Dow jumps over 300 points, S&P 500 sets new record after strong June jobs report

Traders work at the New York Stock Exchange on July 2, 2025.

NYSE

The three leading indexes finished higher on Thursday, rounding out the holiday-shortened trading week with gains.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 344.11 points, or 0.77%, to end at 44,828.53. The S&P 500 also popped 0.83% to close at 6,279.35, while the Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.02%, closing at 20,601.10.

— Sean Conlon

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC's "Money Movers" that, if trade deals are not reached by the time tariff pauses are set to expire next week, it is up to President Donald Trump whether the pauses or extended or if the import tax rates revert back to higher levels.

"We're going to do what the president wants, and he'll be the one to determine their negotiating in good faith. So, I'm not going to give people a 10% extension on national TV when they should try to get it across the finish line," Bessent said.

The Treasury Secretary also downplayed the idea that the tariffs are hurting the U.S. economy.

"What we've seen so far is that tariffs haven't hurt. The dog that didn't bark is that tariffs were going to hurt the economy, were going to hurt the market," Bessent said, noting that U.S. stocks are at record highs.

"I've made my career on listening to the market, not Wall Street economists, so I'm going to stick with what the market's telling me," he added.

— Jesse Pound

Check out the stocks making moves midday on Thursday:

• Solar stocks — Companies tied to renewable energy rose in midmorning trading as President Donald Trump's megabill crept closer to passage before a White House July 4 deadline. While the measure has no new carveouts for clean energy, earlier this week the Senate version of the bill dropped a tax on solar and wind projects. Panel manufacturer First Solar jumped 8%, and manufacturer of solar microinverters Enphase Energy added 5%. The Invesco Solar ETF (TAN) advanced more than 3%.
• CrowdStrike — The cybersecurity company saw shares surge roughly 4%. Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives lifted his price target on the stock to $575 from $525, citing "increased momentum in the field around its cyber platform approach. … CrowdStrike remains one of our favorite tech names and we are seeing deal momentum spread with AI also a clear tailwind for this well positioned tech leader," he wrote Thursday.
• Synopsys, Cadence Design Systems — Shares of the Silicon Valley-based chip designers rallied more than 4% each. The U.S. government lifted restrictions on exporting chip design software to China, according to announcements from companies in the industry.

Read the complete list of stocks here.

— Darla Mercado

Burford Capital, a UK-based, litigation finance company that also trades in the U.S, surged about 19% this week after a provision to make litigation finance taxable was stripped from the reconciliation bill making its way through Congress on Capitol Hill.

On Tuesday, Burford said that the Senate Parliamentarian had ruled that proposed tax provisions relating to litigation finance included in the Senate's draft of the budget reconciliation bill "are not eligible for inclusion in the bill."

— Contessa Brewer, Scott Schnipper

Thirty-six S&P 500 stocks secured fresh 52-week highs during Thursday's session. Of those stocks, 25 scored new all-time highs. Here are some of those names that reached that milestone:

• Royal Caribbean trading at all-time high levels back to its IPO in April 1993
• American Express trading at all-time high levels back to its IPO in May 1977
• Capital One trading at all-time high levels back to its IPO in November 1994
• Goldman Sachs trading at all-time high levels back to its IPO in May 1999
• JPMorgan trading at all-time high levels back to its IPO in 1983
• Loews trading at all-time highs back through our history to 1972
• Morgan Stanley trading at all-time highs back to its merger with Dean, Witter, Discover & Co in 1997
• Nasdaq trading at all-time high levels back to April 2003
• CrowdStrike trading at all-time highs back to its IPO in June 2019
• Nvidia trading at all-time high levels back to its IPO in January 1999
• Oracle trading at all-time high levels back to its IPO on March 12, 1986

By contrast, Centene hit a new 52-week low in the session, with shares trading at lows not seen since March 2017.

— Christopher Hayes, Sean Conlon

Russell 2000 in 2025

Stocks opened Thursday's session in the green.

The S&P 500 rose 0.4% shortly after the opening bell, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.7%. Both indexes scored new all-time intraday highs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also climbed 87 points, or 0.2%

— Sean Conlon

Needham analyst Laura Martin now has a rosier view of Meta Platforms but still is not ready to recommend the stock.

Martin upgraded Meta Platforms to hold from underperform, saying in a note to clients that the Facebook-parent company has better labor productivity than eight other Big Tech and media peers that she covers.

"META's business model was #1 in many labor productivity metrics in FY24. For example, META reported the highest [free cash flow per full time employee] for FY24 and the 3rd highest Rev/FTE for FY24," the note said.

However, Martin stayed at just a hold rating because labor productivity appears to be slowing at the same other spending, like capital expenditures and the investments in Scale AI, are growing.

"Why buy META now, when META admits they are in front of a 2-3 year investment cycle with unknowable [returns on invested capital]," the note said.

— Jesse Pound

The Bureau of Labor statistics reported Thursday that the economy added 147,000 jobs last month, beating out expectations. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected an increase of 110,000 jobs.

The unemployment rate came in at 4.1%, below a consensus forecast of 4.3%.

— Fred Imbert

These are some of the stocks moving before the bell:

• Cadence Design Systems, Synopsys — Shares of both U.S.-listed chip designers rallied after the U.S. government lifted restrictions on exporting chip-design software to China, according to announcements from companies in the industry. Cadence Design Systems jumped more than 5%, while Synopsys gained more than 6%.
• Datadog — Shares climbed 9.4% after S&P Global said the cloud monitoring stock would join the S&P 500 before trading commences on July 9.

Click here for the full list.

— Alex Harring

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives hiked his price target on cloud software maker Datadog to $170 from $140 after the company's announced inclusion into the S&P 500 index. Ives' revised target implies upside of 26%.

"While the investment community largely expected Robinhood or Applovin to join the index, DDOG was selected over these names as the company's platform continues to gain momentum within the observability space especially with AI front and center," Ives said.

Datadog will replace Juniper Networks in the S&P 500 next week following its acquisition by Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

"We believe that DDOG is well-positioned to continue gaining share within the observability space with elevated usage for its AI cohort across its enterprise customer base as the company's new go-to-market motion leads to elevated deal flow for advanced capabilities to monitor cloud migration and digital transformation projects," Ives said.

Shares were up more than 9% in the premarket.

— Fred Imbert

Short interest in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 "has been rising alongside the rally, suggesting a reversal strategy — investors selling into strength, possibly as a hedge or due to skepticism about the recovery," according to a team of researchers at S3 Partners, a Wall Street firm that specializes in tracking short interest.

"Despite a 25% selloff earlier in the year followed by recovery, short interest in both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq has continued to rise steadily this year," the researchers said.

S&P 500 short interest as a percentage of total float has climbed above 5.8% from about 5.4% when the year began, while Nasdaq-100 short interest has widened to about 6.1% from less than 5.2%.

S3 noted that while the &P 500 has steadily recovered to new all-time highs, the index is only 6% higher for the year through Wednesday. "In contrast, most global markets have posted gains of 15% to 20%. Among major indices, only a few have underperformed the S&P, placing it well below the global average."

— Scott Schnipper

Online travel company Tripadvisor jumped after The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that activist investor Starboard Value has taken a stake of more than 9%.

Tripadvisor shares were last up more than 8% in extended trading. The stock is up 1.5% in 2025.

Tripadvisor shares in the past day

DDOG 5D chart

Datadog will be added prior to the opening of trading on Wednesday, July 9. The stock will replace Juniper Networks, which was acquired by Hewlett Packard Enterprise on July 2.

— Lisa Kailai Han