Falcon’s View – Week ending 3 July 2026

Performance

S&P 500: +1.76%
NASDAQ 100: +0.72%
My portfolio: +0.98%

Market pulse

U.S. equities finished higher in a holiday-shortened trading window, but the strength was uneven. The S&P 500 rose 1.76%, materially outperforming the NASDAQ 100’s 0.72% gain. The market opened the period with a relief rally after the previous week’s AI and technology selloff, helped by quarter-end positioning and a rebound in mega-cap technology. But the rally lost momentum on 1–2 July as the semiconductor and AI-hardware trade sold off again. The result was a positive week for the broader market, but a much more mixed one underneath the index surface. Index closes moved from 7,354.02 to 7,483.24 for the S&P 500 and from 29,118.24 to 29,329.21 for the NASDAQ 100.

The most important macro catalyst was the softer June employment report. Nonfarm payrolls rose by only 57,000, unemployment held at 4.2%, and prior months were revised lower. That reduced immediate Fed-hike fears and helped broader risk appetite, especially in blue-chip, defensive, and rate-sensitive parts of the market. But the benefit did not flow evenly into the most crowded AI hardware names. On 2 July, Reuters reported that the semiconductor index fell 5.4% for a second straight day, while the Nasdaq declined even as the Dow reached a record.

The market’s internal message was clear: investors were still willing to buy AI exposure, but they became more selective about where. Software, cybersecurity, enterprise AI, and selected blue-chip names performed well. Crowded semiconductor, memory, server, and AI-infrastructure names were punished. The S&P 500 held up better because breadth improved outside chips, while the NASDAQ 100 lagged because of its heavier exposure to semiconductors and mega-cap technology.

Crowd vs. price

Investor attention remained concentrated in AI, but price action became more discriminating. The market rewarded companies with software-like margins, visible recurring revenue, and immediate AI-adjacent demand.

Holdings & Watchlist Notes

CrowdStrike (CRWD)

+10.67%

CrowdStrike was one of the strongest U.S.-listed holdings, rising more than 10% over the period. The move was driven by a combination of bullish analyst commentary, strong platform-security demand, and positioning around its 4-for-1 stock split, which began trading on a split-adjusted basis on 2 July. Wells Fargo’s checks pointed to continued enterprise spending on platform-based cybersecurity, while CrowdStrike’s recent results showed strong ARR growth, record net new ARR, and continued momentum in AI-security products. The clean read is that CrowdStrike worked because investors treated it as a high-quality AI-security infrastructure company rather than a generic software name.