Wall Street starts July in the green and the Dow Jones rises by 0.65%

Wall Street opened in the green on Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average, its main indicator, up 0.65% to 39,372 points, marking the start of the first day of the second half of 2024, already a shorter week than usual due to the July 4 holiday.

Twelve minutes after the market opened, the S&P 500 index was up 0.26% to 5,474 points, and the Nasdaq technology index was up 0.16% to 17,760 points.

Pet food brand Chewy rose 7% on the stock market this morning after it was revealed that American investor Keith Gill, popularly known as ‘Roaring Kitty’, has a stake in the company.

According to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the famous meme stock king purchased just over $9 million worth of assets in the company, making him Chewy’s third-largest shareholder with a 6.6% stake.

In technology, Apple rose 1%, Alphabet fell 0.25% and chipmaker Nvidia fell 3%.

Nvidia’s fall contrasts with its remarkable rise in the first half of the year thanks to the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. During this period, it briefly reached $3.35 trillion in market capitalization and pushed up the S&P 500 by 14.5% and the Nasdaq by 18%.

While some analysts fear that the euphoria surrounding AI will fizzle out sooner or later, others expect the technology’s momentum to persist at least until the summer.

“AI has the ability to reignite productivity growth for businesses, advance technologies more quickly and efficiently, and create entirely new industries,” Kevin Philip, an analyst at Bel Air Investment Advisors, said in a note reported by CNBC on Monday.

Boeing, meanwhile, rose 2% after announcing on Sunday that it plans to buy airline Spirit AeroSystems for $4.7 billion.

Also yesterday, local media reported that the US Department of Justice plans to charge the company with fraud and offer it a plea deal to avoid going to trial.

By sector, the gains were led by public services (0.96%) and health (0.79%), while the only losses were in technology (-0.31%) and real estate (-0.29%).

Among the 30 stocks, the most notable gains were for Merck (3.5%) and Boeing (3.19%), and the biggest losses were for Intel (-1%) and Nike (-0.92%).

On other markets, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil opened on Monday with a rise of 0.64% to $82.06 a barrel, again influenced by the increase in tensions between Israel and the Lebanese Shiite paramilitary group Hezbollah.