $4.12 for 2Q.
Dynex Capital Inc $(DX)$ is expected to report $0.33 for 2Q.
FS Bancorp Inc (FSBW) is expected to report $1.05 for 2Q.
FVCBankcorp Inc $(FVCB)$ is expected to report $0.36 for 2Q.
First Community Bankshares Inc $(FCBC)$ is expected to report $0.94 for 2Q.
First United Corp $(FUNC)$ is expected to report $1.05 for 2Q.
Franklin Financial Services Corp $(FRAF)$ is expected to report $1.44 for 2Q.
Home Bancorp Inc (HBCP) is expected to report $1.46 for 2Q.
Jewett-Cameron Trading Co Ltd (JCT-T,JCTC) is expected to report for 3Q.
Lyra Therapeutics Inc $(LYRA)$ is expected to report for 1Q.
MainStreet Bancshares Inc $(MNSB)$ is expected to report $0.53 for 2Q.
Monarch Casino & Resort Inc $(MCRI)$ is expected to report $1.67 for 2Q.
Park Aerospace Corp (PKE) is expected to report $0.14 for 1Q.
Peoples Bancorp of North Carolina Inc $(PEBK)$ is expected to report for 2Q.
RBB Bancorp (RBB) is expected to report $0.53 for 2Q.
ServisFirst Bancshares Inc (SFBS) is expected to report $1.57 for 2Q.
SmartFinancial Inc $(SMBK)$ is expected to report $0.90 for 2Q.
Steel Dynamics Inc (STLD) is expected to report $3.55 for 2Q.
SunPower Inc $(SPWR)$ is expected to report $-0.16 for 2Q.
Timberland Bancorp Inc (TSBK) is expected to report for 3Q.
WR Berkley Corp $(WRB)$ is expected to report $1.14 for 2Q.
Washington Trust Bancorp Inc $(WASH)$ is expected to report $0.77 for 2Q.
Waterstone Financial Inc $(WSBF)$ is expected to report $0.32 for 2Q.
Western Energy Services Corp (WRG.T) is expected to report for 2Q.
Wintrust Financial Corp $(WTFC)$ is expected to report $3.15 for 2Q.
Zions Bancorp NA $(ZION)$ is expected to report $1.57 for 2Q.
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This article is a text version of a Wall Street Journal newsletter published earlier today.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 17, 2026 16:43 ET (20:43 GMT)
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