Stock Market Today (July 20, 2026): Iran worries derail Nasdaq, S&P 500 despite modest chip comeback

Nearly two-thirds of U.S. stocks declined today, maybe with exception to technology, energy, and comm service names. Here’s a 40,000 ft view of how things went down today, with notable decliners including SpaceX (-3.34%), Tesla (-2.96%), Oracle (-3.98%), Eli Lilly (-2.73%), and others.

U.S. Central Command confirms it is striking Iran again. Crude Oil Continuous Contracts are up about 0.84% to $82.47 on the day.

The U.S. market is now closed. U.S. equities had shown flickers of hope throughout the day, with the Nasdaq (-0.05%) and S&P 500 (-0.19%) starting the day in the green, before falling into decline late in the day. They joined a struggling Russell 2000 (-0.39%) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.59%) as a rebound in tech stocks was offset by renewed geopolitical worries, an increase in Treasury yields, and disappointment from blue chips. A follow-up to this post will come shortly.

With a little less than an hour left in trading, all major indexes have fallen into decline. The Dow (-0.54%) has been down all day, but now off half a percentage point, it’s at a day low. Just 3 of the top 10 holdings in the price-weighted index in the green at the moment. 2/3rds of the index is in the red right now.

As futures opened on Sunday, the price of U.S. Crude Oil futures careened higher, testing $90/bbl. Today, they’ve settled in closer to $81/bbl, up just a few basis points on the day amid talks of escalation in the Iran War and a clearing out of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Earlier today, Bloomberg reported that the Houthis would blockade Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s largest oil exporters, as the Iran conflict dragged off. And in recent days, we’ve gotten a glimpse inside one of America’s strongest defenses against the recent swing in oil prices: it’s now at a 45 year low.

Reuters reports that a federal judge has sided with California and 11 other states in pausing Paramount Skydance’s proposed takeout of Warner bros. Discovery on anticompetitive grounds. $PSKY is down 1.1%, while $WBD is down 1.7% on the news.

Meanwhile, on the flip side of the market, growth names are dominating our Midday Movers winners. Hyperscaler hopefuls (and a lot of current/former bitcoin miners) are among the names dominating the top 20 stocks in the market today with at least a $2 billion market cap:

While the Nasdaq (+0.90%) and S&P 500 (+0.49%) are near day highs, there are still a slight majority of stocks declining today. Here are the 20 worst performers in the market with at least a $2 billion market cap:

Earlier today, Bloomberg reported that the Yemeni Armed Forces declared a “maritime embargo” against Saudi Arabia, one of the Middle East’s biggest oil exporters. The mobilization has been portended by analysts in recent weeks as a possible development which could bare significant changes in the region and oil markets. Now that it is coming to pass, it’s a move that will likely catch the eyes of nervy energy markets.

While the Nasdaq Composite (+0.65%) is leading among major indexes, it might help to look at the S&P 500 (+0.34%) to get a feel for why. Chip stocks are rebounding today, joined by some Big Tech names which had faced pressure in recent days.

The rest of the index, by contrast, is mixed, barring moves in energy today after energy prices took off amid fresh escalations in Iran this weekend. 207 holdings in the index are advancing, two are unchanged, and the remainder of the index is in the red today. That’s a pretty red-heavy skew.

The Treasury Secretary explains the U.S. dollar’s relationship with the precious metal.  He also confirmed the U.S. is still receiving gold from Venezuela.

AMC Entertainment (AMC) gained 9% in early trading after the world’s largest movie theater operator beat Wall Street’s quarterly earnings expectations.

Lumentum Holdings (LITE) rose 7.5%, while Teradyne (TER) gained 4.6%.

On the downside, Oracle (ORCL) fell 4.4%, ServiceNow (NOW) slipped 4.2%, and Adobe (ADBE) lost 4%.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) is accelerating expansion at its Arizona factory as the company continues to see a “multi-year demand mega trend” from customers, Chief Financial Officer Wendell Huang told CNBC.

The world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry is committing an additional $100 billion to expand its U.S. chipmaking footprint, driven by surging demand for artificial intelligence technology.

The investment comes amid robust customer demand in the U.S. market and strong government support, while TSMC also raised its full-year capital expenditure forecast to between $60 billion and $64 billion.

“We’re seeing this strong-structure, multi-year demand, and we do not plan to leave any food on the table for anybody else,” Huang told CNBC. “As long as the megatrend is right, then we’re able to continue to deliver the profitable growth to our shareholders,” he said.

Shares were up 1.7% in early trading.

The U.S. stock market is now open. Stocks were mixed in early trading Monday as investors weighed escalating U.S.-Iran tensions against a busy week of technology earnings reports.

The S&P 500 gained 0.63%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 0.23%, and the Nasdaq climbed 1.02%. The Russell 2000 slipped 0.42%.

TheStreet Pro contributor James “Rev Shark” DePorre noted that after last week’s sharp volatility in chip and technology stocks, “we are entering the heart of earnings season.”

“The big question is whether the recent carnage has changed expectations enough to change the response to the numbers,” he said.

“Will in-line reports be good enough, or does the sell-the-news dynamic that has been punishing some strong results remain in charge?”

So far this earnings season, more than 86% of the S&P 500 companies that have reported have beaten expectations, DePorre added, “and the market has sold plenty of them anyway.”

“Beats are not the primary issue,” he said. “Guidance and capex are.”

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) shares climbed 4.5% in premarket trading after the semiconductor company and Microsoft (MSFT) announced that the software giant will use AMD’s Helios system in its data centers.

AMD will begin shipping the system to customers, including Microsoft, later this year.

Details about financial terms or the amount of compute capacity were not disclosed.

“We are expanding the Azure infrastructure portfolio with AMD Helios to give customers the performance, scale and choice they need to build and run the next generation of AI applications,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement.

The new Helios system will power frontier model inference for Microsoft and its AI customers while supporting Azure AI services.

Microsoft will also add two new computing instances powered by AMD’s latest “Venice” central processing units, or CPUs, including one designed for agentic AI and data pipelines and another for semiconductor design.

Microsoft shares were down 1.2% ahead of the bell.

The Invesco QQQ (QQQ) edged up nearly 1% to $702.03 in premarket trading.

The exchange-traded fund tracks the Nasdaq-100 Index, which includes the 100 largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market. 

President Donald Trump said the U.S. struck Iran “very hard again” after the military conducted a new round of airstrikes early Monday targeting Iranian military sites.

“We hit them very hard again tonight,” Trump said. “And we did that in honor of the” soldiers killed, according to The Associated Press.

The U.S. military’s Central Command announced a new round of strikes early Monday, marking the ninth consecutive night of attacks.

Central Command said the strikes targeted “Iranian military command centers, air defense and coastal surveillance sites, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and communications networks.”

A recent wave of escalating attacks over the weekend resulted in three new American deaths, marking the first U.S. military fatalities since March.

The U.S. Defense Department identified the two soldiers killed in an Iranian attack on a U.S. base in Jordan as 25-year-old First Lieutenant Tyler James Feehan of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and 19-year-old Private Isabella Gonzales of Carrollton, Texas, The Guardian reported.

Feehan was killed in action Saturday and Gonzales on Friday during an attack on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan.

Meanwhile, Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis on Monday declared a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia effective immediately, The Jerusalem Post reported.

Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF (MAGS) edged up 0.14% to $67 in premarket trading after Citigroup analysts said the group of technology stocks is “no longer relevant” as a way to assess the U.S. artificial intelligence trade.

The fund provides equal-weight exposure to Alphabet (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Meta Platforms (META), Microsoft (MSFT), Nvidia (NVDA), and Tesla (TSLA).

The “Magnificent Seven” stocks have driven much of the market’s gains in recent years.

A team of Citigroup analysts led by Scott Chronert said investors should focus on a broader group of equities that has become the dominant driver of earnings and share-price gains in the S&P 500, according to Bloomberg.

The group accounts for more than half of the S&P 500’s market capitalization and contributes nearly 48% of its earnings, Chronert said.

“The Mag 7 is dead as a construct for assessing large-cap growth dynamics,” Chronert wrote in a note.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX (SPCX) rose 1.62% to $125.99 in premarket trading.

The rocket and satellite company completed its initial public offering (IPO) on June 12, the largest IPO in history, raising $75 billion and briefly pushing the company’s valuation above $2 trillion.

Just three trading days later, the stock surged to an all-time intraday high of $225.64.

Separately, SpaceX has rescheduled the 13th test flight of its Starship rocket for Thursday, July 23, after a Raptor 3 engine ignition failure forced an automatic abort of the earlier attempt.

SpaceX is also expanding beyond rockets and satellites, including plans to rent out unused computing capacity from its Colossus data center complex, Fortune reported.

Oil prices were mixed as investors assessed the impact of fresh U.S. airstrikes against Iran.

West Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.17% to $82.35 per barrel, while Brent crude rose 0.50% to $88.54 per barrel after earlier surpassing the $90 mark.

The U.S. reported the death of a third American service member, who was killed in northern Iraq during the controlled detonation of a downed Iranian drone, CNN reported.

Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said negotiations with the U.S. could still be pursued if they align with Iran’s national interests.

“Investors appear to be distinguishing between elevated geopolitical risk and the likelihood of a wider systemic shock,” said Daniela Hathorn, senior market analyst at Capital.com. 

“For now, markets continue to view higher energy prices as the primary transmission mechanism, with inflation implications taking precedence over broader concerns about global growth.”

Silver futures were up 1.44% at $57.13 an ounce in early trading.

Gold futures were up 0.21% at $4,027.20 an ounce in early trading.

The U.S. stock market opens at 9:30 a.m. ET and closes at 4:00 p.m. ET.