Amazon jumped 13%. Apple fell 7%. The AI trade is picking clear winners again

Strong cloud results lifted Amazon and chipmakers, while Apple's service revenue shortfall sent its stock lower ahead of Friday's open

By Cris Tolomia2 min readUpdated July 31, 2026

Add QZ to Google

Amazon jumped 13%. Apple fell 7%. The AI trade is picking clear winners again

Matthias Balk/picture alliance via Getty Images

Amazon $AMZN stock climbed 13% in premarket trading Friday after the company's second-quarter results came in ahead of forecasts, with its cloud-computing division providing the backbone of a report that bolstered investor conviction in AI-related spending. Apple $AAPL stock shed more than 7% over the same window even though the company's fiscal third-quarter results cleared the bar, with iPhone unit revenue surging 22%, because weakness in the services segment undercut the otherwise solid headline numbers.

Nasdaq $NDAQ-100 futures were up 1.2% before the opening bell, with Dow Jones Industrial Average futures adding 330 points, equivalent to a 0.6% gain, and S&P 500 contracts ticking 0.5% higher.

The moves extended a rebound that took hold Thursday, when Microsoft $MSFT stock surged 16% on better-than-anticipated Azure cloud results, a gain that cascaded through AI-exposed chipmakers and sent the iShares Semiconductor ETF up more than 8% on the day.

Meta $META stock, which sank nearly 8% on Thursday, recovered 1.7% in premarket trading Friday.

The week also featured a punishing Wednesday session in which the Dow shed more than 1,100 points for its steepest one-day loss since April 2025, a decline that deepened after the Federal Reserve left rates unchanged and raised fears that the central bank was losing ground in its battle with inflation. The 30-year Treasury yield added 6 basis points on Wednesday, pushing above 5.2% to territory not regularly visited since 2007.

"Investors are recalibrating expectations for Fed rate cuts, reducing the excess liquidity that has fueled speculative, momentum-driven markets," Richard Bernstein, global head of macro and customized investing at Janus Henderson Investors, told CNBC. "Market leadership is expanding beyond the 'Magnificent 7' as investors increasingly reward improving fundamentals rather than hype-driven momentum."

Even with the volatile back-and-forth, each of the major indexes was positioned to close the week in positive territory, with the Dow carrying a roughly 0.5% weekly gain, the S&P 500 up around 0.4%, and the Nasdaq Composite ahead by about 0.6% as Friday's session approached.

South Korea's Kospi jumped more than 15% Friday, driven by outsized moves in SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, while Japan's Nikkei 225 advanced more than 3%. Across the Atlantic, European equities joined the broad advance, with the Stoxx 600 up 0.8% in early trade and both France's CAC 40 and Germany's DAX posting gains of around 0.9%.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the broader tech rally drew support after a stock sale by Situational Awareness, an AI-focused hedge fund, gave investors more confidence to return to AI-related stocks.

The essential business news, delivered fresh every morning.

Join 500,000+ readers who start their day with Quartz.

By subscribing, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.