Here's what powered the stock market higher during its short and sweet record week

CNBC

15 hours ago

Short and sweet: That was this week's stock market in a nutshell. The second half of the year kicked off in record style, with both the S & P 500 and the Nasdaq closing at multiple all-time highs, including in Thursday's holiday-shortened session. The U.S. stock market is closed on Friday for the Fourth of July. Extending its stunning comeback from its April sell-off, Club stock Nvidia broke all kinds of records this week as its market value topped $3.9 trillion on Thursday. It ended the day up 1.3% at $159.34 a share, good for a $3.89 trillion market cap. To fully appreciate the current bullishness on Wall Street, we have to look back on the volatile second quarter in the market, which ended Monday. Considering the Nasdaq lost over 12% in the first week of the quarter on President Donald Trump's "reciprocal" tariff announcement, it was incredible to see the tech-heavy index close out the April-to-June period with a 17.75% gain. That was the Nasdaq's best quarterly performance since the early days of Covid, when it gained over 30% in the second quarter of 2020, as the Federal Reserve cut interest rates to zero and pumped money into the economy to prevent economic Armageddon from the pandemic. The S & P 500, meanwhile, advanced 10.57% in this year's second quarter, recovering from a greater-than-11% decline in the first week of April. The board market index saw its best quarter since Q4 of 2023, when it gained 11.24%. Eight out of the 11 sectors advanced in the April-to-June period, with technology leading the way with 23.5% gain. The worst performing sector was energy, which lost 9.37% in Q2, its worst quarter since Q3 of 2020. The bulk of the losses in energy came in the waning days of the second quarter when oil prices tanked following the U.S. bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites. The market deemed the U.S. involvement in the Israel-Iran conflict as a non-systemic risk and West Texas Intermediate crude sank nearly 9% for the quarter. In the absence of any major headlines out of the Mideast and Trump's Wednesday announcement of a framework for a trade deal with Vietnam, the S & P 500 and Nasdaq each advanced for the week, up 1.7% and 1.6%, respectively. Capitol Hill is on the precipice of delivering the president a major legislative victory, with the final passage of the "big, beautiful bill" of spending priorities and tax cuts expected soon after clearing a key procedural vote in the House . Ironically, a strong jobs report Thursday cut both ways for the president. On the one hand, more hiring and a lower unemployment rate shows the resiliency of the economy in the face of the tariff and geopolitical uncertainty. That was a win for Trump. But on the other hand, strength in the economy weakens the president's argument for immediate Federal Reserve interest rates cuts. In fact, on the eve of the government's June employment report and following a much weaker-than-expected ADP private-sector jobs reading, the president posted on social media that Fed Chairman Jerome Powell should resign. Trump was quiet on the rate front on Thursday. That's because payrolls for last month grew by 147,000, much more than the Dow Jones estimate for 110,000. The nation's unemployment rate in June dipped to 4.1% when a slight uptick to 4.3% had been expected. To be sure, much of that unemployment rate decline can be attributed to fewer people working or looking for jobs. Average hourly earnings for last month increased by a less-than-expected 3.7% versus the year0ago period and were below the 3.8% gain seen in May. This week, we got positive updates from the banks, which were free to update capital allocation plans following the conclusion of the Fed's stress tests. Club holdings Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo were the two standout winners this year, and both of them increased their dividends . Goldman hiked its quarterly payout by 33% to $4 per share. Wells Fargo boosted its dividend 12.5% to 45 cents per share. For Wells, the stress test was just one more bit of good news since the 2018 Fed-imposed $1.95 trillion asset cap was lifted early last month. Another positive update within the portfolio came Monday when Jim Cramer interviewed Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on "Mad Money." In the wide-ranging interview, Jassy clearly laid out the massive opportunity he sees in artificial intelligence, as well its long-term bets such as its Project Kuiper satellite internet service. Jim is optimistic that Kuiper could eventually help Amazon's Prime program add more members. The interview came ahead of the company's first-ever four-day Prime Day, which kicks off Tuesday and goes to Friday. Over at Meta Platforms, we learned more about CEO Mark Zuckerberg's "superintelligence" ambitions, as he authored a memo to employees explaining the new internal structure for AI research at the company. As we wrote in an analysis piece Tuesday, Zuckerberg's costly push to hire the best and brightest AI minds hasn't cost Meta stock yet because investors believe the payoff will be worth it. Home Depot , meanwhile, announced that Monday that it would acquire GMS, a building materials distributor that specializes in products such as drywall, steel studs and insulation. Including debt, the deal gives GMS an enterprise valuation of $5.5 billion. While we understand Home Depot's desire to push further into the world of professional contractors — building on last year's pricey takeover of SRS Distribution — Jim said he wishes the money spent on GMS was instead spent repurchasing stock because he believes Home Depot shares are considerably undervalued. Finally, the S & P Short Range Oscillator ended Thursday's session even further into overbought territory at 8.25% (the threshold to determine overbought or oversold conditions is plus or minus 4%, respectively). While markets can stay overbought for a while, we like to look for areas to raise cash when we reach these levels as they indicate a near-term pullback is increasingly likely. (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long NVDA, AMZN, META and HD. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. 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