Key keywords: July 2026 US stock market performance, Dow Jones 550-point gain, Q2 2026 corporate earnings beats, July 2026 oil price decline, Nasdaq chip stock downturn, 2026 Federal Reserve rate cut expectations, S&P 500 July 2026 performance, AI chip inventory adjustment On July 28, 2026, U.S. major stock indexes closed mostly higher, driven by better-than-expected second-quarter corporate earnings, while a sharp drop in oil prices eased inflation concerns and a selloff in semiconductor stocks limited gains for the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite. The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 549.72 points, or 1.38%, to end the session at 40,321.45, notching its biggest single-day gain in three weeks. The S&P 500 climbed 0.82% to settle at 5,729.83, with 7 out of its 11 sectors finishing in positive territory, led by consumer discretionary, financials, and industrial names. The Nasdaq Composite, however, slipped 0.21% to 17,892.41, weighed down by steep losses across leading chipmakers. Of the 56% of S&P 500 companies that have reported Q2 2026 earnings as of market close Friday, 78% have topped consensus analyst profit estimates, with an average earnings beat of 6.2% above expectations. Industrial giant Caterpillar led Dow gainers with a 4.7% jump after reporting 12% year-over-year revenue growth driven by strong construction and mining equipment demand in North America and Southeast Asia. Financial heavyweight JPMorgan Chase rose 3.1% after its net interest income came in $320 million above forecasts, as higher-than-expected consumer loan volumes offset margin pressure from recent rate cuts. On the energy front, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell 3.2% to $72.18 per barrel, while Brent crude dropped 3% to $77.09 per barrel, after reports surfaced that OPEC+ is considering a 500,000 barrel per day production increase starting in September to address tight global supply, paired with fresh data showing weakening manufacturing fuel demand in the Eurozone and China. The sharp drop in energy prices boosted shares of airline and retail stocks, with Delta Air Lines climbing 5.2% and Walmart rising 2.9% on expectations that lower fuel costs will lift profit margins and boost consumer discretionary spending. The Nasdaq’s underperformance was driven by a 3.8% drop in NVIDIA shares after the chipmaker issued Q3 revenue guidance that came in 2% below analyst consensus, citing temporary inventory adjustments for its flagship AI GPUs among large cloud service providers. Peer chipmakers AMD and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. fell 2.7% and 2.2% respectively, dragging the broader semiconductor sector down 1.8% for the session. Traders are now pricing in a 68% probability of a 25-basis-point Federal Reserve interest rate cut at the September FOMC meeting, according to CME Group’s FedWatch Tool, as falling energy prices are expected to push headline CPI down by 0.3 percentage points in August, further easing inflation pressures.