The Dow’s Big 6, Not the Tech Giants, Were July’s Stock Market Stars

All three major indices – Dow Jones Industrial Average
,

Nasdaq Composite
,

and the S&P 500 — end July with gains. They have emerged in the first seven months of the year despite concerns about high inflation, rising interest rates and a potential recession.

From Monday afternoon, the tech-heavy

Nasdaq 100

had risen 3.6% in July, marking its fifth straight month of gains. That’s the longest monthly winning streak since August 2020, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The index is up 44% in 2023 and was on pace for its best performance through the first seven months of the year on record.

Investors have been snapping up shares of technology stocks that were slated for 2022. Excitement about the future of artificial intelligence and where it might take companies has pushed up their shares.

Gains in seven tech stocks, the so-called Big Seven, have helped give the S&P 500 a 20% gain in 2023 and a 3.1% gain in July. They include Apple (ticker: AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Nvidia (NVDA), Tesla (TSLA), Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon.com (AMZN), and Meta Platforms (META).

“Tech earnings and guidance continue to deliver at an impressive pace, and the AI ​​narrative will continue to drive multiples,” Richard Saperstein, chief investment officer at Treasury Partners, wrote on Friday.

“Long-term investors should stick with big tech, which continues to deliver impressive earnings growth and cash flow. The adoption of artificial intelligence will continue to enable elevated multiples in this sector,” Saperstein said.

The Dow, meanwhile, is up 7.3% in 2023, putting it on pace for its best performance through the first seven months of the year since 2021. The Dow is up 3.4% in July alone.

Both figures are less than the Nasdaq’s gains. But while this has been the year for tech trading, the top six stocks in the Dow outperformed the big seven this month.

The top six stocks in the Dow in July were Boeing ( BA ), which was up 13% this month as of Monday afternoon; 3M ( MMM ), which rose 11%; Goldman Sachs ( GS ), which rose 10%; JPMorgan Chase (JPM), which rose 8.6%; Intel (INTC), which rose 7.8%; and International Business Machines (IBM), which rose 7%.

For July, Meta is up 11%, Alphabet is up 11%, Nvidia is up 10%, Amazon is up 2.6%, Tesla is up 2.2%, Apple is up 1.3%, and Microsoft

fell 1.4 per cent

Write to Angela Palumbo at angela.palumbo@dowjones.com